Regular Beesotted contributor, Nemone Sariman, shares her thoughts on how the season ended for Brentford.
I’m a teacher and, when I hand back my students’ work after marking, I let them know how far away they are from the next grade up. At first, they don’t like this, and they accuse me of doing it on purpose to annoy them. This is not the case at all (mainly because I didn’t think of it). But, then, I say, “Don’t you feel good knowing that you don’t have to do much to get there? Would you feel better if I said, “You’re miles away from a pass, and you’re going to have to spend the rest of the year working like a packhorse to get there”?”
At this point, they quieten down. Apart from the odd few who want to know what a packhorse is, they all know that I’m making absolute sense. Everyone would far rather be close to a pass, than not. Nobody wants to be the packhorse, whether they know what one is or not.
The Bees didn’t quite make Europe. And we only narrowly missed out by goal difference.
To be honest, it was a tall order – all we had to do was, erm, beat the incumbent champions at their place, and have four or so other teams have some sort of synchronised stuff-up – but, just like my Year 11 GCSE students, we all held onto that little scrap of hope that some magic could happen on the day. And what better place for it all to unfold than Anfield, a place where we have never even scored a goal, let alone won?
I wasn’t that bothered about Europe this year, anyway. With the physical toll that it takes on players, I was happy to leave it until we’re a little stronger. Plus I’m greedy and I want Champions’ League or nothing; I’m not that interested in Silver or Bronze. I just would have liked to come 7th, so that I could tell people we were 7th. (I guess I still could, and I don’t suppose they would check?)
Anyway, the aforementioned magic very nearly did happen. Or, at least, I thought it was magical. There were three gentleman stood behind me – I don’t know their names, but I shall call them Sam, Tony and Allan – who, seemingly, didn’t agree, and they complained so much that I wonder why they’d even bothered coming. Every time one of our Bees mistimed or fumbled a pass, which happens sometimes on account of them being normal, fallible human beings an’ all, our three experts were very vocal about what ought to have been done instead. “Fifty grand a week? I could do better than that for fifty grand a week, yer f***in’ muppet!” was one of the more insightful comments made by Sam. Sir, could you ACTUALLY? If I had fifty grand I’d happily pay it to watch you play in searing heat and maintain scimitar-sharp passing for ninety minutes.
When we finally finished with a draw, having come from behind to equalise, fellow Bees said that it felt like a loss. I disagree. Certainly Liverpool will have expected to thrash Teams Like Brentford at home, on the last day of the season, especially with all the fuss and fanfare marking Salah and Robertson’s swansongs. But, for me, four points from last year’s league winners will do nicely and will go down as one of the most memorable moments of this season.
Here are a few others, in no particular order:
- Beating Manchester United at home. Again. “Bryan, what the score? Bryan, Bryan, what’s the score?” (I love Bryan, but couldn’t help smiling at this.)
- Sunderland at home and That Enzo Le Fée Penalty. I don’t have the good fortune of being seated near Sam, Tony and Allan at the Gtech but I’m sure that, if I were, they would have said, “Even I could’ve saved that!” And, this time, they might actually have been right.
- Newcastle away, and beating those pesky Magpies at their place. I didn’t go, but those who did probably floated down those 987 flights of stairs afterwards as if carried on the wings of angels.
- Arsenal at home, and actually witnessing Mikel Arteta standing INSIDE the technical area, for once. I knew that nobody would believe me without photographic proof but, by the time I had taken out my phone, he had stepped back out again.
- That Burnley Game. If you weren’t there, I can’t even articulate into words what happened. All I know is that my fitness tracker recorded my heart rate as near-fatal, and asked me, “Did you just run a marathon in the desert?”. Also, two of my Arsenal friends were following along together on their phones and, at several points during the game, each of their phones showed a different score, despite them using the same app. That’s how chaotic it was.
- Macclesfield away for the FA Cup, and the realisation that we were no longer the lovable minnows winning the hearts of football fans around the country; we were now Goliath and nobody wanted us to win, which was tough to take yet also a sign of how much we’ve progressed. After the husband forgot to put our suitcase in the car for our overnight stay, I also learned that I am a lot more understanding than I thought, and that I won’t die without my lip balm.
So no Europe just yet, but that’s ok; just missing out on a grade C, as opposed to still floundering in grade U domain, is good enough for me, for now. I feel very lucky for the season we’ve had, and luckier still that the World Cup in a few weeks’ time saves us from what would have been a distressing football famine until the start of the new season. I can’t wait to see what our Bees can achieve on the biggest international duty of them all, and I’ll be keeping an eye, in particular, on Brazil’s forward line.
Nemone Sariman
