There are few football clubs as interwoven with their local pubs as Brentford. That Griffin Park is the only professional ground in England that can boast a drinking hole on each corner is a shining diamond in the crown of Football League trivia.
But after tonight, when the club plays their final match at a stadium they’ve called home for 116 years, no more will this corner of west London be able to lay claim to this most deliciously English idiosyncrasy.
It should have all been very, very different. An official attendance of nil is not the send-off that Griffin Park, with its old-fashioned dusty terraces and weary crumbling bones, deserved.
Brentford are at the end of their best season that anybody around here can remember. Defeat to Barnsley on the final day of the Championship meant there would be no automatic promotion to bring to an end a 73-year absence from the top flight, but 2019/20 could still be historic if the team can overturn their 1-0 deficit against Swansea City tomorrow. Their new 17,000-seater ground up the road at Kew Bridge may yet be a Premier League stadium when the new season kicks off on 12 September.
First, there’s the matter of the old ground’s swansong. Griffin Park will be empty for the knife-edge play-off second leg, but its famous pubs are getting ready for a final stab at something approaching a worthy send-off before this particular page of history turns.
“We were looking at a very, very busy end of the season,” says Brian Hogan, landlord at the New Inn on Ealing Road. “The last game of the season was going to be mega busy for us.” Then came the coronavirus, and the double blow of pubs and stadiums shutting their doors.
The New Inn re-opened to customers earlier this month, but with no supporters flocking on matchdays and distancing measures in place, trade is yet to get back up to speed. Another of the four, the Princess Royal, remains closed while The Brook, formerly the Royal Oak, has ceased its relationship with Brentford.
Still, the links between the football club and the public houses are bone deep. The stadium takes its name from the griffin that appears on the logo of Fuller’s Brewery, who formerly owned the orchard that the ground was built on in 1904.
One of their former pubs even housed the club’s changing rooms in its upstairs function room. Club legend Gary Blissett – allegedly – used to leave the pub in the early afternoon, play, and be back at the bar by six.
“We were on course to have our best year ever before the virus and the lockdown hit,” says Gerhard Peleschka, co-landlord at The Griffin on Brook Road. “The better the football club does, the better the business does. And Brentford have had a brilliant season.”
Peleschka and his wife Claire were house hunting on the afternoon of a Brentford v Reading match in 2005. “The agent was reluctant for us to look in the garden because the house backed onto the stadium,” he says.
“The second we opened the door, Lloyd Owusu scored the winner for Brentford and the whole place went up. The agent thought he’d lost the sale but my wife, who’s a huge Bees fan, was sold on it.” They bought the house, then in 2012, they took on The Griffin, their local, too.
“We always knew the club would likely move one day,” says Peleschka. “We’ve always looked at the football as a bonus rather than the core of our business, we don’t rely on it. When we got here it was a very testosterone-heavy environment, very male-dominated. So we tried to alter the atmosphere, be more inclusive, because you cannot rely on one demographic.”
He cites the example of local pubs who “put all their eggs in one basket” catering for workers at the two companies that dominate the area, GlaxoSmithKline and Sky. Now, with offices closed and people working from home, their business models have been badly hit. “90 percent of their income is gone.”
Across the road at the New Inn, rival publican Hogan concurs.
“I’m not really worried about the club moving because it’s not that far away,” he says. “The people that come here, this is their pub, they’ve been coming for donkey’s years. We might lose some away fans, but that should be made up by London Irish coming every second week.”
Therein lies one of the perks of the new stadium at Kew. The Premiership rugby side, who have played their matches at Reading’s Madejski Stadium since 2000, are returning to London for the first time in 20 years to share Brentford’s new ground.
On weekends when the Bees are playing away, the Exiles will help ensure the ground – and the pubs – remain full, hopefully opening a new chapter in the community’s history.
“London Irish will bring 18,000 no problem,” says Peleschka. “We’ve been in contact with the rugby club about making this end of Brentford the London Irish end. You need that kind of foresight to survive.
“Next year, Man United and Liverpool fans will still come here to do ‘the four pubs on the corners’. It’s just a shame the club has to move first.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2P31SYL
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