Result and performance aside, the first Brentford win at Elland Road in almost seven decades was, to my mind, a pivotal moment in the club’s history.
The meeting of two clubs with vastly different recent pasts provided a stark contrast on where each look destined to be in the future.
As a kid growing up in the 70s, Leeds were the team. Players with names that tripped off the tongue. Bremner, Reaney, Giles, Norman ‘bites yer legs’ Hunter.
In my mind’s eye I can still see their gleaming white strip splattered in mud at countless Wembley finals when a trip to the second home of football still meant something.
So for me and countless others of a similar age, seeing little Brentford doing the double over Leeds is a very big deal.
But even more impressive is the fact that the 1-0 win crystalised all that is good about Brentford’s current situation and bad about the faded glory of Leeds.
Make no mistake, this is a hotbed stadium. The kind of place where you need a strong referee capable of standing up to a near rabid home support.
I thought I was hearing things when they chanted “We are the champions, champions of Europe” ten minutes in.
But no. Leeds fans are living in a time warp where all who enter the Republic of Yorkshire are required to immediately hand over three points. Brentford just hadn’t read the script.
Their rabid intimidation of the referee for waving away three extremely dubious penalty shouts that could just as easily have ended with yellows for simulation, was blinkered and born out of an incredulous frustration that “tinpot” Brentford were giving them a footballing lesson.
This website’s excellent post match podcast (below) was a tirade of bitterness and injustice from the home fans, seemingly baffled by Mark Warburton’s side’s refusal to roll over and oblivious to the fact that they could quite easily have ended the game with nine men.
The Leeds fans and ground had the aura of an ageing celebrity turning up at a nightclub only to be refused entry and telling the bouncers “Do you know who we are?”
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a lot of friends who are Leeds fans and in real life they’re a good laugh and reasonable bunch. But when it comes to their team, things get irrational.
Stark contrast then to the attitude of the Brentford lot whose chants of “We are going up” soon evolved to “we are staying up”. That’s the kind of self awareness and self deprecating humour that Leeds have lost and I hope we never do.
To use a Warburton analogy, it’s a thin line to tread and we have to be careful. I heard one bloke at half time moaning that we should be two up before he was swiftly rebuked by five others who reminded him “if you’d said we be disappointed at not being two up at Leeds a few years ago, we’d have laughed at you”.
I’ve also heard rumblings of discontent that Andre Gray doesn’t take every single chance that comes his way. Unbelievable.
In 40 plus years of watching Brentford, Gray is quite simply the best striker of his type – and I include Phillips and Cadette in that list – we’ve seen. He’s in his first season out of the Conference and I for one am just happy that he keeps being in the right place at the right time.
Anyone who doubts his ability should watch his movement prior to Jota’s goal at Norwich. His movement, pace, power, ability to go either way and ice coldness in front of goal make him arguably the best I’ve seen at the club.
The fact is with players like Gray, forward thinking benefactors like Matthew Benham, a new stadium on the horizon and the solid foundations in the community, Brentford now has the potential to wave a club like Leeds into the distance.
We are fresh, we are modern, we play football the way it should be played, while Leeds struggle to shrug off their “dirty, dirty” moniker.
In years to come we may be as big as Leeds once were, but I sincerely hope that our supporters remember where we came from and keep our expectation levels in line with that.
Because that self awareness, rather than delusions of what once was and still should be, is what makes a club truly great.
Jim Levack
Brilliantly written Jim.
Yep. Great read.
Thank you Jim, the perfect reflection on a fantastic day out.
You are deluded.. we…Leeds have been beaten by many teams of Brentfords stature thats why we have been where we are for the last 10 years. We realise we are shit but we are self deprecating like no other club. The champions of Europe chant is just that we laugh at our selves and agree we are not famous anymore. You might look down your nose at us but we have a passion for Leeds United and call it rabid if you like.. we will continue to have that passion even if we drop again into the third tier or further.
As the above note said we are more than aware of our history and current status ,granted Mr Salisbury was in the role of Panto villain on Saturday largely due to his last visit to Elland Road and that probably distracted us from our usual renditions of such classics as “how shit must you be its only 1-0” and “we’re shit,and we know we are”,we’ve been had 4,5,6 knocked past us at home by worse teams than yours so suggesting we expect 3 pts is wide of the mark and realistically a point would have been the best we could’ve got out of saturday,but I wish you well and one day hopefully we can have a team that isn’t involved in more court cases and behind the scenes calamity x