So my fellow Bees, the day we knew would come is now upon us.
The great Thomas Frank has left us for North London and the lure of Champions League football next season, taking his full coaching staff with him.
Thomas will forever be a legend in our part of West London for not only taking us up to the promised land but for doing so through the playoffs and then keeping us in the top flight for 4 seasons on the trot, without us ever once looking over our shoulders at the drop.
What Mr. Frank has achieved here at Brentford, on one of the league’s smallest budgets, will never be forgotten and is unlikely ever to be surpassed. Unless whoever replaces him can take us from the edge of the European place into Europe itself.
Every Brentford fan owes a debt of gratitude to the Danish mastermind and I hope he receives a raucous reception when he returns to the Gtech next season with his new team.
Personally I wish Thomas Frank the greatest success at his new team next season, except when they play the mighty Bees of course…
Given the state of his new charges over at White Hart Lane, he may be in need of all the luck he can lay his hands on.
Tottenham Hotspur are the big national banter club for a multitude of excellent reasons, not least of which is the fact that the only teams they managed to finish above in the league last season were the worst bottom 3 in living memory.
Spurs have also just sacked the first manager since Terry Venables, 34 years ago, to capture a major trophy for their moth-ridden cabinet. If securing their first European title since 1983-84 wasn’t enough to save Ange Postecoglou from the sack then it boggles the mind to consider just what Mr. Frank will have to achieve to keep his new job.
This impossible task is made even more daunting when you realise that Spurs lost 22 of their 38 games last season and won a mere 11, no team outside of the bottom 3 either lost more or won less…
Even as visionary a manager as Mr. Frank will face a gargantuan task to turn that around and fulfil the pie-in-the-sky dreams of the club’s top brass of turning them into perennial challengers for every title going.
Such delusions of grandeur are rife within the Spur’s hierarchy and must surely be part of the reason why they have only managed to stick with a Manager for more than 2 seasons since parting ways with Martin Jol way back in 2004.
To add his name alongside Harry Redknapp and Mauricio Pochettino in the annals of managers to last at the Lilywhites, a long run in next season’s Champions League and a return to the top 4/5 must be the ludicrous goal for Thomas next season.
There’s only one thing I can say to that Mr. Frank……GOOD LUCK
The Football tourist 