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Writing a historical review about previous encounters with Stevenage proves somewhat tricky when the opposition have a Football League career shorter than Clayton Donaldson’s Brentford contract and have visited Griffin Park for League action on just a solitary occasion.

That visit came on 25th October 2011 – another Tuesday evening affair – and extended the winless run of home games to six matches as the robotic-like visitors’ performance characterised their unalluring manager Graham Westley with a 1-0 victory. And the return match was no better from a Bees perspective, as the video clip of Clayton’s penalty miss (taken from the Stevenage end) will remind you – that was the day that any hopes of a play-off finish evaporated last season.

Stevenage FC (does the club have a nickname?) make their second visit to West London on Tuesday evening but Mark Croxford looks back to a match that took place eleven years to the day previously, when Griffin Park hosted a game with uncannily similar circumstances to current goings-on.

Cardiff City were the visitors for a Division Two fixture on Tuesday 12th February 2002 and arrived with the doom-mongers predicting Brentford’s imminent fall from their lofty position in the table after a ‘wobble’ in results.

Read the ever-optimistic comments from journalist John Lyons and draw an un-nerving comparison with today!

“ … Bees’ boss Steve Coppell predicted in his programme notes on Tuesday that the race to gain promotion will go to the last game of the season – and it looks as though he will be right.

… The good thing is that it looks as if the Bees’ will be involved in the shake-up. A couple of weeks ago it looked as if Brentford could be about to fade out of the picture but they have begun to turn things round again and seem to have found a second wind.

… Perhaps being “written-off” in some quarters has given the Bees’ extra motivation to prove their critics wrong and that has intensified the already strong team-spirit at Griffin Park.

… As the season builds to a finale, the main thing is that there is everything to play for. The dream of Division One football is in sight – if the players, management and supporters really believe it.”

The game itself was a master-class in tactical astuteness from Steve Coppell. The Welshmen dominated the opening half with silver-haired maestro Graham Kavanagh pulling all the strings in midfield and only some superb goalkeeping from Paul Smith restricted the Bluebirds to a 1-0 lead.

Five minutes before the break, Coppell emerged from his preferred first-half viewing position in the stands to orchestrate a tactical switch that was to prove a master-piece. He switched Gavin Mahon from his midfield role to that of sweeper and matched up the visitors’ 5-3-2 formation.

A dressing-room clarification of the changes at the interval prompted a superb second-half display. As Mahon mopped up at the back, wing-backs Michael Dobson and Ijah Anderson had licence to bomb forwards and the midfield trio of Paul Evans, Steven Sidwell and Stephen Hunt began to relish the battle in the heart of the action.

A spectacular equaliser came in the 54th minute after both Evans and Anderson nudged the ball on for Stephen Hunt to crash an 18-yard volley firmly into the net.

The now-panicky-looking visitors brought on their £1.7 million acquisition Peter Thorne to replace ex-Bee Leo Fortune-West but eventually succumbed under the pressure of waves of attacking football.

In the 78th minute a corner was only half-cleared, Mahon headed the ball back into the danger area and, with the visiting defenders seemingly expecting an off-side flag, Lloyd Owusu fed the unmarked Ben Burgess to rifle in the winner from eight yards.

The post-match comments from Steve Coppell (“a lot of people were waving goodbye to Brentford but it’s nice to think there’s a bit of life in us for a bit longer”) and Ben Burgess (“People can say what they like but we know we have got a good team and we are working hard for each other”) reinforced the squad’s belief in the team’s ability to last the distance.

How right they both were, with just two defeats suffered in the remainder of the season.

If only it hadn’t been for the play-offs!!

Mark Croxford