Beesotted contributor Lewis ‘Sherlock’ Holmes shares his coping strategies for the imminent departure of Thomas Frank.
How many Brentford fans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Change?! What do you mean change?!
That right there is one of my favourite jokes. It’s wonderful because you can put literally any demographic on earth in there and it still works. However, not many demographics are experiencing quite the mixed emotions that Brentford fans are this week.
Thomas Frank, our beloved head coach of nearly seven years, is leaving the club to join Tottenham Hotspur. Quite why such a level-headed, pragmatic man would choose to so willingly jump at working in a wildly unstable environment (four managers in four years) is beyond me, but I’m just the schmuck in the stands. You’ve got to be built differently to actually work in football.
When I call Spurs unstable, it’s not sour grapes. They sacked the man who won them their first trophy in 17 years. And they did it on a Friday evening so the narrative could spin out all weekend, unchecked. The churnalism was off the fucking charts.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Over the weekend, the Brentford faithful lost their collective minds. Scrolling the socials was like watching an episode of EastEnders with all the screeching that was going on. Frank’s already agreed to join Spurs. No he hasn’t, he’s still on holiday. Actually, he has, and he wants to take the entire backroom staff, including Doris the tea lady, with him. Guys, we’ll be fine – Matthew Benham will have a plan. Well no, actually we won’t Ian, because the sky is falling.
It should be said that Frank has overseen the best period in modern Brentford history. He has forged a bond with the fans unlike anything we’ve seen in decades. He’s charismatic, engaging and innovative. And, I can’t stress this enough, Spurs are a very different animal to Brentford.
When you add in the fact that Bryan Mbeumo, a mercurial winger who’s been an ever present since 2019, is most likely moving to Manchester United, this is a time of great change down in our little corner of West London.
So this confusion and uncertainty is perhaps understandable to a degree. People are very close to a form of grieving, mourning the loss of our lovely, comfortable set up, fearful of the brave new world.
Not me.
In times of great football-related strife, I adopt a strategy to see me through. No doubt it’s infuriating to my mates (or worse, people who don’t know me that run into it on social media), but I’ve got to look out for number one. If I don’t I’ll go sailing over the edge. The void isn’t fun, none of you want Void Lewis. That guy is a horror.
Football is pure escapism for me. Getting out on a Saturday, meeting my mates and shouting at a bunch of millionaires in knee-high socks is one of the few things that quietens my raging brain. It’s purging and revitalising. So when something comes along that upsets the delicate ecosystem, I have got to get militant to maintain my zen-like calm.
Firstly, I insist on absolute certainty. Football journalism thrives on conjecture and speculation. In the opening days of a rumoured departure, clubs are always ‘eyeing’ players, ‘readying bids’ or ‘preparing to swoop’ for ‘mercurial talents’. I’m a writer; words matter.Fabrizio Romano, King of the Non-Exclusive Exclusive, is the worst of them, mooing snippets onto social media with relentless dull repetition. Man’s a clickbait terminator.
Every word of it is pure gibberish, written in such a way make morsels of information look like a red hot scoop. Bullshit. Stop fucking tickling me with that thing and shove it all the way in. I want full fat facts sprayed right in my face. And until I get exactly that, I’m going to shoot down every single weasel worded ‘exclusive’ placed in front of me. No wonder AI spouts rubbish if these are the professionals it’s learning from.
Of course, I know deep down that this is copium. High octane, belligerent copium that serves to get me through those early, confused days of denial. The inevitable always happens when you’re a smaller, unfashionable club like Brentford. Fortunately, I have streamlined my grieving process – there are no five stages here. I go straight to acceptance. The Dead To Me List. Yeah yeah, I know we’ve all got a Dead To Me List, but only mine works exclusively on former Brentford heroes.
Unless someone leaves under a cloud, most football fans are pretty magnanimous. Thanks for the good times, best of luck in the future kind of vibes. A lot of people write on social media as though the departing former favourite is actually reading. I find this quite sweet and wish I could do it myself. Anecdotally though, I’ve heard about players being affected by social media posts so I’m going to go ahead and say they don’t read every message. It’s definitely for the best they don’t read mine. Because all it’s usually a variation of “He’s dead to me.”
In Doctor Sleep, the excellent sequel to The Shining, Danny Torrance takes all the horrors from The Overlook Hotel and crams them into lockboxes in his head. This is what I do with former players. Gone from the hallowed turf in TW8? Fine, get in a box. Oh, David Raya is back with Arsenal, is he? Well I can’t see him, because he’s in a big old box. Sometimes they try to break out, like when Ollie Watkins comes back with Villa and scores every time. Chain that box up! Ivan Toney made it really easy to put him in a box by naffing off to a whole new continent. His box barely even rattles.
It’s dreadfully petty, I know, but it’s either this or screaming into the ether on social media, and that shit is unhealthy. But a box isn’t going to work for Thomas Frank. He was too embedded in the culture of Brentford, too present, too there. I need a more definitive movie metaphor than a creaky box, held closed by hope.
I’m reminded of the end of Goodfellas, when it comes crashing down for Henry Hill after so many years in clover. Henry goes to visit Paulie, the father figure who nurtured Henry’s career for years. Paulie is all too aware that Henry is now a liability, and they are finished together. He gives Henry the cash in his pocket and then cuts him off with a a dead-eyed “Now I’ve gotta turn my back on you.”
That’s my copium for Frank’s departure. Other Bees might wish him well, I’m going with an ice cold farewell. Dead to me. We rode some giddy highs together, saw some bright lights, tasted the high life. But, just like Henry says at the end of Goodfellas, now it’s all over. Let’s hope Thomas Frank doesn’t become an average nobody, living the rest of his life like a schnook.
I can’t even think about Thomas Frank at the moment. Getting a suitable replacement is the priority. That will be the start of the rebuild. Replacing coaches who have left, getting the current squad on board and excited again; and convincing new players to join.
You’ve nailed it. We have our coping mechanisms and I’m with you. I’ll stay away from the social media love in thank you very much. I read his “I’m off” letter and note he didn’t wish us well or good luck. From now on it will be “Thomas who?”
Football is a brutal business. The emotional investment in supporting a club is rarely worth it and at times wreaks havoc with my well-being. For all the good times we will now see Thomas try and raid our club for its players. He’s already done so with our coaching staff. His attention will now turn to well, just about most of the 1st eleven. Bryan, Wissa, Damsgaard, Nörgaard and Collins are all likely targets. Good luck getting Levy to stump up for that lot, but if he is so eager to work with them perhaps he should’ve stayed in TW8.
To misquote a line from another gangster movie. This isn’t business, it’s personal.