The Cost Of Loyalty

Most people doing 60hour weeks with shifts all over the place would have used their first day off in 10 days to rest and recuperate.

Football fans are not most people and so it was that yesterday afternoon I found myself on a train to Wolverhampton to watch my team take on the Wolves at their den.

The sheer stupidity of this decision is hard to overstate. Not only could Brentford not defeat the evening’s opponents with a player advantage for 80 minutes of the original tie, but they had not won a game outside London since March last year and I had a 10 hour shift today starting at 6am.

Oh, and the last train back north was timed so that if the match went to extra time I would have to leave them playing to run for it. Such is my loyalty to my beloved Bees that despite all these factors I still made my way to Molineux.

As expected it was the hosts that were on top from the first minute as they pushed forward in waves, shoving the Bee’s deeper and deeper towards their own penalty area. Then one of those magical moments that every football fan knows well occurred….

After being battered for the first 11 minutes of the match and utterly against the run of play, to the extent I uttered the phrase ‘Where the F*** did that come from?’ in my Audio notes.

Brentford took the lead!!

Quite how we scored I will probably never know as shock overtook me for a good 30seconds after Nathan Collins smuggled it home.

Brentford were leading away from London, but even as ‘How S*** must you be, were winning away’ rung around the stand around me all I could think was ‘How long can we hold onto this?’.

The answer was 14 minutes, that’s how long we could hold out under the onslaught even with both Ben Mee and Kristoffer Ajer returning from injury to bolster the back line.

After numerous let-offs the hosts it was a simple break down the left that gave them the equaliser they thoroughly deserved. When the cross was curled across to the back post Nelson Semedo snaffled it home at the second time of asking, his first shot having rebounded back to him off the sprawling Thomas Strakovsha.

A brilliant display of last ditch-defending got us to half-time with the scores still level, but make no mistake the pack of Wolves had been leagues ahead of their visitors all half.

Only the scoresheet that did not reflect their dominance of proceedings.

Brentford had failed to offer much to the first half proceedings, apart from the goal and they came out for the second half determined to make up for that dour first half display.

It took them just 8 minutes of the half for the visitors to take the lead for the third time across the two ties and as in the first tie it was Neil Maupay who provided the finishing touch to a lovely team move down the left.

The ball was flashed into the centre and as Josh DaSilva failed to bring it under control Maupay pounced to poke it home and, after a torturous VAR wait, Brentford once again lead the match.

This time the lead would stick for longer, but not by much….

It took 23 minutes for the Old Gold to draw level once again and this time their equaliser came through the home-town hero Nathan Fraser, who is just 18years old and had been bought on just minutes before, who equalised with his first touch.

Fraser would have dreamt of a moment like this the night before the match, but watching him rifle home from point blank range was a soul crushing punch in the gut for those away fans who had made the doomed journey to support our heroes. Such is the cost of loyalty when you trust in it against every shred of common sense in your soul.

We were lucky to make it to the final whistle with the scores still even, but they would not stay so in extra time.

I was slipping into a deep sleep on the train back north when Wolves won it from the penalty spot in the 105th minute, but I have since seen the ‘incident’ that led to the penalty on highlights packages. 

All I have to say about it is that I’m sure I’ve seen softer penalties, but I can’t remember when…’

Though perhaps it was Karma for how the first tie and the first half of this replay had gone as Wolves were definitely the better team over the 120 minutes I saw.

When you let the lead slip through your fingers three times you don’t really deserve to go though and I hope the home fans enjoy their Black Country Derby at the Hawthorns next Sunday.

The best summing up of Brentford in this Third Round tie came from Thomas Frank himself in the programme for this match.

“When you play 11 against 10 for 80 minutes, you’ve got to win, end of discussion”

As for where Brentford go from here it’s simple. We go back to London and regroup for Saturday as IVAN TONEY RETURNS FROM HIS BAN.

Nottingham Forest will be our opponents for that match and, despite last night’s display, I will be in the home fans cheering on my beloved Bees, mostly to witness the return of the prodigal son