Split Loyalties, split points and One Hell of a Game

This game is one that I have been looking forward too for months, ever since the hosts got promoted. I built up this game in my head as the holy grail game of the season that I would do anything to get a ticket too. A game where I have a deep emotional connection to both sides.

The visitors have been my team from the age of 5 and watching them helped me through so many things. Istanbul in ’05 is the defining football memory of my childhood and the benchmark for best day of my life, but it may just have been beaten. The hosts are a team I’ve been going to the games of since 2015 and I was at the last game with fans at their old ground.

Both teams hold special places in my heart and this was my first chance to see them play each other head to head. They hadn’t played each other in the league since 1947, way before my birth. It’s fair to say that if the game wasn’t an incredible spectacle with beautiful football on both sides I was going to be extremely disappointed. As you may have guessed from the title of this blog I was not disappointed, the game was incredible and I’m still buzzing thinking about it almost 24 hours later.

The game in question is Brentford vs Liverpool at the new Brentford community stadium.
This meant travelling down to London and that meant 3 hours of travel from my flat to the stadium. That is travel that I wouldn’t normally bother with, but this was a special occasion.
I left myself enough time to travel this time and arrived at the ground an hour before the game and just in time for the away team coach to arrive. I have never experienced that at a ground before, but I may try and get to grounds in time for it in future. Seeing the Liverpool players walk from the coach to the tunnel was incredible. It’s the nearest I’ve ever been to my heroes who finally won Liverpool the premier league and very soon I was going to be cheering against them.

Brentford’s Community Stadium is an incredible stadium and it will serve Brentford well as they attempt to establish themselves in the Premier League for years to come. I do miss the pubs on each corner of Griffin Park a little though and I’ll never forget the games I went to at that brilliant old stadium. No denying the toilet upgrade at the new stadium though, the old ones were awful.

I picked up a program outside the ground before heading in to sample the atmosphere and watch the warm-ups. Finding food was difficult, though there were many food kiosks they only sold falafel, vegan sausage rolls and other trendy food. If you want burgers you’re out of luck, but hot dogs and pizza can be found from ‘The Griffin’ Kiosk at the far end of the North Stand near block N121. Brave of them to try new things but for me you can’t beat proper football food, hot dogs and burgers with whatever drink you want.

The roar that greeted the appearance of the teams for the warm-ups was earth-shattering. My seat in the home ground was right near the away fans and it felt fitting being caught between the two sides of supporters as my loyalties were split also.

Liverpool warmed up in front of me. Mane and Salah exchanging passes whilst Milner and Henderson stretched whilst chatting in the middle of the pitch. It was surreal and things only got better from there.

Before kick-off there was a rare moment of unity in the stadium as all supporters joined in on a chorus of Hey Jude, a traditional Brentford pre-match song. That was the last unity between supporters all match.

When the football kicked off so did the chants from both sets of supporters and they didn’t stop till after the final whistle. The atmosphere created by the chants was matched by the football from both sides. Brentford vs Liverpool at Brentford Community Stadium on Saturday 25th September 2021 is without a doubt the best game of football I have ever had the pleasure to watch. It could’ve been 2-1 in the first ten minutes.

Salah found himself free in the box with just the keeper to beat and with Raya duly beaten it looked like 1-0 to the visitors 7 minutes in. Not so fast! A brilliant goal line clearance from Ajer denied Salah his 100th Liverpool goal, for now. In my notes I had that clearance down as Jansson, but other events later in the game made me realise I’d better check all the identities after the game and every other place I looked had Ajer down for the clearance.

Brentford then had a goal line clearance of their own to rue just a minute later. They went straight up the other end and Mbuemo slotted the ball past Alisson only he hadn’t got enough power on the shot and Fabinho was able to get back to clear off the line. Bees then skied the follow up chance. Less than ten minutes in and it could’ve been 1-1 already.

The rest of the first half continued at this frantic pace and the quality was amazing throughout. Both teams played top quality football, but it was Brentford who drew first blood. The goal was scored from a cross on the right that got flicked on by Toney and turned in at the back post by Mbuemo, sorry no the goal was apparently scored by Pinnock. I was so caught up celebrating the goal in giddy euphoria and when I looked up I saw Mbuemo running towards the stands so I took him down as the scorer. He must’ve been running to join celebrations I didn’t see cause I was so caught up in the moment.

Liverpool’s equaliser 10 minutes before half time is another goal where I had no idea of the scorer. The only thing I saw at the time was the exact moment it was clear this was going to be the equaliser. Salah had the ball on the Liverpool right, then Henderson came past on the overlap and there was no Brentford player within 15 yards of him. I was screaming from the other end of the pitch for someone to close him down and whilst Mbuemo tried his best he couldn’t get there in time to stop the cross. The cross was pinpoint and it was met by a header at the back post to steer it home. At the time I thought it was possibly Mane or Trent Alexander-Arnold, but it truth I had no idea. Turns out it was Jota.

Liverpool should have taken the lead minutes later but a brilliant double save from Raya kept the scores at 1-1. Raya touched Jones’ long range effort onto the post before getting up to deny Jota from point blank range on the rebound. Minutes before half-time it was only an excellent tackle from Rico Henry nabbing the ball off Salah that stopped that 100th goal and meant the teams went into the break all square. A fair reflection of a half that could’ve easily ended 3-3 instead of the 1-1 that it did.

One small unfortunate moment for Brentford before the break was Ethan Pinnock having to be substituted with an injury. He scored the opening goal of the match and has been a stalwart at the back all season for the Bees so Thomas Frank will hope the injury isn’t serious.

The second started at the same bonkers pace as the first, in fact the whole game was played at a bonkers pace with equally an bonkers high level of football from both teams.
Salah finally got his 100th goal 10 minutes into the second half, but not without more drama. A defence splitting pass found him behind Brentford lines in the box and he belied the pressure of 2 near misses already in the game to slide it past Raya from 6 yards out. The linesman then flagged for offside and the goal was ruled out, much to the delight of the Bees fans. That delight was short lived as VAR intervened and the goal was given. Cue despair for Bees fans and delight for Liverpool fans. That was hard to swallow.

Liverpool’s lead lasted 10 minutes before Brentford were level. This one included tech too, but this time it was of the goal-line variety. Brentford attack and it’s pinball in the Liverpool area at the back post. Alexander-Arnold had been the one standout bad performance of the whole game and he was beaten to the ball here by Vitaly Janelt who was able to guide it over Alisson and it crossed the line just before Trent was able to get back and clear it off the line. I was unsure whether the ball had gone in, but the ref pointed to his watch and gave the goal. I have no words to describe the feeling.

The Liverpool fans had been celebrating so much after Salah’s goal and it felt like the game had gone, so to be back level again left my brain with nowhere to go. It’s something I have never felt before and I have no frame of reference to describe it.

Parity didn’t last long though as 3 minutes later Liverpool were back ahead. Crushed is not strong enough for the depression inducing sadness of thinking your team has secured a draw against a title challenger only to go behind again minutes later. The goal was a moment of standout quality from Curtis Jones in a game of incredible moments.

A superb strike from outside the box hit hard and true into the postage stamp. That is how it looked from the stand, but apparently it took a deflection of Ajer on the way through to beat Raya. It would’ve been a worthy winning goal for any game, except that it wasn’t the winning goal. There was still more drama to come.

Before we get to that though there were a couple of important substitutions that changed the course of the end of the game. Liverpool bought on Firmino and I thought Jota had gone off, it took me at least 5 minutes to realise that it was actually Jones who had been taken off. The more impactful substitution came from Brentford as Thomas Frank decided not to settle for anything less than a fight to the whistle. Frank gambled by taking off Defensive midfielder Christian Norgaard and bringing on Attacking midfielder Yoane Wissa. A risky call at 3-2 down against a team with a real shot at the title this season, but it worked a treat.

Minutes after Wissa came on he was the man who equalised for Brentford in the 82nd minute. I have no idea how he scored, all I remember was that the ball was in the net and the fans celebrations were wild. I have never seen scenes like it. I was so caught up in celebrating the unbelievable equaliser that I wasn’t even sure who had scored. I wrote it down as Wissa then changed my mind to Baptiste, who had also just come on, then changed it back to Wissa again when I saw his face on the big screen with the word GOAL around it.

This was not the end of the drama though as it looked like Brentford had actually won it all in the 86th minute through Ivan Toney. I can tell you even less about this goal and I didn’t see it go in. I just saw Toney wheeling away in celebration and then got lost in my own celebrations. I also didn’t see the linesman flag for offside, the first I knew about the goal being ruled out was when it came up on the big screen that the offside was being checked by VAR. Thinking you’ve won the game then seeing the goal has been ruled out is an even worse feeling than I got from Liverpool’s third goal. It stayed 3-3.

The final moment of drama came in the added 5 minutes at the end of the match. Toney went down in the penalty area and from where I was at the other end of the ground I was convinced it was a penalty, but nothing was given.

When the final whistle went I was disappointed with the draw for Brentford. Disappointed by a result I’d have bitten your hand off for if it had been offered before kick-off.
It was a crazy game, you’d never guess that one team was newly promoted playing in their first Premier League season and the other was one of the favourites for the title. Both teams looked like title contenders in this match.

Going ahead early then going behind twice and having to come from behind both times late in the second half. After that you think you’ve scored a winner only to have it chalked off for offside. Most teams would be disappointed with a draw after all that, but Brentford should be so proud of themselves instead. Brentford held their own and even dominated at times against a brilliant Liverpool team with a real chance of title glory. Not bad for a team who haven’t played at this level since the 1940’s. On this evidence Brentford will absolutely be staying up and they will give every team that visits the Brentford Community stadium one hell of a test. Do not expect an easy game in West London this season.

The next visitors are Chelsea and I’ll be at that one too. Not sure what game I’m off to next weekend, but for this weekend I had an incredible experience at, in the word of one of the stewards “one hell of a game”.