Leicester Bee was fleeced of £400 because of ‘that’ penalty miss but he still shook Trotta’s hand. How it took less than 48 hours for him to get his mojo back
Having spent the last couple of days in a general haze of drunkeness to forget about “THE” penalty miss, I have woken up this morning feeling utterly defiant.
I feel I should apologise to the hundred odd people that I bored to tears on Saturday night in random bars around Waterloo station about Trotta, the penalty miss, and how Brentford were going to screw it up again at Wembley. These random people will have woken up on Sunday morning wondering why some exceedingly drunk man was on the “pull” muttering sentences such as “I’m stunned, in shock”, “the F*lham b*stard did it on purpose”, “I’ll never get over this one”, and “I need a hug, I’m so depressed”. In fairness, this huge black lady took pity on me and embraced be into her rather substantial bosom and I took solace in her ampleness. Bless her for making me feel 1% better on Saturday night.
I woke up on Sunday morning, feeling like I had been kicked in the head (so I checked my wallet to make sure I hadn’t been mugged) only to discover I had spent £400 the day before on getting myself far too drunk to care. But reading through the receipts that I had somehow kept, depressed me even more. I felt truly gutted, even angry with a certain Trotta, so I lay on my sofa feeling sorry for myself, contemplating cancelling my evening invite to the Big Red Ball. I mean, why would I want to sit in the presence of the Brentford players and management and other fans, wallowing in our utter despair? But, being the tight-arse I am, I thought I should attend so I don’t waste the £60 already spent, and a very silent and depressed Leicester Bee met up with wouldbee to find Trotta and give him some abuse at the Holiday Inn.
6 hours later, with a few more beers imbibed and watching the players first hand with each other, I can honestly say that my spirits have been lifted. My utter thanks to Dave Lane for getting me a place at the Big Red Ball, to BillytheBee for singularly being most infectious Brentford fan I know, Uwe and the players for their defiant words, and the class of ’92 who attended who cheered me up no end. I did, I admit, seek out the young Italian, but he looked as gutted as I did. He made the biggest mistake of his life. He will pay for it, surely, but he had that haunted look on his face, the look that thousands of Bees fans had on their faces when the final whistle blew. Why rub it in, I thought? So I shook his hand, begrudgingly, and turned my attention to Kev O’Connor and asked him “honestly Kev, still angry?”. He turned to me and smiled. “I was at the time, but not now. We’ve got to pull together and fight on like we have done in many games this season”. I thanked him for being a loyal servant to the club and I walked away remembering why he is our club captain, and the sincerity with which he replied back to me. I felt hope again.
The rest of the evening was spent talking to players and Uwe, increasingly sounding more like a stupid star-struck kid, and then watching the players banter amongst each other. As infantile as it was, my favourite moment was when Forshaw got called Adam “Forehead” and his facial expression said it all. This team are together. They involved Trotta in the banter and did the very best they could to keep each other positive. They are together, they will not give up, and I believe that they are utterly defiant. I felt that they cannot wait to get on with training and onto Swindon to make amends.
So to this morning. I have woken up knowing that we are on the cusp of Brentford greatness. Now is not the time for recriminations, now is the time for togetherness. We’ve been kicked in the balls, but now it’s time to bite back and show that we are strong mentally and we will defiantly fight anything that stands in the way of promotion. We have one of the finest footballing teams I have ever seen at Brentford, it is young and full of energy, it is fearless, it is not going to get broken up at the end of this season, and we have a fantastic management team in place. Not only this, we have a future. Our academy, our owner, our new stadium. We are a club on the up. Our desire to see “New Brentford” fall into place almost overnight isn’t going to happen. It will take more time, and therefore, whether we slip up in the play-offs again, I know that next season will see us tear the division up. But at least, I know the players will give it their all for the play-offs. Now is a time for togetherness. We must be united in our support and march forward swatting aside anything in our way. This was a setback for sure, but give up now? No chance. Our ability to come from behind has defined our season. This is not the time to give up. This is the time to re-group, galvanise and fight back. Only losers would quit now.
Leicester Bee
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Superb write up, summed up mine and probably 1000’s of others thoughts over the weekend. Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of this morning was that penalty miss and the chance for everybody who knows you’re a Brentford fan to mutter those unforgiving words of ‘But that’s just typical Brentford isn’t it’? And the fact that we still have no counter argument to it…….as yet.
I, like you, want to move on and look forward to success in the play offs like any Bees fan but one last little dwell on Saturday and this is in no slight a knock to Kevin O’Connor nor Trotta, who has in no doubt played his part in getting us to that chance of glory at the finishing line on Saturday but if a 31 year old, grown man, who’s captain of the club really wants to take that penalty and a 19 year old, loanee is holding the ball, I think for certain I can only see one winner in the argument. The fact that there was flapping of arms and raised voices and finger pointing after, was more a cop out of a situation whereby there is every chance to be the undoubted hero, forever remembered in Brentford folklore but the flip of the coin proved too much to bare for the captain. I think had he had more than the couple of games at the tail end of the season, out of position and felt that he had really played his part to get us there, as opposed to enforced absence through injury, the situation may have been somewhat different.
However, we’re all experts in hindsight and as you say, we need to let it go but support for the club is support for all, even more so Trotta at this time and if this team, which I honestly believe can achieve promotion still can pull it out of the bag, then lets do it together, everyone of us and without the negativity that years of underachieving and falling at the last hurdle has made us the brentford fans we are today. Sad but still upbeat and maybe blindly lead to think that maybe this is our year and 7th time lucky in the play offs. Please Bees, for all our sakes.
I caused a scene in the bookies on Saturday. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to follow the match as I was out but managed to get into a bookies just before it was FT. Over the commentary I heard there was a penalty at GP to Brentford and seeing the score was 0-0 thought this has got to be it. Then the dreaded moment when they said the pen was missed and before Doncaster scored I was stomping around the bookies shouting a selection of 4 letter expletives. One punter turned to me and enquired how much money I had just lost (obviously thinking I had a large bet on)I turned to him and said, nothing mate but I have supported Brentford for over 30 yrs so he sort of understood. I do like a bet from time to time but would never place a bet on the bees. Anyhow, looking onwards, let’s get to wembley and do it the hard way, as long as none of the matches go to a penalty shootout I am still confident we can do it, after all we have the incentive of going back to Loftus Rd next year!