Biggest Shock

Downbeat Bee

Downbeat Bee

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Biggest Shock

What was the biggest surprise or shock during your time following Brentford?

Perryman leaving strikes me as one; Coppell coming strikes me as another.

Seeing Murray Jones for the first time in a friendly against QPR :rolleyes: I knew in an instant...

Hearing that there was no money left when Rosenoir had amassed a squad which was clearly nowhere near good enough
 

Biggest Shock

Getting to the 5th rd of the FA cup in 70-71 with a team that was about 5th or 6th from bottom of div 4
 

Biggest Shock

selling Andrew McCulloch to Sheffield Wednesday hurt but not as much as Andy Sinton or Forster..
 

Biggest Shock

At the age of six going to a football training club thing. I wore my Brentford shirt. Everyone kept giving me funny looks. Eventually they asked if it was a Sunderland or Southampton shirt, I said no. They all of a sudden were really impressed because they thought it was a foriegn teams kit. I quicklly corrected them explaining it was Brentford assuming they would all know who Brentford were. They looked at me confused and just walked away. I couldnt understand it. That was the first time in my life i was made aware that Brentford FC wasnt a household name and that i would forever be explaining who they are, where they are from and what division they are in. Oh and No it not bloody Brentwood!
 

Biggest Shock

Hearing that we had sold John O'Mara; we would never have been relegated in 1972/73 if he hadn't gone.

A truely awful decision.
 

Biggest Shock

Seeing the wendy house. Such an improvement on the royal oak. Well done Mr Lange :rolleyes:
 

Biggest Shock

Easter 1959 said:
Hearing that we had sold John O'Mara; we would never have been relegated in 1972/73 if he hadn't gone.

A truely awful decision.
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History repeated itself albeit at the other end of the table. The sales of Forster and DJ almost ensured we wouldn't bee promoted. All 3 sales gave me a sinking feeling at each time.
Another 'shock/surprise was the appointment of Mike Everett as manager in the 70s.
 

Biggest Shock

great idea for a thread...

shock #1... we've signed paul davis
shock #2... what an unbelievably lazy sh*t he was

shock #3... how joe allon broke his jaw

shock #4... we didn't manage to sign paulo di canio

shock #5... actually, make this shock #1... the big name premier league player we have signed is... bob bloody booker.
 

Biggest Shock

The Royal Oak disappearing.

Thread Closed.
 

Biggest Shock

Yep, knocking down The Royal Oak End.:nono:

then building that f'kin stoopid replacement.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEjits.

Turned BFC into a small club overnight !
 

Biggest Shock

Seeing Shipps roll out at GP for the first time in his XXXL shirt and realising he wasn't some overweight middle aged mascot but one of our starting 11.....

I never took Fitz seriously again.
 

Biggest Shock

westwing said:
Yep, knocking down The Royal Oak End.:nono:

then building that f'kin stoopid replacement.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEjits.

Turned BFC into a small club overnight !
Click to expand...

What should the club have done to bridge the funding gap at that time then?
 

Biggest Shock

westwing said:
Yep, knocking down The Royal Oak End.:nono:

then building that f'kin stoopid replacement.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEjits.

Turned BFC into a small club overnight !
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. I vividly remember my first sight of the part demolished Oak - I was devastated!

I'd add to that, the Braemer Road Stand fire, the incredible away support at Blackburn in the F.A. Cup and the lack of support at the Play-off against Stoke. All very shocking!
 

Biggest Shock

The loss of the Royal oak End was certainly the most depressing thing, but not really a shock (except perhaps when first seeing the empty space pre re-building) as we knew it was happening.

Martin Allen turning the team around from relegation certs to produce championship form with no new signings was perhaps the biggest shock
 

Biggest Shock

Turning up at GP to find that we'd signed Stan Bowles and Chris Kamara.:eek:
An amazing shock.
 

Biggest Shock

Getting onions in a burger. :eek:

No meat though!!!
 

Biggest Shock

Easter 1959 said:
Hearing that we had sold John O'Mara; we would never have been relegated in 1972/73 if he hadn't gone.

A truely awful decision.
Click to expand...
Agree with O'Mara sold on the cheap for £30K to Blackburn who then didn't play him while we were relegated with our top goalscorer Allan Murray getting a meagre 6/7 goals all season!
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
What should the club have done to bridge the funding gap at that time then?
Click to expand...

They could have built a bigger stand which would also use the whole width of the pitch and go back further.

Alternatively, they should have found a better investor than Lange.

The Royal Oak had loads of potential for bars, a club shop, restaurant etc.

He built that crap stand and flats to line his own pockets, don't be fooled otherwise my friend.
 

Biggest Shock

westwing said:
They could have built a bigger stand which would also use the whole width of the pitch and go back further.

Alternatively, they should have found a better investor than Lange.

The Royal Oak had loads of potential for bars, a club shop, restaurant etc.

He built that crap stand and flats to line his own pockets, don't be fooled otherwise my friend.
Click to expand...

:imwith:

Stadium matters, it really does. It's part of the soul of a club.
 

Biggest Shock

scruff puppy pup said:
:imwith:

Stadium matters, it really does. It's part of the soul of a club.
Click to expand...

I agree but is the bit about Martin Lange lining his pockets really correct?

I was too young at the time to understand the financials, I just remember being told that we had to do it because we couldn't get 8,000 attendance for every home game. I personally thought Martin Lange was more 'brentford' than to have done that :shrug:
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
I agree but is the bit about Martin Lange lining his pockets really correct?

I was too young at the time to understand the financials, I just remember being told that we had to do it because we couldn't get 8,000 attendance for every home game. I personally thought Martin Lange was more 'brentford' than to have done that :shrug:
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Brentford were skint and crowds had dropped to an all time low.
Nevertheless, we weren't as skint as we have been in recent years.
What Lange did was very short sighted and there was loads of potenetial
in developing the Royal Oak. Lange used to bang on about his 1million pound
input into BFC, but realistically he never wanted to put any more of his own money in. In my eyes, knocking down the Royal Oak end was a disaster and many fans have never returned to GP.
I remember all this being "sold" to the fans so nobody would create.
We were promised a 2 tier modern home end that we would be proud of.
DON'T FINK SO:nono:
 

Biggest Shock

westwing said:
They could have built a bigger stand which would also use the whole width of the pitch and go back further.
They could have indeed, never understood why they didn't incorporate a better stand even if land had to be sold behind it.

Even worse it cut out the views from the "wing" which has now been rendered useless.

A short sighted decision from which we have never really recovered.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 

Biggest Shock

NorthamptonBee said:
Turning up at GP to find that we'd signed Stan Bowles and Chris Kamara.:eek:
An amazing shock.
Click to expand...

I hadn't heard Stan Bowles had signed so didn't understand why there was such a queue to get in the New Road. Gob-smacked when I heard the team line-up.
 

Biggest Shock

Beeky38 said:
I hadn't heard Stan Bowles had signed so didn't understand why there was such a queue to get in the New Road. Gob-smacked when I heard the team line-up.
Click to expand...

I was just too young to have appreciated who Stan Bowles was when he signed. Can you liken him to a current or recent player so that I can think about how shocked I'd be? Was it akin to signing Glenn Hoddle in the twilight of his career?
 

Biggest Shock

Beeky38 said:
I hadn't heard Stan Bowles had signed so didn't understand why there was such a queue to get in the New Road. Gob-smacked when I heard the team line-up.
Click to expand...

Too young for this particular moment, but wasn't it great without interweb and not knowing whaton earth was going on until you turned up !
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
I was just too young to have appreciated who Stan Bowles was when he signed. Can you liken him to a current or recent player so that I can think about how shocked I'd be? Was it akin to signing Glenn Hoddle in the twilight of his career?
Click to expand...

Difficult to compare. He has the skill of a gasgoine but played in an era where skill was not appreciated by the england team. Ramsey built a team around what he had, solid, strong hard working players. As we won everybody thought this was the way to play interntional football so we suffered for 20-30 years ignoring such wonderful players as bowles, marsh, currie and charlie george and this continued even as late as matt le tiss.

If you can believe it gazza was the first "flair" player to be given a real chance for 30 odd years and it was only the last friendly before WC90 when robson decided he may be OK. Before that it was always questioned as to whether these wonderful skillful players would work hard enough for the team and we preferred the thugs who could be relied upon to kick people. That is why thplayers in the mold of peter reid have more caps than people like hoddle and le tiss and why england never qualified for two consecutive world cups in the 70's.

Bowles fell into this catagory and only got 2 england caps.
It is dificult to find a modern day comparison but here was a player who hads silky skill and a touch of maverick genius who was often argued about as to whether he should be in the england team. Later in his career he signed for Leyton (from forest I think) for a record fee to build a promotion push to the top flight but they wound up going down and then for some mad reason he wound up at brentford. With hurlock and kamara protecting him he was just awesome to watch.

You can still him having a fag outside the bookies from time to time;)
 

Biggest Shock

mhead bee said:
You can still him having a fag outside the bookies from time to time;)
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Time to time!! :D He lives in the Triangle between the Bee Hive, Bookies and the four corner pubs (odd looking triangle I agree)
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
I was just too young to have appreciated who Stan Bowles was when he signed. Can you liken him to a current or recent player so that I can think about how shocked I'd be? Was it akin to signing Glenn Hoddle in the twilight of his career?
Click to expand...

As Maidenhead said, it's difficult to compare. He was a massive name, but we signed him from Orient, so his 'star' had long since waned. An absolute privilege to watch him playing for us though.

I had the honour of being introduced to him before the Bury home game season before last. A lad I know writes for Bury's programme. Drinking in his local North Manchester pub the landlady spotted his Bury programme and said "Oh my brother used to play for them" thinking it would be some no mark ex reserve he asked who, "Stan Bowles". He interviewed him for a 'where are they now thing for the programme and Stan as ever asked "what do I get?" Bury being Bury and potless James said he'd stand him a drink when he was down.
 

Biggest Shock

mhead bee said:
Difficult to compare. He has the skill of a gasgoine but played in an era where skill was not appreciated by the england team. Ramsey built a team around what he had, solid, strong hard working players. As we won everybody thought this was the way to play interntional football so we suffered for 20-30 years ignoring such wonderful players as bowles, marsh, currie and charlie george and this continued even as late as matt le tiss.

If you can believe it gazza was the first "flair" player to be given a real chance for 30 odd years and it was only the last friendly before WC90 when robson decided he may be OK. Before that it was always questioned as to whether these wonderful skillful players would work hard enough for the team and we preferred the thugs who could be relied upon to kick people. That is why thplayers in the mold of peter reid have more caps than people like hoddle and le tiss and why england never qualified for two consecutive world cups in the 70's.

Bowles fell into this catagory and only got 2 england caps.
It is dificult to find a modern day comparison but here was a player who hads silky skill and a touch of maverick genius who was often argued about as to whether he should be in the england team. Later in his career he signed for Leyton (from forest I think) for a record fee to build a promotion push to the top flight but they wound up going down and then for some mad reason he wound up at brentford. With hurlock and kamara protecting him he was just awesome to watch.

You can still him having a fag outside the bookies from time to time;)
Click to expand...

At our level, he was always thinking a couple of moves/passes ahead of most other players. As a result, he did sometimes used to get frustrated, and you'd see the arms in the air!
 

Biggest Shock

mhead bee said:
Difficult to compare. He has the skill of a gasgoine but played in an era where skill was not appreciated by the england team. Ramsey built a team around what he had, solid, strong hard working players. As we won everybody thought this was the way to play interntional football so we suffered for 20-30 years ignoring such wonderful players as bowles, marsh, currie and charlie george and this continued even as late as matt le tiss.

If you can believe it gazza was the first "flair" player to be given a real chance for 30 odd years and it was only the last friendly before WC90 when robson decided he may be OK. Before that it was always questioned as to whether these wonderful skillful players would work hard enough for the team and we preferred the thugs who could be relied upon to kick people. That is why thplayers in the mold of peter reid have more caps than people like hoddle and le tiss and why england never qualified for two consecutive world cups in the 70's.

Bowles fell into this catagory and only got 2 england caps.
It is dificult to find a modern day comparison but here was a player who hads silky skill and a touch of maverick genius who was often argued about as to whether he should be in the england team. Later in his career he signed for Leyton (from forest I think) for a record fee to build a promotion push to the top flight but they wound up going down and then for some mad reason he wound up at brentford. With hurlock and kamara protecting him he was just awesome to watch.

You can still him having a fag outside the bookies from time to time;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that MHB. I still remember my dad and his best friend being in awe of him although I was too young to appreciate what he could do on a football pitch. Sadly I never got the chance to fill in all those gaps with my dad when I was old enough to appreciate what football is really about so thanks for adding some colour to my memories. My dad's reaction to his signing and Ron Harris are probably the ones of shock which stick in my mind.

Great memories.

Chorlton Bee said:
As Maidenhead said, it's difficult to compare. He was a massive name, but we signed him from Orient, so his 'star' had long since waned. An absolute privilege to watch him playing for us though.

I had the honour of being introduced to him before the Bury home game season before last. A lad I know writes for Bury's programme. Drinking in his local North Manchester pub the landlady spotted his Bury programme and said "Oh my brother used to play for them" thinking it would be some no mark ex reserve he asked who, "Stan Bowles". He interviewed him for a 'where are they now thing for the programme and Stan as ever asked "what do I get?" Bury being Bury and potless James said he'd stand him a drink when he was down.
Click to expand...

Great story. Stan certainly was a character. At the risk of going even further off topic, I seem to recall that BFC paid off some 'expenses' to William Hill (shall we say) by way of a signing on fee for Stan. Do you know if that was just an urban legend?

Thanks for the insight.
 

Biggest Shock

westwing said:
Brentford were skint and crowds had dropped to an all time low.
Nevertheless, we weren't as skint as we have been in recent years.
What Lange did was very short sighted and there was loads of potenetial
in developing the Royal Oak. Lange used to bang on about his 1million pound
input into BFC, but realistically he never wanted to put any more of his own money in. In my eyes, knocking down the Royal Oak end was a disaster and many fans have never returned to GP.
I remember all this being "sold" to the fans so nobody would create.
We were promised a 2 tier modern home end that we would be proud of.
DON'T FINK SO:nono:
Click to expand...

Yes, I remember the talk of a 2 tier stand and being quite excited (as a 10ish year old would). Then the horror when I saw it.
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
I was just too young to have appreciated who Stan Bowles was when he signed. Can you liken him to a current or recent player so that I can think about how shocked I'd be? Was it akin to signing Glenn Hoddle in the twilight of his career?
Click to expand...

Well, umm, not exactly the twilight of his career. Dear Stan liked a visit to the bookies and a drink a bit more than did Glenda, but on the plus side, he never made a prat of himself on Top of the Pops.
 

Biggest Shock

FlyBee said:
I was just too young to have appreciated who Stan Bowles was when he signed. Can you liken him to a current or recent player so that I can think about how shocked I'd be? Was it akin to signing Glenn Hoddle in the twilight of his career?
Click to expand...

I would compare it to the signing of somebody like Matt Le Tissier - big name, big reputation, outrageously skillful, interested in entertaining first and foremost, but never with a big club and controversially under used at international level. His debut put 2 -3,000 on the crowd.
 

Biggest Shock

abee said:
:nono:...........Stan Bowles has 5.
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Bloody hell, have we got our pedantic hats on today or what?

2 or 5 it makes little difference to the moral of the story.

Also if we are going to be pedantic this evening I said players in the mold of Peter reid, not peter reid specifically.

have a night off chaps:rolleyes:
 

Biggest Shock

mhead bee said:
Bloody hell, have we got our pedantic hats on today or what?

2 or 5 it makes little difference to the moral of the story.

Also if we are going to be pedantic this evening I said players in the mold of Peter reid, not peter reid specifically.

have a night off chaps:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

... mould ....
 

Biggest Shock

mhead bee said:
Bloody hell, have we got our pedantic hats on today or what?

2 or 5 it makes little difference to the moral of the story.

Also if we are going to be pedantic this evening I said players in the mold of Peter reid, not peter reid specifically.

have a night off chaps:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Les Beeavinu said:
... mould ....
Click to expand...

rofl
 

Biggest Shock

Easter 1959 said:
Hearing that we had sold John O'Mara; we would never have been relegated in 1972/73 if he hadn't gone.

A truely awful decision.
Click to expand...

Watching the bloke we bought to replace him (Stan Webb) trying to play football
 
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