11:42am Friday 16th October 2009
Martin Allen popped up on the radio this week and suggested Brentford had been close to signing up Leeds United’s free-scoring striker Jermaine Beckford back when he ruled the Griffin Park roost.
Unsurprisingly, the revelation sparked debate among Bees fans, primarily focusing on what stopped a potentially brilliant transfer going ahead.
Obviously, such talk is futile. The history of every football club is littered with these ‘what might have been’ and ‘what were we thinking?’ stories.
Why did we not sign a rising star like Beckford? How on earth did we pay good money for a carthorse like Callum Willock? What was the point of Ricky Newman?
Revisiting these kinds of questions is a pointless yet unavoidable activity that we poor football supporters are drawn to like moths to a flame.
Ipswich Town fans are probably having their very own meltdown over their club’s decision to flog Jordan Rhodes to Huddersfield.
Although their pain will be at its rawest at the moment, I am sure that this piece of transfer business, given the green light by their gaffer and the world’s leading President Ahmadinejad impersonator, Roy Keane, will resonate down the years.
As history tells us, Beckford never signed for the Bees. How close we actually were to buying him none of us will ever know, but we can always console ourselves with the fact he would only have stayed with us for five minutes anyway.
Besides, there will be plenty more ‘might have been’ moments for us to wallow in.
One thing is for certain, if we do manage to make a signing any time soon, that venerable organ the London Lite will be certain to report it.
A week after the transfer has gone through.
Whenever I need a laugh on the way into town, I always pick up the Lite and have a look at the niblet of ‘Brentford news’ it carries everyday, alongside updates from all the other London clubs.
On Wednesday, the big news was that Nikki Bull has called for goalline technology to be introduced – a story that had appeared on the Brentford website seven days earlier!
I have had a sneak preview of Monday’s Brentford snippet and it is another good’un – Andy Scott says he is delighted to have secured the League Two championship!
Apparently, the paper is also lining up exclusives about Harry Curtis taking over the Griffin Park hot seat and Dean Holdsworth moving to Wimbledon.
Keep up the good work lads!
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/trade_directory/