Match Report from the offical Bentford FC Website
The staff of Brentford kindly gave me a opportunity to attend this first team match pitch side at a game that was going to be televised Live on Sky Sports 1 on a Friday night. Even though the weather had turned for the worse and usually with Friday night football, a lot of people have 'other' plans but the fans still turned out for this game as just over ten thousand people attended Griffin Park along with the viewers at home watching Friday Night Football. This was Brentford's THIRD home match in seven days but an exciting one as both teams looked to claim three valuable points to help their own league status.
Unfortunately for Brentford some pre match off the field politics with a player chosen to play this night, meant that the club took action to discipline James Tarkowski as he (unwisely - IMO but who am I?) decided not to play for his employers? This obviously wasn't in Dean Smiths pre match plans as he had no option other to make last minute changes to his team affecting his match tactics.
Traveling from Kent to West London required using two trains so I made I caught the earliest train I could after work to account for any delayed or cancelled trains that us commuters have to face daily! This after paying extortionate rail fees yearly! Arriving at the ground I was pleased to gain access to the ground by just saying my name and given a complementary match programme which I was pleased to see included some pictures that I took from the Brentford Vs Colchester United youth team game. I was directed upstairs to the media room where this room was already full of other photographers using the clubs free wifi, uploading photographs to agencies they were working for. Signing in and collecting my green photographers bib I headed downstairs pitch side setting up next to the Sky presenters practicing their lines off air. Burnley brought a large allocation of away fans to Brentford who even before kick off were in quite a vocal mood. When the match did kick off I'm afraid it wasn't long before Burnley took control and score quite early on in the game, then a second, then a third all before half time.
This was a little disappointing from my point of view as just from the score line you can see all the action was a the far end of the ground and there wasn't may opportunities to capture pictures of the Brentford players on the attack behind the goal where I was sitting. Fortunately at half time Dean Smith must have given his team a good telling off as the second half was entirely different. I changed ends myself and used the opportunity to try warming up my hands a little so they were ready for the second half action.
The second half got under way and with Brentford attacking the home end of the ground I sat listening to these fans encouraging their team on at full voices. It wasn't long until Alan Judge scored and I hoped this would be the first of many for Brentford. Attack after attack but Brentford couldn't find their way through Burnley's rigid defence but this change in team form still meant I had plenty of opportunities to capture photographs of the Brentford players as they pressed forward. As the game progressed and I kept glancing down at my watch willing time to slow down and to be honest I didn't want this game to end. I had found camera settings I was happy with and I was capturing images which told a story of the action before me. So when the referee blew his whistle for full time i'm afraid I secretly started to "Boo" the referee with a silent protest (even though he was doing his job correctly).
I thoroughly enjoyed this game, the speed of the game was so much more than I've experienced before and it wasn't a surprise really that I took more pictures in this 90 minutes than i've ever done before in other football matches which as a photographer is a really good thing. I had a lot more 'keepers' to choose from than the ones I can discard, forget about and delete. Which I hope you agree, viewing the gallery :HERE: