Express & Star

Jonny Phillips: Footie spotting... choose terracing

Tuesday night was throwback football in all its glory for the travelling Wolves supporters.

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It has been a testing season for those loyal fans who regularly empty their pockets to follow the Wanderers on the road. But at Brentford there was a pay back that will live long in the memory for those present. And it came laced with a good dose of nostalgia.

I rarely get the opportunity to turn up to football as a fan, with so many Soccer Saturdays and midweek Soccer Specials to cover during a season, but on Tuesday there was a gap in the work rota that allowed for a trip to Griffin Park, Brentford's home of 113 years.

This is a unique ground in the top two divisions; it is the only venue that both retains its terracing and has not been redeveloped or built this century.

Outdated it may be, but this particular west London football haunt retains great character and is a fantastic place to watch football.

They are proposing to move into a multi-purpose all-seater venue down the road in Kew in the next few years. It won't just be the Bees supporters who will miss it when they do.

One of the venue's many charms is a wide choice of pre-match pubs in close proximity that cater for home and away fans, something that seems to be on the decline with the rise of out-of-town stadia and the more draconian controls on visiting fans' movements.

Walking into the away end is like stepping back through time.

The entrance to the turnstiles is situated down an alley on Brook Road next to rows of Victorian terraced housing. At night the houses all around the ground are lit up by the floodlights.

Once through the turnstiles it's either up the stairs to the second tier seating or straight through to the small covered terrace below.

Oh for a terrace and the joy of choice that brings. As Renton didn't quite say: choose to stand with your mates, choose not to stand by the bloke moaning loudly, choose a good view, choose a bad view, choose the noisy support behind the goal, choose the quiet appreciation on the periphery. Choose terracing.

It was a perfect scene. An unseasonal warm London night with the four traditional floodlights on pylons glaring down upon the pristine green turf, the freshly mown grass close enough to smell. The players entered the field just in front of us from the tiny tunnel down in the corner of the main stand.

And Wolves wore their all old gold strip. That was important. Far too often this season they've turned up in that fluorescent green effort on their travels.

That's not a gripe restricted to Wolves. Why do so many teams play in change kits away from home when it is unnecessary? There is the weak commercial and marketing argument for it, but fans don't want to see their clubs in a change kit more than is absolutely necessary.

A football team has one set of colours. That's a crucial part of the identity a club, why dilute it?

The Wolves of Tuesday night shone under the lights. There was meaning and purpose to everything they did, slick with their passing and stretching play out wide whenever possible to put their opponents on the back foot. Chance after chance was created. This wasn't the Wolves heading towards League One. But then maybe it was. Brentford scored with their very first attack. Carl Ikeme, a redundant bystander until then, trudged back towards the Wolves fans behind his goal and scooped the ball out of the net.

Wolves weren't to be subdued. After half-time, kicking towards their own supporters, they relentlessly attacked in search of an equaliser. This was good football with an end product. The bar was struck, Brentford's keeper Daniel Bentley pulled off fingertip saves, corners were scrambled clear. The volume went up in the away end. Fans and players encouraging each other on. But with only five minutes to go it was still Brentford who were leading. No-one was giving up hope in the Brook Road Stand though.

There may have been let-downs aplenty this season but the Wolves support stuck with their team and when Matt Doherty bundled in the equaliser the lid was lifted and the supporters spilled about the terracing, limbs flailing in all directions. You'd take a point away from home. That's a useful point in anyone's book but when you're down at the bottom it's an especially good night's work.

So when substitute Ivan Cavaleiro put in one last cross and Helder Costa advanced on the loose ball in the penalty area there was a split second to think the unthinkable. 'They're not gonna go and win this are they?'

These moments are what terraces are really made for. Pandemonium.

Grown men old enough to know better cascading down the steps to get as close as they can to the pitch and celebrate with the jubilant players. 1-0 down 2-1 up. With just a minute to go. Those were the days.

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