Happy Thanksgiving
The club’s first official trip across the Atlantic, this Summer, 2023, was the latest of a long story of Bees in the US as there’s been plenty of American connections over the years, including some at Griffin Park!
Jimmy Brown, signed to play for Brentford in 1935.
Jimmy had been at the first World Cup finals in 1930 in Uruguay, as a member of the United States team.He scored a late consolation goal in their 6-1 defeat to Argentina in the semi-final.
His Brentford career never really took off and he left the club after a solitary first team appearance.
USA v Italy – Griffin Park
The US team played at Griffin Park in August 1949 in an Olympic preliminary match.
A crowd of 20,000 saw Italy run out as 9-0 winners.
1967 Ron Crisp
Shortly after England’s World Cup win in the summer of 1966, Griffin Park had a visit from officials from the National Professional Soccer League of America (which would later become the North American Soccer League) as they sought to find any player who wanted to sign up with their proposed league.
In the UK it was dubbed as the “soccer drain”.
Following their visit, right-half Ron Crisp signed for newly formed Los Angeles Toros.
In 1969 Coventry City centre-forward Gerry Baker joined Brentford on loan for 3 months. Earlier in the year, he had played for the US in the qualifying matches for the 1970 World Cup, although they were unsuccessful in reaching the finals.
Having scored 22 goals in Brentford’s 1977-78 fourth tier promotion campaign, Andy McCulloch spent the next summer loaned to Oakland Stompers of the North American Soccer League.
Andy scored 3 goals in his 18 games.
Buckle & Blissett 2023
Another promotion winning forward, this time from 1992, was Gary Blissett. He’s now based in Florida as director of Coaching for Florida Premier FC Zephyrhills and was a Brentford Club Ambassador for our summer tour.
Likewise, former his team-mate, midfielder Paul Buckle, was another of our summer ambassadors.
Currently Paul is at USL Championship side Hartford Athletic as a technical adviser, having previously been Head Coach at Sacramento Republic. His wife, Rebecca Lowe, is NBC’s lead studio presenter for Premier League games shown in the US.
A more recent player, Mike Grella, played for the Bees in 2011, starting 4 games, and as used sub in a further 14. He only scored 4 goals, with all of them coming in a 6-0 win over Bournemouth in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy match. This gives him a place in Brentford’s history, as the last player to score 4 goals in a game at Griffin Park. Later in his career he saw success at New York Red Bulls, where he made 73 appearances and scored 16 goals.
Brooklyn Beckham is currently in our B team, having joined from Inter Miami. Although his father never played at Griffin Park, David was there in 1998 to film a Brylcreem TV commercial.
The US was a frequent destination for club directors. Back in 1974, Bees fan and director, Rick Wakeman, a former member of the “Yes” pop group and then a solo recording artist, missed Brentford “big” League Cup trip to Anfield in 1974, as he was touring in America.
Later the same year Hollywood film producer Dan Tana joined the board, and subsequently became chairman. He owned a popular and successful restaurant in Hollywood for 45 years. Cris-crossing between the US and UK sometimes didn’t go smoothly for Dan. Late in 1975 he was on a flight to London from America. It was due in at 6am, but because of fog, the flight was diverted via Shannon in Ireland, and then he needed to go to Paris, before arriving in London at 5pm. Having travelled for 25 hours, he went straight to a committee meeting of the Brentford Supporters’ Association. The following evening, he attended a board meeting at Griffin Park.
With Tana having been replaced as chairman by Martin Lange, the latter was in the US for business in throughout the 1991-92 season, so temporarily stepped aside. Unfortunately for him he missed Brentford’s promotion to the 2nd Tier. Not to be left out, he made an international phone call to Griffin Park from America, to hear the celebrations when players and fans returned from Peterborough having clinched the title.
But one of the long-forgotten connections, goes right back to when Brentford moved to Griffin Park in 1904. The club were always looking for other revenue streams and within 3 years the club announced that they had decided to form a baseball club, which would play every Saturday during the summer.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Brentford’s baseball side won the London Baseball League in their first season and were promoted to the British League.
The team continued for a few more years, and the sport was played again in the mid-1920s, even though it was felt that the ground was too small and almost impossible to make a complete home run!
Jonathan Burchill has written a book called A Pub On Each Corner, (Amazon) with all the stats and facts about Brentford’s home for over a century which witnessed all the highs and lows with over 2,800 football matches. “GP’ the only English football stadium that had a pub on each corner. Jonathan presents a unique history of Brentford FC – from fires to floodlights, from abandoned redevelopment plans to multiple missed penalties and the social history of the Bees home.
Pop into the Bees Superstore to save transatlantic postage costs!