Whenever people talk about how well Brentford are doing in the Premier League, it’s easy to forget just how far the club has come.
Not so long ago, we were playing in the third tier. There was no Premier League football, no fancy new stadium and no worldwide attention. Just a club trying to find its way - and a whole load of twists, turns, disappointments and big decisions along the way
So we thought it was a good time to look back
Over the years, Beesotted has recorded some brilliant interviews and podcasts as these things were actually happening. We’ve gone back through the archives and pulled together 11 of those podcasts into a special series - Beesotted Reloaded: The Years That Shaped Brentford
You can check out the full series here, with links to all 11 episodes:
https://beesotted.com/beesotted-reloaded-the-years-that-shaped-brentford/
Some of the archive podcasts are also now available to watch in video format on Apple Podcasts, as well as being available as audio podcasts. So, where the video is available, you can actually see some of these conversations as they happened, rather than simply listening back to them
It’s a chance to revisit some of the moments and conversations that helped shape the club’s journey - from the heartbreak of that Doncaster match, promotion to the Championship and the plans for the new stadium, through the Uwe Rösler and Mark Warburton years, Matthew Benham’s arrival and vision, the creation of the B Team and eventually the arrival of Thomas Frank
And in this podcast, Billy and Laney look back across the series and discuss the podcasts, people and events that shaped this incredibly important period in Brentford’s history
They talk about what those old conversations tell us now that we know how the story turned out. Matthew Benham talking about the lessons he had learned and where he wanted to take Brentford. The changes to recruitment and the growing importance of data. The decision to scrap the traditional academy and create the B Team. The transition from Dean Smith to Thomas Frank. And the development of the ideas that would eventually become so central to Brentford’s success
They also revisit our conversations with Thomas Frank - including his involvement in recruitment, what frustrated him about the Brentford model, players who didn’t work out and whether the club ever regretted selling players such as John Egan and Romaine Sawyers
Frank also discussed the development of Josh Dasilva, the importance of the B Team, the players he thought could make the first team and those who might not quite make the step up
And then there’s the data - xG, statistics and the infamous “Justice League”. How much should you trust the numbers? And can Brentford just be top of the real table rather than the statistical one?
Looking back now, that’s what makes these old interviews so fascinating. They knew they were talking about important things at the time - but they didn’t know how the story was going to end
These were conversations recorded before Premier League football, before the worldwide recognition and before Brentford had become the established top-flight club we see today
They capture a club experimenting, taking risks, getting things wrong, learning from them and gradually working out what Brentford could become.
So this is Billy and Laney looking back at The Years That Shaped Brentford - and at the podcasts and conversations that captured that journey as it happened
If you want to go back through the whole series, all 11 podcasts - including the episodes now available to watch in video on Apple Podcasts - can be found here:
https://beesotted.com/beesotted-reloaded-the-years-that-shaped-brentford/
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