BLUE SKY THINKERS
ine times Brentford had been in N the play-offs. Nine times they’d lost. Thomas Frank wasn’t prepared to let it become 10.
Tranmere, Huddersfield,
Crewe, Stoke, Sheffield
Wednesday, Swansea, Yeovil,
Middlesbrough, Fulham. All had ended the Bees’ dreams of glory over the past 30 years.
Frank had stood disconsolately on the touchline at Wembley for the latter of those nine occasions last August, as manager of a Brentford side denied their first promotion to the Premier League. An automatic spot had been snatched away on the last day of the Championship season, then came defeat to rivals Fulham in the play-off final. “It was like an open wound, it was extremely painful,” the Dane tells FourFourTwo now. “It was a driver for the unbelievable season we had after that.”
Nine months later, Frank stood on the same Wembley touchline, managing Brentford to a play-off final victory at last. “Joy in its purest form – I can only compare it to when I became a father three times,” is how he describes the final whistle that May afternoon against Swansea, their Premier League ambition finally realised. “Now, the wound has healed. In hindsight, it’s good to have experienced both sides of that game. You appreciate it more.”
Frank’s story is Brentford in microcosm. Ever since 2007, the Bees have experienced no shortage of setbacks: key games lost, a litany of key players departed. Yet through it all, they have kept marching forward, from the lower reaches of League Two all the way to the top flight.
In the most innovative of fashions, they made history – not by outspending their rivals, but by out-thinking them. No football club in England has progressed quite so relentlessly in recent years – probably because no other club is quite like Brentford.
