The Rev Peter Crumpler shares his thoughts on the departure of Thomas Frank.
“To everything there is a (football) season and a time for every purpose under Heaven.”
I’m keeping those words from the Bible’s Old Testament – recreated by The Byrds in the 1960s’ music charts – to sum up how I’m feeling just now with Thomas Frank having left the Club for north London.
I want to wish him well, and thank him for all he’s done for the Bees. I hope he’s really successful with Spurs, especially in Europe, except when his team is playing ours.
But I need to keep his departure, although sad, in perspective. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not, I guess, that unexpected.
Because I remember:
We’ve seen well-respected coaches come and go before.
We’ve said goodbye to strikers, midfielders and defenders who have made a real mark for the Club.
We’ve changed grounds, from the much-loved Griffin Park to the field of dreams that is the GTech.
We’ve come through changes of ownership.
We’ve survived relegations, near-promotions, shock defeats and mediocre performances – and we’ve celebrated major triumphs, including recently under Thomas Frank.
And the ‘we’ in the sentence is us, the fans. We are the Club. We have the corporate memory, we know the history, we know where we’ve come from and where we’re going. We have the pride and the passion.
The Club – it belongs to the supporters. The lifelong ones and the ones that have come to love the Bees in recent years. The ones from Hounslow, Ealing and Feltham; the ones with their roots in west London, and those from around the world who have taken Brentford to their heart.
So good luck Thomas, we wish you well for the journey ahead.
But the Club remains and will survive and thrive. Because we, the fans, are the Club and we carry that forward into the future. Nothing can quell that passion and belief, and nothing will.
Rev Peter Crumpler
is a lifelong Bees supporter, and a Church of England minister in St Albans, Herts.
