- Brentford FC’s new ground first opened its doors to home and away fans in August
- A spacious away section with an allocation of almost 2,000, allowing for a terrific atmosphere
- Plenty of friendly pubs nearby, as well as excellent transport links
- Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have already visited so far this season
Rating: ★★★★☆
The socialising in the pub. The banter shared with opposition fans. The scent of pre-match food being prepared. The sight of other supporters wearing your club’s colours. The singing on the concourse.
When travelling long distances to follow their team away from home, football fans are not making the effort purely to watch 90 minutes of play before heading back to where they started their day.
In fact, while visiting supporters will always care deeply about how their team fare on the pitch, often, the level of pleasure that a fan takes from an away trip will also be determined by matters away from it.
Brentford Community Stadium, which opened in 2020 but did not welcome spectators in properly until August of this year, is a ground that will tick pretty much every box for followers of Premier League clubs.
A trip to Griffin Park – the place the Bees called home for over a century – was great fun for away supporters, but this new stadium has made visiting Brentford even more enjoyable, as I found out in early November.
Food and drink
Brentford’s former home was a heaven for visiting fans in terms of pubs to visit, with one located on each corner of Griffin Park, and the new stadium also does not disappoint in terms of places to congregate pre-match.
Pubs such as The Steam Packet and One Over The Ait welcome both home and away fans, as well as the Express Tavern, which is where I chose to go after being given a recommendation shortly before disembarking my train.
The atmosphere inside the pub was very pleasant, with both sets of supporters mixing together indoors and outside in a decent-sized garden. There were also a small number of televisions scattered across the pub showing the early kick-off between Manchester United and Manchester City on Sky Sports.
A round of three freshly-poured lagers came to £16.65 (£5.55 a pint), which did not come as much of a surprise seeing as statistically, a pint of beer is more expensive to buy in London than anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
The pub also provided food specifically for their match-going customers, with quarter pounder cheese burgers on offer for £6 each.
While a cheaper burger could probably have been acquired in a different location, it was well worth paying a slight premium for what was an exquisite pre-match appetiser.
There were also a number of refreshments on sale in the away concourse within the stadium itself. The food options included a selection of pies as well as a vegan sausage roll, while Grolsch Pilsner and Guinness were among the alcoholic beverages being sold for similar prices to those found in the pub.
Interestingly, the match I attended – which saw Brentford face Norwich City in their eighth home fixture of the season – marked the first time that visiting fans had been able to purchase alcohol inside the new ground.
Matchday programme
Outside the stadium, there were several Bees employees selling matchday programmes, which were available for £5 each, with £1 from each sale going towards the Poppy Appeal.
As a keen collector, I was particularly pleased that the sellers were taking card payments as well as cash, seeing as I was not carrying any of the latter.
While the programme was fairly expensive, it made for a good read, with the From The Archive section standing out especially.
Transport
The best method of transport for away fans to use when travelling to this stadium is the train, as the nearest station – Kew Bridge – is just 100 metres away from the turnstiles.
When a normal weekend service is operating, trains from central London pass through Kew Bridge every twenty minutes, with ticket prices varying depending on where you start from, as shown below.
On my recent visit to the stadium, a large queue formed after the game as hundreds of fans walked back to the station, but due to the presence of several helpful stewards, the congestion eased very quickly.
Alternatively, if you are willing to walk slightly further, there are three London Underground stations nearby; Gunnersbury, Chiswick Park, and Acton Town. It is also possible to access the stadium by bus, but travelling directly by car is not advisable as parking spaces are extremely limited.
Stadium facilities
As expected, the away section inside the state-of-the-art stadium was very well kept. The concourse was spacious and spotlessly clean, and the same could be said for both the male and female toilet areas.
The designers of the ground were also generous with the room provided between each row of seats in the stands, which was important from a safety perspective as Norwich’s fans were therefore not crammed together whilst all on their feet for 90 minutes.
During the game, supporters of both sides were able to watch replays of key moments on two large LED screens, with one hanging over the North Stand and the other over the South Stand.
Atmosphere
Inside the new ground the visiting supporters are housed in one corner, between the North Stand and the East Stand.
At other modern stadiums in the top-flight, fans have complained of feeling a long distance away from the action – most notably at West Ham United’s London Stadium – but that is not the case at Brentford.
As a result, the atmosphere in the away end was excellent, with the Norwich faithful making plenty of noise from the moment Mathias Normann fired them ahead early on.
A particularly eager group of supporters standing at the top of the stand notably used the new facilities to the team’s advantage too, with a wire mesh fence acting as their drum.
On the other hand, because Brentford were trailing for the vast majority of the game, their fans were relatively quiet, but did treat the visitors to a nice rendition of Hey Jude before the first whistle.
All adults in the Norwich end paid £30 for their match ticket, which is the standard price for Premier League away fans. In total, the entire day cost me around £80.
After enjoying all of what Brentford’s new home has to offer before departing with a positive result, any supporter wearing yellow and green will almost certainly have viewed it as money well spent.
