Who's to say GE that if the Bowen deal hadn't gone through we'd have stayed up. Knowing he missed. chance to play Premiership football, quadruple his wages, signing on fee etc etc, would he have been the same player...?
That goal he scored at Derby in the play offs was one of my favourite City goals of all time. Lung busting.
Great question with no answers really. Can only add after Bowen and Turbo departed we fell apart and became an embarrassment to the Championship with fans calling for McCann’s head.
I bumped into an Asian Elvis impersonator on route to the second leg at the KC v Derby - he was a Derby fan - Quite a character
Of course they haven't, they weren't bankrolled like we were. Brentford's owner, while pretty well off, didn't take over until 2014 and until then they were ran by CSM Greg Dyke. He invested in the club, but they were already in financial cack when he arrived on the scene. It wasn't until Benham took over and they started loaning/buying players from his other club, FC Midtjylland that they really got going. That's been key to their success and growing stature; the scouting network at Midtjylland is outstanding and they have links to academies and clubs in Nigeria and Iceland that allows them to get young players in on the cheap. Because of it, they managed to build their own brand new stadium that they own themselves, improve their academy and consistently stay in the black.
I hope Derby sink into the oblivion and are never heard from again, save for a headline that states that they've come runner up in the FA Vase.
Absolutely, I think it's one of the most underrated clubs in the country in terms of how well run they are. Hull City can follow that model if they can find a foreign team they can tap into and an owner who shares that vision.
They always get considerable fees but usually its a couple of million under what they could've got if they waited and waited. Although doing business early means its easier to get replacements and gives them time to settle. We could never adopt their philosophy under the Allams as our fans would whinge when we didn't spend all the money we got. Not that Brentford do either. Although, always felt Bowen's replacement was KLP and his replacement is probably James Scott. So we've got a decent succession path going
They don't have an academy but there's no point in London. Any decent player will get nicked for a pittance. They specialise in taking players 18-20 and developing those. Done that well with Mepham and DaSilva. Their fixture list is significantly tougher opposition than ours too which can only be good for development
You're right, they did scrap the academy because they didn't like the EPPP. They have a B team and a separate youth system now. Benham took over in 2014. He was just an investor before then, he wasn't the owner.
I think Brentford accept that players will use them as a gateway club to a bigger one, but there seems to be an understanding of this with the fans and it's a system that definitely works because they make a very good profit from it.
They do. Aren't 90% of clubs gateway ones though? Brentford do all that while operating with a wage bill of under £20m. It's so impressive
They were still in League One until 2014, they reached the playoffs one season but lost to Yeovil in the final. Once he took over as full owner, they started doing much better and haven't looked back since. Semantics aside, they're a club you want to model your own on.
