We shouldn’t really be encouraging fans to drink in the present circumstances, should we? Still, here goes:-

Here we go again, the grass will be two feet long at Bescot by now.

Rising like a mirage at the end of the joyless desert of five successive away games is Griffin Park, a stadium named after a brewery, with a pub at each of its corners, the legendary Brentford Four.

It’s best to start with the Royal Oak on New Road (to the right of the home end as you approach from the away end or to the left from Brentford station). This Courage House is the smallest of the four and tends not to let anyone in after about 2pm and is a mighty fine hostelry, although a little small for a pre-match pub and somewhat home orientated.

Moving round the ground anti-clockwise from the away end you have the more spacious oddly shaped “Griffin” which is a Fullers house boasting several real ales, and then heading back up the other side of the ground to Ealing Road the Princess Royal that also serves Fullers. The latter was closed last year having been bought by the Bees and refurbished but is now thankfully back in business.

Finally back on New Road there is the pick of the bunch for away fans, that being the New Inn. This is another that treats its patrons to an excellent pint of Directors, but importantly the staff are superb, the sarnies gargantuan, and it’s the kind of pub that sends one off to a freezing open terrace temporarily numb with contentment, and a feeling that maybe today will be Walsall’s day.

Then the match starts.

The New Inn also does B and B for those who fall totally in love with the place, and with a great juke-box, pool-table, and outlandishly flirtatious barmaids it’s on my list of retirement homes.

There are some pubs on Brentford High St. None of which are necessary in the context of a trip to Griffin Park, although for anyone arriving at Brentford station the Kings Arms is adjacent if you need a piddle and a pint of London Pride, although on my last visit there seemed little distinction between the two.