Thomas Frank, Brentford manager, led the Bees to the top flight for only the second time since 1947Brentford coach Kevin O'Connor can't help but laugh when he thinks back.O'Connor talks about the journey Brentford has been on, as the west London side prepares to make a return to England's top flight this week.He recalls the time between 2007 and 2009 when Brentford was in the fourth tier English football. They finished one place behind the defunct Bury.There was only one building on the training grounds.O'Connor says that the canteen doubled as a gym after he played in 501 games as Brentford's player. He then joined the club's coaching staff, and is now part Thomas Frank's first team group. "The kit man doubled as the chef.""He was a nice chap, but he couldn't make beans or spaghetti on toast."There was a partition wall, but it didn’t reach the ceiling. Pull-ups were a favorite activity of mine. I was able to see for 10 yards ahead, through the partition wall, what other people were eating for lunch. People would be eating pasta while you were working out. It was terrible."You must experience those times in order to appreciate what is available to you now."Brentford finally got a proper kitchen, and a proper workout room.O'Connor admitted that the training ground was like 'Portakabin City' because of the sheer number of temporary buildings in use. However, it serves as a reminder of the place where Matthew Benham's vision and finance has taken them.After missing a penalty in the last game against Doncaster, Brentford was not promoted to League One in 2013."Our goal was to be promoted to League One."In League Two, Brentford was 14th behind Bury in 2008. Wrexham, which was a smaller club in terms of ground size and average attendance, was relegated from the National League. They never came back.The Bees never fell into the relegation zone but they did flirt with it."At that time, the limit of what we could achieve was thinking that we might get in League One," says Ian Westbrook. He is a lifelong Brentford supporter and contributes to the award-winning Beesotted podcast."If someone said that we would be in Premier League within 15 Years, I would have laughed at it. That was impossible to imagine."I have been following Brentford since 1971. The average attendance was 5,000. We were the only team to reach the top two divisions in 1992.It's fair to say that Westbrook and others like him have paid their dues for Brentford fans. In 2013, he was present for the Doncaster game, when the Bees missed an injury-time penalty which would have sent them up the Championship. He was also there in 1995, when only one team was promoted. The Bees finished second in the play-offs and were defeated by Huddersfield. He was present on Monday 31 October 1983 when Brentford lost 6-0 to Southend.They are growing tired of the Moneyball story, but it is hard to argue that Benham's initial cash injection and subsequent strategy for running a club at this level has changed their fortunes.Find players and give them a chance to win matches. Then, make a profit by selling them on. It sounds simple.Rejects are better than the academyIt is difficult to recruit when Queens Park Rangers, Fulham, Chelsea and Fulham are all within six miles of your home. Brentford made the controversial decision in 2016 to close their academy and focus instead on recruiting cast-offs from larger clubs when they turned 16.Brentford's codirector of football Phil Giles says that there was a season when Leeds, Aston Villa and Newcastle were all in the Championship. "You cannot compete with these clubs by just throwing money at them."The academy's move was courageous in hindsight, but it felt natural at the time.Spending money on 8-9-year-olds that would not make it to our first team was a waste of resources. Our goal was to make our first-team squad as strong as possible within a budget.Brentford created a B team to bridge the gap between the Under-18s and the Under-23s football teams.Giles says that there was nothing revolutionary about the process. "We simply needed to get ideas from somewhere else.""A new era in an old place"Griffin Park is a familiar sight to anyone who has driven into central London via the M4.At least now, in addition the futuristic façade, there is a large club badge on Brentford's ground of call, the 17,250-capacity Community Stadium. It is located about a mile from Griffin Park.The stadium is an example of how space can be used, as it is enclosed on three sides by railway tracks and there is no scope for expansion.There is a sadness in Brentford's rise to the Premier League. It comes from the fact that Griffin Park, the club’s home for 116-years, is gone.Officials of clubs hope that the club's special atmosphere can be replicated in their new location. Visitors find it equally awkward.O'Connor says, "One of my jobs was to clean Griffin Park's away dressing room. So I know firsthand how horrible it was.""There wasn't enough space for a start when you had 20-man squads coming down to teams. It was small. It had a concrete floor and one toilet. The door wouldn't shut. It was terrible.Westbrook says, "I would love to have seen all of this happen at Griffin Park." Since I was a small boy, I have been going there. It was our home. It's just a mile away. It's possible to park at the same spot and do the exact same thing. It's a new era at a new location.
