Tags
2019/20 Season, Brentford, Championship, English Football, Football, Griffin Park, Huddersfield Huddersfield Town, Trips In Football
Away from cricket, somewhere I seldom reside nowadays, my love for Huddersfield Town has endured for more than twenty five years and, while I seldom watch them any more, I always try to catch up when they visit Griffin Park, and this must have marked my fifth or sixth trip here for that, as well as a few other games on the side.
Going to Griffin Park is one of the underrated pleasures of supporting a team who seldom trouble the upper echelons, and when the Bees leave, at the end of the current season, it will not just be that corner of West London that misses it. Football will be the poorer. This will not, can not, be my last game here.
Today began in pissing rain, I forsook my suit jacket for a darker raincoat, and left my tie at home. I was bound to meet a group of people I’ve grown to call friends in a pub I didn’t know, but before the unfamiliar came the known. Train to St Pancras, Victoria Line to Vauxhall, think about the Oval, then overground through those places northerners think are miles outside London, but are reachable in a moment or two, Wandsworth, Barnes, Putney.
I noticed, on my way into London, that NFL fans seem to have spread everywhere now. I shared my carriage with men (always men, always) wearing garb from the Steelers, the Falcons and the 49ers. I don’t believe any of those teams are in town this weekend, but mixing happily with one another, American Football is just part of the fabric here now. Times are changing in the UK. Touchdown.
Now for the PAT. I didn’t see a single football shirt until my train from Vauxhall, one that was going specifically to Brentford. While I understand that home fans don’t go far, typically, where were the Hull fans going to Fulham, the Arsenal fans, were Barnet at home?
I guess it all depends on the advice they get. A chap down to see Leicester down tomorrow told me his advice took him to Acton, while a lot of my fellow Terriers boarded the train at Clapham. I had forgotten how bizarre that journey is, when you’re in a different town. The accent is a rallying call, growing more numerous and eventually outnumbering the locals on public transport as the destination town approaches, only for everyone to spill out and leave them silent, getting on with their afternoons.
There was a little cut drawn up from the river in Wandsworth, thick with mud and high with water, either the tide or the rain ensuring it looked like a muddy grave that one could only peer into. We paused briefly there, enough time to take in the existence of two huge swans there, their white standing out as a beacon in the gloom around them. I looked for them on my way home, but it was too dark. They could, I feel, have lit the night, so they must have moved on.
It became apparent during that journey, too, how far my mindset has changed. In the summer, Huddersfield sold a player called Phil Billing to Bournemouth. By all accounts, he is doing well there, and they were in the lunchtime kickoff. It took me a few minutes to twig that his involvement in the conversation I was overhearing was not that of Sam Billings, the roysterish captain of Kent.
It is here, well, after a trip across the Kew Bridge and back on foot, that the journey part of the journey ends, and the love part begins. I’ve got a lot of love to share, so tune out if you’re not interested.
My train deposited me at about 12.30, so I had a bit of time to wander, so took myself across the Kew Bridge. I always see the river in London as the division of Middlesex and Surrey, and it was heartening to see that noted on a plaque there; its on the side looking towards Barnes Bridge if you happen to visit.
By this stage, the rain had dissipated and I walked back into Brentford, and down the riverbank in glorious sunshine, kicking leaves out of my way as I went. There’s a couple of museums tucked away there, though I didn’t have time to visit either, a tall tower indicates the London Museum of Water and Steam, and then a few steps further along is the Musical Museum. We passed both after lunch, though the match provided more building up of the former than the aesthetic of the latter.
My first trip to Brentford was back in 2006, January, to meet a girl I thought might go out with me. My most recent, in November 2019, was to meet that same girl – now very definitely a woman, who had left her one year old son at home to see the game (I suspect she regrets that decision now, I’m sure my company isn’t a patch on her family, and the game wouldn’t have been the way she dreamed it).
It is to her, too, that I owe a debt of gratitude for those friends I have in Brentford, a motley crue who attend Bees games more or less every time, with occasional hangers on, and more regular guests, especially in the shape of family, partners and children. While football is the focus, they are a social circle all of their own, the way I’m sure exist up and down the country, “football families”, I’ve always thought of them as – those people you rarely see outside a matchday, but love dearly all the same. One year I went for a curry with them, must have left Brentford around midnight. This time I was on the 7.40 train. We’re all older now, and I had a party to attend.
We walked together to Griffin Park, saying our farewells on the corner and I took my seat, posing as one of the party’s mothers for the afternoon. I think I enjoyed the match more than she might have done.
Its a fabulous spot for football, Griffin Park, even if it little resembles what it was when I first went. The floodlights alongside the home stand used to be exposed to the elements (and part of the away end) for a start, and while it is impossible to argue the case for progress, one feels that as the move approaches, Bees fans are beginning to realise how special what they have here is.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me describe the match as a James Vince innings of a match for Brentford, and the point stands. Early in the piece, they produced some scintillating football, skewering Town’s young left back Brown a number of times without ever quite finishing the job. If felt a matter of when rather than if, and I was relieved as the time ticked on and, around ten minutes before the break, Town started to gain a little control. It still felt like Brentford’s to lose, even if Town hadn’t found the nick to slip to get rid of Brentford’s Vince.
That arrived around a quarter of an hour into a second half that never really started, or at least didn’t until there was around ten minutes to go. Campbell was released down the left, he had the composure to find Grant, and he had presence of mind to find the bottom corner. He’s quite a player, Karlan Grant. Brentfors were Caught Campbell, Bowled Grant for 62. No Billings to save their blushes, either.
Town’s eventual appearance in the match can be attributed, or should be, to minor changes in the defensive set up, micro management from a Danny Cowley who seldom sat down throughout the 90 minutes, and his brother Nicky, who was at his side for maybe a third of that. They look similar from the back, so it’s a touch surreal to sit behind them, seeing them directing affairs. Someone should buy the boy a baton.
The second half descended into a collection of what I heard described after the match as “game management” but I’m sure was viewed by a lot of home fans as Huddersfield being dickheads. I can see both sides, but I’m glad of the dickheadery.
That’s where it ended. I managed a swift pint in the Griffin (and that too will be missed) before running for the train and to look for the swans. I have nothing but love for Brentford, nothing but admiration and adoration from my friend, and nothing but positivity for the additional friends she has brought me. It always makes for a fabulous day. So thank you all, and I’m sorry about the result – at least these guys enjoyed it.