Our visit to Brentford will kick off at 4.30PM on Sunday, thanks to our very good friends at Sky Sports.
Brentford boasts the nearest railway station of any ground in England, and that is Kew Bridge. Which would have been handy if the journey from Waterloo this Sunday didn’t involve a train to Clapham Junction and then two rail replacement buses, changing again at Barnes. Oh joy of joys!
A less painful option will be to catch the Piccadilly line from Kings Cross to Hammersmith and change onto a District line train to Gunnersbury, which is about two-thirds of a mile from the stadium
If you’re driving down from Leeds you could take the M25 round to Heathrow (junction 15) and then the M4 towards central London, with junction 2 being very close to the stadium, but good luck finding anywhere to park nearby.
Instead you could park in Staines (junction 13 off the M25, then along the A30 to the next roundabout) which has an hourly train to Kew Bridge on Sundays. And yes, from that direction it will still be a train this Sunday, at 21 past each hour from Staines, with an extra train at 15.36, and back from Kew Bridge at 18.25, 18.56 and 19.25.
The nearest pub to the stadium that usually admits away fans is the Express Tavern on Kew Bridge Road, and another option is to head down this road towards the Thames, where you will see ‘One over the Ait’ on the right just before you get to the bridge. Further afield are the ‘Botanist’ and the ‘Coach and Horses’ on Kew Road, about half a mile from the stadium.
If you want to get your fix of the old ground then head for Griffin Park, which famously had pubs on all four corners. Three of them are still in business, though the ‘Griffin’ is listed as being a home fans pub.
The club had played at homely Griffin Park since 1904, but with it’s cramped location there was never going to be any chance of upgrading it to the standards required by the top divisions of English Football. They had been planning a move since 2002 and finally completed the new stadium 18 years later, just in time to have to play a season behind closed doors.
The Brentford Community stadium is less than a mile from their former home and is located on a brownfield site within a triangle of railway lines, with 910 new homes also being built as part of the same project. The official club website describes it as "a state of the art stadium, at the heart of plans to regenerate the local area”. It also stages the home games of London Irish rugby club.
The capacity is a modest 17,250, and it’s hard to spot the stadium as you approach, as it’s surrounded by taller buildings. As you would expect from a new build the facilities are good, as is the view of the pitch, though it all feels a little bit box-like. Another modern twist is the catering, as they sell fancy wrap type things instead of traditional football ground pies.
Our allocation is 1,725 seats in the East Stand, and to get there you need to take a bit of a hike around the outside to a narrow road and then down some stairs. It’s so complicated that they need to have a person with a lollipop sign to show away fans the way. And when you get there you’ll find they don’t serve beer in the visitors’ section.
Our tickets cost £30 for adults, with concessions at £10 or £25, and inevitably they sold out as soon as they went on sale, so you might be tempted to try to get a ticket elsewhere. But for all Premier League games this season they have only been selling tickets for the home stands to Brentford members who have something called 40+ TAPs .
And Brentford’s official website says "Fans should be reminded that home areas of the stadium are for home fans only. Fans must not pass on any tickets for home areas to away fans. Any away fans found to be in home areas will be required to leave the stadium.”
"Any Brentford fan who is found to be responsible for passing or purchasing a ticket in a home area to or for an away fan, for whatever reason, will face a lengthy stadium ban and may lose their Season Ticket and/or Membership and all associated rights.” So if you have managed to get a ticket for a home section you will need to avoid drawing attention to yourself.
Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com.