Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “brentford fc”

19 Dec 2012

Pay what you want to watch Brentford v Stevenage. 22nd Dec.


Strange but true. Brentford ask a minimum of 1£ only but you can choose what to pay if you buy your ticket beforehand up until 4 pm friday evening. Why are they doing this? Perfect sense. They have around 2000 season ticket holders, who do not begrudge them doing this at all, and will make it up to their season ticket holders later in the season with some offer one suspects. So 2000 have already paid. The expected crowd for a home game the saturday before Xmas is never high, maybe 5000 maximum and possibly lower. Stevenage will not bring armies of fans and most likely will bring around 200-300 only. Folks will not pay 1£, they are likely to choose to pay a median amount of between 5-10£ in my opinion.

So a good PR activity, a good day out. Lets hope this works. A few years ago a home game versus Peterborough was sponsored by a company (maybe St George Homes?), and they essentially made it free to get in. Result, great crowd,great atmosphere and home win! So spread the word and call Brentford to buy your tickets over the phone or online. Lets fill the ground. Already two sides have sold out, so don’t delay.

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19 Dec 2012

Stuart Dallas. Footballer at Brentford. A League 1 club in West London.


In a few years remember the name Stuart Dallas. A young Northern Irish footballer who joined Brentford last summer. He played ostensibly his debut game tonight in the FA Cup win over Bradford 4-2. He had a great game, good skill, good effort and my humble prediction is that he will go far. You heard it here first!

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13 Oct 2012

Carshalton AFC 1 Hastings 0


A first win in the league for Carshalton since Easter monday and well deserved. Things have been a bit chaotic at Carshalton this last few weeks with many senior players departing, the manager changing and only an interim manager in place. So the fact that a young side was even competitive was impressive. There were actually three good goals in this game but according to the linesman, two of them were offside. Good atmosphere and good burger. The other bonus is that this was non-league day and Carshalton did everyone proud by allowing in free of charge anyone with a League club season-ticket or local residents. A moment of amusement when the girl on the turnstile had no idea that such a club as Brentford existed! I had to spell that one out. The person before me was a West Ham season-ticket holder.

Anyway the game was fast-paced and played in good spirit. Nick Hamann the Carshalton keeper was man of the match in my view making some impressive saves, suggesting that he could perform easily at Conference level if not in the league. But carshalton deserved the luck and in fact should have been 3-0 up by half time. This is a club well worth visiting. The fans are friendly and the football always interesting.

 

Carshalton football Club

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11 Aug 2012

Walsall 1 Brentford 0


A truly dissapointing day out. Around 350 Bees fans witnessed a rather tame match and saw Bees beaten by an average Walsall side that are favourites for relegation. The reality was that Brentford played the first half like a reserve team having a pre-season friendly in the sun. Little guile and sadly not so much effort nor skill either. Walsall scored somewhat against the run of play around 20 minutes in and then the result was more or less put to bed by a stupid studs-up challenge from Jake Reeves that deservedly got him red carded. The second half was a  better affair. three Brentford substitutions put a little more spice back into the game but no goals came although Bees went close. Positives from the game? a nice ground to watch football in and decent burger. Simon Moore made some good saves but worried me by his failure to catch much opting to punch almost every time. He also spilled a few shots and had some luck that no passing forward was in reach. Harlee Dean was poor and in fact the whole defence did not give evidence that they will be hard to score against. Kevin O’Connor however maybe man of the match.

This is not a reason to panic but the 350 present will have second thoughts about attending any league cup games next season. Let us hope our first choice team next saturday is better.

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24 Mar 2012

Brentford 2 Rochdale 0


The best that can be truthfully said for this game was that at least Brentford got 3 points. The game was played on a warm sunny afternoon and other than a superb headed goal 5 minutes from time from Clayton Donaldson, there was little or nothing to admire.

I don’t like criticising other football teams but Rochdale were poor. They were poor in the effort they applied, poor in their technical skills and in fact were the worst footballing side I have seen this season. I lost count of the misplaced passes and shots that went over the stadium roof or straight out of play. The only player who could defend Marcus Holness, went off injured in the second half and had a most peculiar hairstyle , like a sort of gothic cockerel. Nil Points for style. In fact I would be amazed if they escape relegation.

Neither midfield did much all game. In fact there was more movement in the respective technical areas from Uwe Rosler and John Coleman than from their respective teams. This was really a dreadful game of football and one hopes that few neutrals were in attendance. To make matters worse Adam Forshaw went off injured with what he reported on Twitter was a fractured jaw. End of the season for him. Jake Bidwell had another excellent game and one hopes we can sign him.

Uwe Rosler did not announce today that he had a master plan, recent ones include giving 2 goals away to Sheff United and Orient respectively, and blaming Crawley Town for a Brentford loss…..I guess the team was our best team out there. No-one played badly. Richard Lee did not have a save to make all game. The only on target effort from Rochdale was in fact the probable elbow that broke Adam Forshaw’s jaw.

So three points were nice, the cheeseburger at Macdonalds was nice, there was somewhere to park and it was warm. So why grumble. The season for Brentford is clearly over. Surely we cannot get relegated from this position of 50 points, no chance of promotion. Some nondescript games coming along.

Clinton Morrison made his debut for the last 10 minutes and for me contributed to the goal with his movement off the ball. So we honour him with an I phone photo.

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21 Mar 2012

Uwe Rosler Must Go


The purpose of my blog is to rant and put across views, that may be right or may be wrong. For many weeks I have wondered if Rosler is the man to lead Brentford forward. And the last two games have convinced me that he should be given no more time. Why? Folks might look at the league table and see we are in the top half, just and wonder why a mnager should be given less than one season. Agreed the cost of changing managers is high in financial terms, but there again the cost of not changing is also high. Brentford have consistently underperformed this season with a poor home record. The football in the main has been boring and combined with poor home results has led to lower crowds than might be expected. From all the new players who have come in none are any better than those who have left, with the exception of the strikers who are considerably worse than those who left. Rosler has lost our two goalscoring forwards both of whom incidently have started scoring with their new clubs at a decent rate. The replacements have been dire and suggest that the Brentford scouting network is dodgy. The absence of passion, effort in the last few games has been worrying. Tweets last night after another loss to bournemouth suggest that a number of fans are actually worried about relegation. This is an unlikely scenario as Bees have 47 points but not impossible.

We need a new manager now who can guide the club through the rest of the season and more importantly prepare for next season. Rosler’s judgement cannot be trusted on incoming transfers. Some of this season’s arrivial have been devastatingly poor at League 1 level ( Grella and Clarkson to start with). Some are no better than what we had (Douglas and Logan ). Also the use of a stupidly high number of loanees does mean that Brentford players do not get games. Bean and Weston have hardly featured this season but if fit, they are better than most in the current tteam. I hope that I am proved wrong, I really do, but I do not feel that we can trust Rosler with any more money to spend. The squad should be a small one with every player of team potential. Let us hope Brentford  move on

 

Potentially empty terraces await Brentford if they do not inject some passion into the remaining games

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17 Mar 2012

Orient 2 Brentford 0


On arriving home from this game I was about to enter into a full-scale rant but the events around Muamba are so much more important. Nevertheless this was an abysmal performance by Brentford. There was little effort, leadership or anything positive. A huge number of fans braved the Central line to Brisbane Road and were frankly let down. £25 to get in was the first unpleasant surprise. The quality of Brentford’s football was the second. The ground itself is a curious affair. Anyone who cares can look on my football grounds website http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk and see what it used to be like. Now it has housing developments on each corner and the main stand is a mixture of football stand, medical polyclinic and offices. People sit on their balconies and watch the football for free from the corner of the ground.

What can I say about the game? Orient worked harder, were an average side and deserves their win. Harlee Dean the central defender for Brentford was dreadful, but none were much better. Simon Moore the keeper seemed allergic to catching the ball. Before the game Uwe Rosler told us he had a master plan to beat Orient. I can only imagine that the first part of this plan resembled a cunning plan from Baldrick, to gift the opposition two goals. The second part of this masterpiece- not, was to then take off the only two players who looked like making anything happen. I am not a fan of Niall McGinn, but today he seemed to resemble being in the right place a few times, and maybe our best player Saido Berahino, were taken off. Their replacements did zero all second half.

The main stand where Bees fans were also resembled a derelict ground. Many seats had been pulled out or off long ago, replacements were randomised to colour and type ( wood or plastic) or simply not replaced. Appalling for a club that charges £25 a seat.

Anyway confirmation that Brentford have gone backwards this season under Rosler. Not all or maybe many, agree with me, but thats my opinion, right or wrong. Two of our best players left the club, effectively our only strikers, the replacements none of them have gone down a storm. Some of our best players have hardly figured this season,Bean and Weston. We have not developed a team partially because we are full of loan players. end of rant. Also end of me going to away games this season.

The idyllic seating for 25£ for away fans

Curious stand come polyclinic

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10 Dec 2011

Brentford 2 Hartlepool 1


At last something to make the football part of the brain feel better. Last week Brentford against Wrexham were shameful frankly. Hence I refused to go to Barnet making my personal and quiet protest. Today was different. For 80 minutes this was a real 0-0 game and then suddently the last 10 minutes exploded making one wonder why this might not have happened in the first 10 minutes. Brentford got a lucky goal in that a decent lob should have been caught by the keeper but it seemed to drift over his head and into the net. 30 seconds later Hartlepool equlaised with a low shot from outside the box that maybe the keeper was slow going down to, but i would like to see that again. then another 30 seconds later a penalty for Brentford which Gary Alexander took, not a great penalty, was saved but the rebound came back to him and he pushed it into the net for 2-1. but this 10 minutes was frantic end to end stuff and more than made up the preceeding 80 minutes.

The Bill Axbey stand at Brentford where I am proud to have 4 season tickets

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