Guildford Bee
Well-known member
My grandad, Derek Pain, passed away late last night, aged 83. It’s difficult to put into words how much Brentford Football Club meant to my grandad. He was a lifelong season ticket holder and had renewed for the coming season. He was one of the terrace heroes who wrote a cheque for shares to fight the QPR takeover in 1967 and, nearly 40 years later, made another sizeable contribution to Bees United during the uncertain days of the mid-00s. He was also a Brentford Lifeline Society member up until his death. He wasn’t a particularly wealthy man by any stretch but he gave a significant amount of financial support to BFC over the years when the club needed it most, not to mention the tens of thousands of hours spent watching them.
The happiest I’ve ever seen him was after Peterborough away in 1992. I was 10 years old but vividly remember how happy he was as we drove back along what I assume was the A1 with thousands of other Bees fans and open cans of beer being passed from car to car. He was on cloud nine when we stopped for something to eat at a roadside restaurant and at one point on the way home thumped the dashboard of my dad’s car in glee as he remembered that he has annual bet on the Bees to win the league had finally paid off to the tune of a few hundred quid.
I have many other great Brentford-related memories of him. A favourite being seeing him flick Kevin McLeod the Vs after he’d stood in front of the away end at Loftus Road in 2003 and kissed his badge. Another favourite was the 10-odd hours I spent on a coach with him travelling to and from Hartlepool for the cup replay in 2005. He missed the heartache of the final few weeks of 2012/13 due to ill health but was back in his seat in D Block for the 2014 promotion.
Recognisable to many by his flat cap and ‘mutton chop’ sideburns, I’ll miss him most pre-game in the Waterman’s, where he always insisted on buying the drinks for myself, my dad, and the assorted friends or family I would sometimes have in tow. Fittingly, the final Bees game he saw was the 3-1 win over QPR, the club from which he helped save us from a hostile takeover. Last season it was taking him progressively longer to make the walk from the pub to the ground. And my having a young daughter meant I was often not in the Waterman’s as early as I would’ve been previously and there were quite a few occasions we would miss each other. I’m incredibly grateful that on the day of the QPR game I got into the pub just before he was about to leave and was able to have one last pre-Bees beer with him.
He had been unwell for a few weeks but things took a turn for the worse on Monday. With family at this bedside, he turned towards me and pulled down his oxygen mask, I assumed, to maybe offer a profound thought on the meaning of life. Instead he enquired where Jack Bonham had gone on loan. My nan, sitting at the foot of the bed, laughed: “I knew it would be about Brentford”.
Grandad leaves behind my nan, Doris; his son, Steve; daughter, Julie; two grandsons; two granddaughters and two great granddaughters with a third great grandchild due in January.
xxx
The happiest I’ve ever seen him was after Peterborough away in 1992. I was 10 years old but vividly remember how happy he was as we drove back along what I assume was the A1 with thousands of other Bees fans and open cans of beer being passed from car to car. He was on cloud nine when we stopped for something to eat at a roadside restaurant and at one point on the way home thumped the dashboard of my dad’s car in glee as he remembered that he has annual bet on the Bees to win the league had finally paid off to the tune of a few hundred quid.
I have many other great Brentford-related memories of him. A favourite being seeing him flick Kevin McLeod the Vs after he’d stood in front of the away end at Loftus Road in 2003 and kissed his badge. Another favourite was the 10-odd hours I spent on a coach with him travelling to and from Hartlepool for the cup replay in 2005. He missed the heartache of the final few weeks of 2012/13 due to ill health but was back in his seat in D Block for the 2014 promotion.
Recognisable to many by his flat cap and ‘mutton chop’ sideburns, I’ll miss him most pre-game in the Waterman’s, where he always insisted on buying the drinks for myself, my dad, and the assorted friends or family I would sometimes have in tow. Fittingly, the final Bees game he saw was the 3-1 win over QPR, the club from which he helped save us from a hostile takeover. Last season it was taking him progressively longer to make the walk from the pub to the ground. And my having a young daughter meant I was often not in the Waterman’s as early as I would’ve been previously and there were quite a few occasions we would miss each other. I’m incredibly grateful that on the day of the QPR game I got into the pub just before he was about to leave and was able to have one last pre-Bees beer with him.
He had been unwell for a few weeks but things took a turn for the worse on Monday. With family at this bedside, he turned towards me and pulled down his oxygen mask, I assumed, to maybe offer a profound thought on the meaning of life. Instead he enquired where Jack Bonham had gone on loan. My nan, sitting at the foot of the bed, laughed: “I knew it would be about Brentford”.
Grandad leaves behind my nan, Doris; his son, Steve; daughter, Julie; two grandsons; two granddaughters and two great granddaughters with a third great grandchild due in January.
xxx
