When the away fans are chanting ‘Boring, Boring Brentford’ at full time and when you look around for someone to fight your team’s corner but everyone is just going “They’ve got a point” you know it’s been a dreadful game.
As spectacles go it was 1,000 times worse than watching paint dry and certainly duller than ditchwater.
The worst part of sitting through 90 minutes of the Bees sit back and let Brighton amble around in front of them without threatening to make Mark Flekken work for his money was knowing that the game a few days earlier, that I couldn’t get too, was a cracker.
The showdown with Manchester United on the Easter weekend saw Brentford hammer their visitors into the ground for 90 minutes, hit the post more times than could be counted only to get hit by a 96th minute sucker punch and when all hope looked lost Kristoffer Ajer popped up with a 99th minute equaliser to salvage a point for the Bees that should’ve been all 3.
As I write this Brentford have played their first game since the Brighton borefest and at top 4 place chasing Aston Villa’s Villa Park they fired in 3 goals in 9 second-half minutes to flip a 2-0 deficit on it’s head, only to see ex-bee Ollie Watkins nick a point for the hosts in the final 10 minutes.
Either game was an enthralling spectacle and would have made a thrilling blog… I was working through both. So instead I travelled the 2 and a half hour south on delayed trains, dodging cancellations, to sit through a pile of dross where it took 35 minutes for the first corner to occur (the hosts wouldn’t get their first till the 59th minute).
Apart from a brief 5minute spell half way through the first half it was Brighton dominating possession all match.
What did they do with this domination? dribble the ball round the edge of the penalty area whilst the Bees refused to get within 5 yards of an opposing player.
Despite a nap on the train down I’m certain I drifted off in the second half, I’ve never seen two teams so determined to make people prefer Golf…
The only even vaguely interesting moment was provided by VAR, which took everyone in the stadium by surprise when it flashed up on the screen that it was checking for a possible penalty to Brighton.
Not even the away fans seemed clear on what might have caused the penalty.
The most shocking part of the whole VAR saga was not the lack of info for fans in the stadium, we are all far too used to that, but the fact that the ref went to the screen to check the incident and gave a freekick to Brentford.
The whole thing was surreal and a welcome if short diversion from the dearth of quality on the pitch that was leaching the hope out of the stands.
When the final whistle blew I felt only joy because, unlike American sports, if the scores are equal at the end of the 90 there is no overtime.
Feeling relief at leaving a football ground is new to me and it’s a crushing feeling I never want to feel again.
We are so much better than the team that showed up on Wednesday and the games that sandwiched it are proof of that. All that I can do is hope that when I’m down again next weekend for the Sheffield United 6-pointer we play much better than we did at Bramall Lane on December 9th.
Without a win in our last 9 games and slowly sinking into the relegation battle with just 5 points added to our tally from those games, this visit of the bluntest blades known to man is the perfect opportunity to begin the climb back up the table.
Want to relive happier Brentford times, click the link for the story of the miracle of Wolverhampton https://the-football-tourist.com/2024/02/20/witnessing-a-miracle/
The Football tourist 