Over 116 years, approximately 3,000 games and over 1,000 Brentford players have graced the Griffin Park pitch.
This current season, which is the last at this football stadium, is best known as the ground with a pub on each corner. For weeks, fans have been counting down game-by-game towards its final ever League fixture on Saturday 2 May.
Tickets for this emotionally charged game had sold out months in advance, regardless of the team’s position come the end of the season. Then, with five games remaining, the world changed because of Covid-19.
For the club’s fans, looking back in retrospect, their final league game at our beloved stadium transpired to have been on Saturday 7 March. They witnessed a quality 5-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday – something they may have also seen eight weeks later if the world had remained “normal”.
My heart sank as I too thought I wouldn’t get the opportunity to watch my heroes finish the season at Griffin Park after 66 years of loyal support and 51 years on the mic as the matchday announcer.
However, my dreams were answered when I found out that the coronavirus guidelines allowed football clubs to include among their number, their PA announcer. You can imagine what that meant to me on being asked if I would like to perform my matchday duties.
Our first home game was on Friday 26 June, some three months on from the original date.
Having read at length the full English Football League documents pertaining to these new “behind closed doors” fixtures, I was well versed upon arrival at the ground, some three hours in advance of kick off, in temperature checks and other medically related processes. I was also soon aware of the excellent and no doubt painstaking work that the club staff had done in ensuring that different people performing varying duties were kept apart. Players, coaching, medical and conditioning staff and of course the match officials were all allowed in the ‘red area’, whilst the rest, albeit very safely distanced, were only allowed in the well-marked ‘amber areas’.
In addition to the visible and well signposted areas within the ground, the sight of the fan’s images on the seats and the number of flags on display was incredible.
I had decided to “perform” on the mic exactly as I would have had it been a regular league match. That is screeching at the top of my voice as Brentford trooped out onto the pitch and directly before kick-off. The same process took place prior to the start of the second half. I think the 300 people (which includes the players) allowed in the “lockdown” stadium could hear me and indeed did the rest of Brentford according to some local residents I know. The goal announcements were greeted in the same manner!
As a club we also invited supporters to send in messages which I read out in the hope they would be picked up on Sky TV, local radio and iFollow. But in the event if they weren’t the messages were also videoed and posted on the club’s website a day or so after each game.
It’s quite surreal watching a football match, to all intents and purposes, in an empty stadium, without the fans and you soon become aware of how much talking and shouting goes on among the players, which is normally lost in a full stadium. But if like me you’re totally immersed in the game, the game is what it’s all about.
From the players’ perspective there are no doubt plusses and minuses. The minuses are not hearing the lift home fans can give the team whilst the plusses are they also don’t hear those fans who may be informing them in no uncertain terms when things go wrong. From a coach’s viewpoint it must be perfect as their voices can be heard by the players and vice versa, much to the chagrin of the Sky commentators who often have to apologise for “industrial” language!
Whilst I count myself so fortunate to have witnessed these final few games at Griffin Park first-hand, I do feel for the countless thousands of Bees fans who couldn’t be here. That is particularly the case, not only as we end of our time at Griffin Park, but we have all witnessed a season second to none in respect of the quality of football and through no fault of anyone the fans are being deprived of celebrating the completion of this amazing season together.
Personally I’ve seen a number of highs and many lows in my 66 years supporting Brentford but nothing compares to the current season in terms of the quality on the pitch and the immense strides off it.
So as we approach the end of this 12-month season, our playing future will be decided by the play offs. But in whichever league the club play their trade come next season, the future has rarely looked better. On and off the pitch the club are premier, and we have a fantastic new stadium to showcase our quality.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2Da852o
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