Brentford City Football Club-A History
The formation of Brentford Football Club in 1889 is owed to the decision by Brentford Urban District Council to open a new recreation ground in the town.
At a meeting convened on October 10 at the Pavilion of the Oxford and Cambridge Public House, adjacent to Kew Bridge, it was resolved that a Club should be formed to utilise the land for sporting purposes.
Six days later, a vote took place to decide which code of football would be played by the new side – association or rugby – with the round ball game winning by eight votes to five.
Negotiations to use the land broke down but the decision to form a Club continued, Brentford playing their first game against a Kew XI on November 23, 1889 that resulted in a 1-1 draw.
The Club became successful in local circles, winning the Middlesex Junior Cup in 1894, with further victories in both the Middlesex Senior and London Senior Cups four years later.
PROFESSIONALISM
In 1899, Brentford were found guilty by The Football Association of paying their players, an act common with most leading amateur clubs in the Metropolis of the time but illegal.
As punishment, The FA forced the Club to turn professional.
By this time, Brentford were competing in the Southern League, the leading organisation for clubs based in the South of England.
Eighteen months later, Brentford won the Second Division of the Southern League, and were promoted.
A NEW HOME: GRIFFIN PARK
On September 1, 1904 Brentford played their first game at their new home - Griffin Park - a draw against Plymouth Argyle.
The Edwardian period was one of struggle for the Club, now nicknamed “The Bees”, eventually being relegated back to the Second Division of the Southern League in 1913.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, along with all the leading professional clubs in the Metropolis, the Club sought to cut down their travelling costs during war time and joined the newly formed London Combination the next summer.
Brentford become Champions in 1919 with help from several star footballers who were stationed in London at the time.
LEAGUE FOOTBALL
It was this success that persuaded the Southern League management committee to promote Brentford to an enlarged 22 club top division without kicking a ball.
A year later the Club was elected to the Third Division of the Football League, England’s premier professional competition.
In May 1926 former Football League referee Harry Curtis was appointed as Secretary Manager.
Curtis would transform Brentford, taking them from a struggling third tier club to the First Division in only nine years.
An FA Cup run to the Fifth Round in 1927 was followed by winning all 21 home league matches in 1929/30, an achievement still not bettered.
The 1932/33 campaign saw Brentford become Division Three (Southern Section) Champions, swiftly followed by the Second Division title two years later that gave the Club a place around the top table of English football for the first time.
THE TOP FLIGHT
In the Club’s first season in the top flight, they finished in fifth place, above Arsenal and Chelsea.
Attendances at Griffin Park averaged around 25,000 with Brentford enjoying a halcyon period alongside football’s big names.
The Second World War broke out in September 1939, and, like the Great War before it, football returned to regionalised league and cup competitions.
In May 1942 Brentford defeated Portsmouth 2-0 at Wembley Stadium to win the London War Cup in front of nearly 70,000 spectators, England international Leslie Smith scoring both goals.
POST WAR
The first peacetime league campaign in 1946-1947 saw the Club relegated to the Second Division.
Seven years of second tier football followed before a further demotion in 1954 to Division Three (South).
Following the decision by The Football League to run four national divisions in 1958, Brentford’s descent from First to Fourth Division was completed by relegation in 1962.
Under the Chairmanship of Nottingham MP Jack Dunnett, the Club bought several highly paid players in an attempt to make their stay in the Fourth Division a short one.
The tactic initially proved successful as Brentford’s were crowned Fourth Division Champions in May 1963, scoring 98 league goals in the process.
TAKEOVER
The strategy of spending thousands of pounds in order to bring success was brought to a head in January 1967.
The shock news broke that Dunnett had secretly arranged with Chairman of local rivals Queens Park Rangers - Jim Gregory - for Rangers to take over Griffin Park the following season.
Brentford, by now back in the Fourth Division after relegation in May 1966, appeared to be finished.
However, a consortium of businessman - with significant help from supporters - bought out Dunnett’s shares, Ron Blindell supplying the Club with a significant loan to keep it operational.
To repay this sum, a period of austerity was brought in, the Club scrapping its Reserve and Youth teams.
It was 1972 before Brentford rose out of the Fourth Division, under the management of Frank Blunstone.
This lasted only a season before immediate relegation back to the basement division, with many supporters blaming the sale of star striker John O’Mara early in the campaign as a major contributory factor.
Five more years of Fourth Division football followed before promotion to the Third Division in 1978.
The eighties would prove to be largely uneventful, except for a Wembley appearance in 1985 in the Freight Rover Trophy Final and reaching the FA Cup Quarter Finals in 1989.
However, one significant development was the creation of the Club’s Football in the Community Scheme in 1987, which since that time has evolved into a Charitable Trust that engages with thousands of people in the local population.
THIRD DIVISION CHAMPIONS
Having reached the Third Division Play-Off Semi Finals in May 1991, under manager Phil Holder’s reign the Club would go a step further the next season, winning the 1991-1992 Third Division Championship on the final day with a 1-0 victory at Peterborough United.
This placed Brentford in Division One as 20 clubs had resigned to join the breakaway Premier League, which left the Football League with only three divisions.
Despite being in the top half by December 1992, as in 1972, history repeated itself with the Club relegated immediately back to the lower divisions in May 1993.
Unsuccessful Second Division Play-Off campaigns in 1995 and 1997 then followed before relegation to the bottom tier in 1998 after a turbulent campaign that saw demonstrations by supporters against new owner David Webb’s running of the Club.
THE NOADES ERA
Former Crystal Palace owner Ron Noades bought the Club from Webb in June 1998 and installed himself as Chairman and Manager, Brentford winning the Third Division title at the first attempt.
His approach mirrored Dunnett’s, as the Club lost several thousand pounds a week in the pursuit of further success.
Having stood down as manager in November 2000 after an FA Cup defeat at home to Kingstonian, Noades subsequently declared he would sell the Club to new owners.
New manager Ray Lewington steered the Club to an LDV Vans Trophy Final in April 2001 but despite taking the lead, Brentford lost 2-1 to Port Vale.
Ex-Manchester United winger Steve Coppell was appointed manager that summer and led the Club to the 2002 Second Division Play Off Final in his sole season in charge, but Brentford lost 2-0 to Stoke City at The Millennium Stadium.
Ron Noades then relinquished management control to newly formed Supporters’ Trust Bees United in the spring of 2003.
SUPPORTER OWNERSHIP
Three years later, with financial help via loans, supporter donations and Brentford fan Matthew Benham, Bees United bought out Noades’ controlling shareholding in January 2006 to become London’s first professional football club owned by its supporters.
The Club was in the middle of an extremely successful period, reaching the FA Cup Fifth Round and League One Play-Off Semi-Finals in successive seasons (2005 and 2006).
With the departure of manager Martin Allen in the summer of 2006, a disastrous campaign followed - arguably the Club’s worst ever - that saw it relegated to League Two in bottom place.
Former player Andy Scott was appointed manager in January 2008 and 18 months later guided his team to the League Two Championship with a 3-1 win at Darlington.
MATTHEW BENHAM
Bees United and Matthew Benham entered into a five-year partnership agreement in 2009 whereby he would invest significant amounts of capital in return for the option of owning the Club should the Supporters’ Trust not wish to repay his investment.
The Club made it to Wembley again in the 2011 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final, but were beaten 1-0 by Carlisle United.
That summer, Uwe Rösler was appointed manager; the Club’s 33rd since being elected to the Football League in 1920.
In 2012 the Bees United Board indicated to its members that the option be brought forward, and after an overwhelming vote in favour, Matthew Benham purchased the controlling shareholding of Brentford Football Club from The Trust.
In the summer, the Club announced it had purchased the land intended for a new stadium in Lionel Road, Brentford, with a target of moving in by August 2016.
