48 Fun Facts About Brentford

Brentford Football Club was formed in October 1889 by members of which existing sports club?

The town's rowers. They wanted a sport for the winter months, and at a pub by Kew Bridge they voted eight to five for association football over rugby.

Whose 1890s chant of 'Buck up, Bs', misheard by reporters, gave Brentford the nickname the Bees?

Students cheering a college friend. They came from Borough Road College to support Joseph Gettins, and their college cry, meant for him and his fellow students, stuck to the whole club.

What pushed Brentford, then an amateur club, into turning professional in 1899?

It was caught paying its players. Under-the-counter wages were common among London's leading amateur sides; the football authorities punished Brentford with a fine and a suspension, and the club went openly professional.

Griffin Park, Brentford's home from 1904 to 2020, was laid out on brewery land that had been what?

An orchard. Volunteers felled the fruit trees and were allowed to keep the wood; the landlord was Fuller's Griffin Brewery, which is how the ground came by its name.

Griffin Park was famous as the only English league ground to have what?

A pub on each corner. The Griffin, the Princess Royal, the Royal Oak and the New Inn ringed the ground, and visiting supporters traditionally made for the New Inn.

Henry Norris, who helped negotiate Brentford's Griffin Park lease in 1903, later chaired which London club?

Arsenal. Norris, already chairman of a west London rival when he brokered the lease, went on to take over Woolwich Arsenal and move the club to Highbury in 1913.

Which rugby union club shared Brentford's new stadium from its opening in 2020?

London Irish. The move brought the Exiles back to the capital after years in Reading, but it lasted three seasons: in 2023 the club was suspended from all competitions and filed for administration.

How did Brentford's 1929-30 season end after they won all 21 home league games, a record still unbeaten?

They missed promotion. Only the champions went up from the Third Division South, and Plymouth Argyle finished above them: away from Griffin Park, Brentford won just seven times.

Which manager, appointed in 1926, took Brentford from the Third Division South to fifth in the First Division?

Harry Curtis. He came to management from refereeing Football League matches, and 'the Guv'nor' stayed in the job for more than 22 years.

Which Danish playmaker returned to football with Brentford in 2022, months after a cardiac arrest on the pitch at the Euros?

Christian Eriksen. Italian rules barred him from playing with the heart device he had been fitted with, so Inter released him and Brentford offered a deal to the end of the season.

Brentford, top of the First Division early in 1938, were chasing what?

The Double. They had topped the table through the winter and reached the FA Cup's last eight for the first time; both chances went within weeks.

Brentford's 1942 London War Cup final win at Wembley, 2-0, was against which club?

Portsmouth. Leslie Smith, a local boy and England winger, scored both goals in front of nearly 70,000 at Wembley.

Which club won an FA Cup quarter-final before 38,678 at Griffin Park in 1949 on its way to Wembley?

Leicester City. They won 2-0 and went on to their first Wembley final, where the Second Division strugglers lost 3-1 to Wolves.

A January 1967 deal would have seen Brentford cease to exist and its ground become home to which rivals?

QPR. Brentford's chairman had agreed the deal in secret with his Rangers counterpart; a month of protests and donations later, a consortium backed by supporters bought him out.

Dean Smith left Brentford in October 2018 to take charge of which club?

Aston Villa. He had supported Villa all his life and took John Terry as his assistant; Brentford filled the gap from within by promoting his number two, Thomas Frank.

Which Brentford player's household raised the alarm in the 1983 fire at Griffin Park, saving a club worker asleep beneath the seats?

Stan Bowles. The alarm came late at night; some sixty neighbours were evacuated, and the fire did about 150,000 pounds of damage to the main stand.

How did Brentford's Football League Trophy finals of 1985, 2001 and 2011 all end?

In defeat. Wigan Athletic, Port Vale and Carlisle United took the trophy; against Port Vale in 2001 Brentford even scored first before going down 2-1.

The two-tier Brook Road Stand at Griffin Park, built in the mid-1980s, was affectionately known as what?

The Wendy House. The little double-decker, seats above and terracing below, went up in 1986 where the Royal Oak terrace had stood, and it looked to fans like a child's playhouse.

Which former Crystal Palace chairman bought Brentford in 1998 and made himself chairman-manager?

Ron Noades. He bought the club just after it had been relegated, picked the team himself and won the Third Division title at the first attempt.

Which supporters' trust ran Brentford from the early 2000s and bought control in 2006?

Bees United. The trust raised loans and fans' donations to buy out the owner, then voted in 2012 to sell its controlling stake to Matthew Benham.

Who succeeded Thomas Frank as Brentford's head coach in June 2025?

Keith Andrews. Brentford promoted their set-piece coach, a former Republic of Ireland midfielder who had never managed a senior team.

Which club did Brentford beat 2-0 at Wembley in May 2021 to win promotion to the Premier League?

Swansea City. Ivan Toney's early penalty and an Emiliano Marcondes finish won it, and head coach Thomas Frank said afterwards that he had tears in his eyes.

Matthew Benham graduated from Oxford in which subject before making his fortune in betting?

Physics. He then spent a dozen years in finance, rising to vice-president at Bank of America, before leaving in 2001 to work for a betting firm.

Which future Brighton owner hired Benham into the gambling industry in 2001, before the pair fell out?

Tony Bloom. Benham joined his firm Premier Bet, left two years later after the pair fell out, and within a year had set up a rival operation of his own, Smartodds.

Which club, needing only a draw, beat Brentford 1-0 on the final day of 2012-13 to deny them automatic promotion?

Doncaster Rovers. In the 94th minute Brentford won a penalty that would have sent them up; Marcello Trotta hit the bar, and Rovers broke away to score the goal that made them champions.

Which manager, a former City trader like Benham, took Brentford up to the Championship in 2014?

Mark Warburton. He had spent two decades as a currency dealer before turning to coaching; promotion was sealed against Preston by an Alan Judge penalty.

Benham bought a majority stake in which Danish club in 2014, a Brentford sister club until 2023?

FC Midtjylland. He brought his data-led methods to the Jutland club, which had never won a trophy; in his first season there it won the Danish title.

What unwanted run did Brentford's 2021 play-off promotion end?

Nine failed campaigns. The run began with a semi-final exit in 1991 and took in four lost finals, the last of them less than a year before the breakthrough.

Brentford lost the 2020 Championship play-off final 2-1 after extra time to which club?

Fulham. Joe Bryan caught goalkeeper David Raya expecting a cross and beat him with a free-kick from 40 yards, then scored again; Brentford's reply came too late.

Which body banned Ivan Toney for eight months in 2023 for breaking its betting rules?

The FA. Toney accepted 232 breaches, was fined 50,000 pounds and could not play until January 2024, an awkward episode for a club whose owner made his fortune as a gambler.

Brentford signed Ivan Toney in 2020 from which club, which had never sold a player for more?

Peterborough United. Posh had bought him from Newcastle for well under a million pounds only two years earlier, and Brentford's fee broke their record for a sale.

Before 2021, Brentford had last played top-flight football in the first season after which war?

Second World War. Brentford went straight down in 1946-47 and sank as far as the Fourth Division before the 74-year climb back was complete.

Thomas Frank left Brentford in June 2025 to manage which club?

Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs had just sacked Ange Postecoglou, weeks after he won them the Europa League, and turned to Frank after his seven years in charge at Brentford.

Which British film-maker became a minority shareholder in Brentford in July 2025?

Matthew Vaughn. The director of Kingsman and Kick-Ass bought in through his company MARV alongside the businessman Gary Lubner, and both men's companies raised their stakes the following year.

Jack Dunnett, Brentford's free-spending chairman of the 1960s, combined the post with which other job?

Member of Parliament. The Nottingham MP's spending bought the 1963 Fourth Division title, won with 98 league goals, but the weekly losses it ran up brought a crisis within four years.

Ken Coote, at Brentford from 1949 to 1964, still holds which club record?

Most appearances. He played 559 first-team games, and captained the side to the 1963 Fourth Division title without missing a match.

Gtech, whose name Brentford's stadium has carried since 2022, is best known for making what?

Cordless vacuums. The Worcester firm, properly Grey Technology, signed a ten-year naming deal; the club said it wanted a partner with an underdog's mentality, used to taking on huge corporations.

The wavy line on the crest Brentford's players wore in 1893-94 is thought to represent what?

The River Thames. The same early crest carried the club's initials but no bee: although the nickname dates from the 1890s, a bee did not reach the badge until 1971.

Brentford's badge of the mid-1970s, the winner of a design competition, was dropped because it got what wrong?

The club's founding year. The winning design dated the club to 1888; a supporter pointed out that it was formed in 1889, and a new crest took its place.

Which TV astrologer wrongly claimed in a 2011 BBC interview to have designed Brentford's 1994 badge?

It was actually designed in 1993 by supporter Andrew Henning in exchange for two season tickets.

The bassist of which veteran rock band wrote the 2006 song 'Owusu The One And Only' for Brentford striker Lloyd Owusu?

Status Quo. John 'Rhino' Edwards, a Brentford fan for 42 years, saw it downloaded 8,000 times in a fortnight, though Owusu admitted he had never been a Quo fan himself.

In 1954 Brentford spent over £5,000 on perimeter lights, but the Football League banned what until 1956?

Competitive games under floodlights. Brentford filled the gap with floodlit friendlies, one of which drew 21,600, and had taken over 10,000 pounds at the gate by the time the League relented.

In 2013 Brentford agreed to send young players for match experience to a partner club in which country?

Iceland. The partner was UMF Selfoss; players aged 17 to 21 went north to play, and in return Brentford could swap coaching ideas and use the club's scouting network.

Which colours replaced Brentford's red and white stripes for 1960-61?

Gold and blue. They were colours the club had worn in its early years; the revival changed nothing on the pitch, and the stripes were back the following season.

Which TV quiz host was a professional at Brentford in the late 1970s without making the first team?

Bradley Walsh. He spent the best part of two years on the books, and was already taking the microphone to entertain team-mates and supporters at the club's end-of-season dinners.

Which TV comedy ends its second season with its fictional club chasing promotion in a final-day match against Brentford?

Ted Lasso. AFC Richmond go in at half-time two goals down to Brentford, then claw their way level with a second-half goal and a late penalty.

In April 2025 Brentford's holding company bought which third-tier Spanish club, based in Extremadura?

Mérida AD. The holding company took every share, and Brentford's chairman, Cliff Crown, became president of a club then only twelve years old.

Which prog-rock keyboardist became a Brentford director for a year in 1979?

Rick Wakeman. The former Yes keyboardist is a Brentford supporter, and four years after his season on the board he took the chair at non-league Camberley Town.