A few years ago in 2009 I was down in London for a weekend, so naturally rather than go to any of the tourist attractions, the West End or Oxford Street, I found out where the closest game to me was and went along to see Brentford vs. Bury.
A quick check of the table showed that Brentford were top and a win would pretty much see them promoted. They did win, 1-0 and were ultimately promoted to League 1 and ever since then I’ve kept an eye on how they’re doing.
The answer to that question is very, very well. Just last season they missed out on the play off final being well beaten by Middlesbrough, an achievement few Bees fans could have predicted or even hoped for from their first season in the Championship.
I’ve been meaning to write about Brentford and their owner Matthew Benham for a good while, but it suddenly became relevant to Scottish football when Warburton was appointed Rangers’ new head coach.
Brentford’s upward trajectory started when Benham, a lifelong fan, bought a stake in the club before taking over complete control in 2012. Benham could afford to do so as he has made millions as a professional gambler and now owns his own sports statistics company Smartodds. They plan to move to a new stadium in 2016/17. To use a gambling term, Benham is all in to rebuild Brentford.
What makes them an interesting case study is the use of statistics in the recruitment of players, his company and scouts study all manner of things most would not consider. His plan for the coming season was to lean even more on the stats, a decision Warburton clearly disagreed with, and the decision was made to part ways. However, this would not have been a decision Benham made without a thorough examination of the situation.
This upset many Brentford fans, as the removal of a successful manager always does, but that does not necessarily mean it’s a bad decision, Southampton fans were enraged when Adkins was removed for Pochettino at Southampton and look how that worked out, and look at Vincent Tan sacking Malky Mackay… okay- bad example.
It is clear that both Warburton and Benham contributed to the recent success of Brentford but the big question for Rangers fans is, how much on each side? How will Warburton fare when stripped of the statistical support he had at Griffin Park? Previous manager Uwe Rosler crashed and burned spectacularly after leaving for Wigan, however you could argue that the Latics were in freefall already.
I’ve seen some Bears claim that he is the one who relied on the use of statistics, which is blatantly untrue, and also there seems to be a myth that his team was full of promoted youths, again untrue, his three stars for me last season were Andre Gray (signed from Luton) Jota (signed from Celta) and Alex Pritchard (loanee from Spurs). Warburton’s Brentford side didn’t play any more promoted youth players than anyone else.
What we can say based on his time at Brentford is that he’s a great motivator and man manager, the team played for him and they played a style of football that was very easy on the eye. In Davie Weir, he has an assistant who knows the club inside out and- it could be argued- is a natural successor to Warburton if and when he decides to move on.
I would say he is a better shout than Stuart McCall would have been but that does come with the slight drawback of inexperience. His only managerial role has been taking over a Brentford side already on the up and with low expectations, which is a very different job from rebuilding Rangers, where the demands and expectations are very different.
If given time he could well be the best thing since sliced bread and get the club on a roll, however he will need time from fans, for example the Rangers Supporters Crust, and to be given some dough by the board, otherwise his time at Ibrox will be bread in the water and then football could be the yeast of his worries (sorry, couldn’t resist).
