I haven’t said anything about the Doncaster game so far – I wanted the dust to settle. But I’m afraid my feelings today are virtually the same as they were when the ref blew the final whistle last Saturday.
I’m still angry.
Oh, not at losing. Not at missing out on automatic promotion. Not even at the missed penalty. I can live with all that frustration, I’m old enough to have lived with it many times before, and as Uwe said emphatically on Sunday night “This season is not over”.
So what I am angry about – and forgive me for repeating a theme I’ve banged on about before this season – is that Doncaster won the game and the title by ‘playing ugly’.
If that’s what it takes to succeed – please count me out.
Football is a simple game, and can be a beautiful game. So when a whole club has to resort to time wasting for a whole 90+ minutes to win, then I get annoyed.
It was in the first minute when their goalkeeper Sullivan took the first of several time-wasting minutes before getting the ball back in play. I think Richard Lee has said in an article that he took 42 seconds per goal kick – and every time he gathered the ball he simply put it down in the box and waited for a Bees forward to chase him before picking it up casually and belting it away like a moon ship.
Donny were the same at throw-ins as well. So say about 20 goal kicks and 20 throw-ins to them throughout the match (I don’t know how many there actually were, but that sounds about average to me) – that’s the best part of half an hour wasted – a whole third of a game.
Doncaster were, to quote Rich again, “pre-historic hoofers” – and I have to agree with him 500 per cent. They played ugly to win.
Brentford have now got three more games to win promotion and it’s my belief that we can get out of this league by playing to our strengths – by playing football.
Uwe Rosler has moulded a team which can beat opponents with this footballing – and sporting – philosophy.
A team which don’t need to “play dirty” to win. A team which battle fairly, show skill in possession and keep fighting till the final whistle.
A team we can be proud of.
Larry Signy
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What a load of garbage! Richard Lee is no authority on anything! Doncaster are worthy champions, adapting their style of play in an intelligent manner that frustrates the opposition. 500%? what are you on about? back to the GCSE Maths.
Ha ha, nothing like sour grapes is there mate, every side in the world would try and waste time when they need a draw to be promoted.
As for the beautiful game, under o Driscoll doncaster were wildly renowned as the arsenal of he north for their beautiful eye catching football, recognised as the best footballing side in the championship along with Swansea, but it didn’t last, and now we have a squad which never knows when it’s beaten that fight for one another.
Give me that everyday of the week, I’m unbelievably proud of my team, as for sporting philosophy I’m assuming you didn’t see wright Phillips hilarious dive then.. Of course you didn’t..
Enjoy the playoffs, and get that teddy put back in the pram..
Hi Larry Donny fan in peace.
We played pretty football in the championship for 4 years it got us nowhere. The championship taught us that you do not have to play scintillating to get promoted (look at reading).
We would outplay teams every week and lose 1-0 in the last minute. We came down to league one with a different philosophy and it has appeared to have worked for us this season. Sometimes you have to play ugly to win.
I can understand your sadness and frustration at having a complete Trotta disobeying team orders and going for personal glory. I have admired your football all season and knew you would be a tough nut to crack for our promotion tilt.
Perhaps you should reflect on Donnys experience with playimg attractive one touch football under Sean O’Driscoll. Great to start with and some degree of success in the Championship. Eventually other teams worked out that all they had to do was muscle in and flood the midfield. We went for months without winning and dropped out of the second tier last year. We were massively overbudget and had to get rid of all of the skillful players to balance the books. We only managed to scrape a full team together by the first week of then season.
Give Dean Saunders his due. He built a team that was difficult to beat, rather than attractive to watch. We would have been happy to be in the top 10. The doom mongers thought we would do what Scunny have done this year.
This season has shown me that it’s better to win ugly than play like Barca and get beat every week.
Best of luck in the play-offs. Hope you win ugly rather than lose attractively. It’s heartbreaking at this time of year
I realise that we may not have played the most attractive of football on the day – but would likewise contest that you were hardly Barcelona yourselves. Having stumbled towards promotion in the previous weeks, you could hardly expect us to turn up and play an expansive game of free flowing football could you? not to mention the nerves that were abundant from both sides. I realise that you are bitter about the outcome, but the result was in your own hands courtesy of a dodgy penalty – and you blew it. However, you do know that the league was made up of 46 games and that (generally) the teams at the top deserve their places…..or would you contest that also? I do hope that you have your day at Wembley and join us in the Championship next season – hopefully after beating Sheff Utd in the POF. Good luck in your endeavours……… but please stop with the bitching and look at yourselves before looking for scapegoats.
Larry
Sour grapes my friend….
Would love to have seen your report if the rolls were reversed, what would have been the Tactics if your team only needed a draw???? Pretty football or play ugly! Football is a game of tactics. Remember your draw at Bramall Lane you don’t get players sent off for playing pretty football.
You got beat within the rules of the game man up and accept it
Doncaster didn’t play “ugly” to win…we held back and stifled Brentford’s play… Don’t forget that Brentford were kicking the ball around as much as us, because we stopped them from playing their football. Doncaster played as a team: you would not have seen any of our players arguing over who was taking the penalty. Moan and be angry all you like. Brentford may play prettier football than Doncaster; but they simply was not good enough a team to win. Sometimes sheer determination is all you need.
As with anything there are different opinions on the events of last Saturday. I’m afraid whilst my disappointment will live on for some time to come(hopefully just until the final whistle on play off final day) your report Larry just reads as sour grapes and as if looking for someone else to blame. The game was in our hands at the end and we blew it on the day and that includes BWP hitting the post when he should have done better and 2 or 3 shots flying over the stand from inside the box, not just the penalty. The play offs will be a different story. Doncaster came and did a job on us and we were naive enough to fall right into their game plan, they knew we had to go for it and as we suspected they came to defend, which they did very well forcing us to play long balls onto their centre halves heads which they knew they’d win 99% of the time! Yes they took every opportunity to waste time but wouldnt we have done the same thing if the boot was on the other foot? We had other chances than the penalty and on the day we werent good enough.
“Uwe Rosler has moulded a team which can beat opponents with this footballing – and sporting – philosophy.”
If Brentford were so superior when they had the ball (when Doncaster weren’t timewasting of course)why didn’t they score? You still have to score goals Larry; Brentford didn’t score any and Doncaster did. If you do want to get promoted, please Larry, you must score, it’s so very important to winning.
Christ alive, just fucking shut up moaning, if your team needed a draw to get promoted 80% of the fans would want them to waste time as often as possible! I wanted Brentford to join us next season, but with the state of the journalism and moaning about tactics that every team would adopt is similar situations, I’ve changed my mind. Also your stadium is wank and Bradley Wright Phillips is a diving prick like his brother. Having 2 players in team of the year and winning the league, surely we as a club deserve a bit of credit? Have fun playing Rotherham next yeah you mug!!
Get over yourself you mug. If football is made to be played beautifully then a few years ago we’d of been winning the championship under O’Driscoll. We were hammering teams with possession but losing.
If Brentford play this beautiful football you talk of, why was Wright-Phillips diving every 2 minutes? I couldn’t be happier that Trotta hit the crossbar. I hope you get hammered in the play offs. And i hope i see Richard Lee cry his eyes out again the little bitch.
funny this, because i remember sitting in the keepmoat, getting battered in possession something like 76% to Brentford and taking our 1 chance of the game and beating you 1-0.
Doncaster dont play dirty, re-check the stats, your team fouled consistently more than Doncaster, time wasting? we didnt need to win that game, you did, your players should have chased down Sullivan, they didnt, there was no desire from your players to chase the ball once it reached him, why would any team hurriedly kick the ball back into play when not under pressure to do so?
sour grapes, i look forward to watching Swindon dismantle you in the playoffs.
Good article, completely agree; even in the lower leagues gamesmanship takes precedence over sportsmanship these days.
There was an exceptional amount of time wasting in this game but that’s modern sport and its win-at-all-costs attitudes. Chelsea won the Champions League by diving and rolling about. It’s already endemic at the top end; filtering down was always inevitable.
Regardless though, Bees did enough to crack the unsportsmanlike resolve, they stuck at it, won the pen – and the game – in the 94th minute. Ironically with a pen that never looked like a pen at all. Then for some reason, at that point, we decided not to stick to the plan. Not to follow the gaffer’s orders. We’ll just wing it shall we lads? Despite the manager proving his decision making prowess countless times this season, we just threw the play book out the window when we potentially needed it most.
So yes, the cheats prospered – the proverb is disproven by football every week – but when it was in our hands we still blew it, and you can’t blame Donny for that.
I hope we can get to Wembley and show the country how good football in our league can be (ie not a rehash of the Crewe debacle). And if we’re 2-1 up in the 89th minute, I won’t have any problem with Sammy taking a little wander out to a corner flag…
Although Brentford played the better football on the day, we weren’t quite good enough to win. Small margins but it’s as simple as that. Apart from Sullivan, I didn’t notice any particularly bad timewasting from Doncaster players – it goes on in most games. I think what really cost us automatic promotion was that spell before the Chelsea games when some players lost focus for a few games.
p.s. I have to say that Doncaster’s fans, on the whole, really impress me. Gracious in victory or defeat. Decent fans who have seen more bad times than good (like Brentford’s). Good luck in the Championship – hopefully we’ll see you there.
Wasting time at throw ins ? You didnt have any ball boys to throw the ball back! Im sure brentford players wouldnt have ran after the ball had they been 1-0 up and im sure you would have been happy for them to waste as much time as possible if they had been winning Brentford lost because they let a young wannabe take the penalty and miss instead of senior players taking charge simple as
What a clown.
Coins thrown at Sullivan are ok I guess as is all other random objects.
DRFC start the season with one or two retained players and a group that didnt even know each other. Add a dash of planning and organisation and we end the season as champions.
Them grapes are sour.
Who said coins thrown at Sullivan were OK? What the crowd get up to has nothing to do with the style of football the team play.