Brentford

Brentford

Brentford Football Club, founded in 1889 in west London and playing at the modern 17,250-capacity Brentford Community Stadium since 2020, achieved promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 74 years in May 2021 after defeating Swansea in the Championship play-off final at Wembley. Owned and transformed by data analytics pioneer Matthew Benham, the club became one of English football's smartest operators — discovering and developing undervalued talent including Ollie Watkins, Said Benrahma, Emiliano Martínez, and Ivan Toney, who set a Championship goalscoring record in the promotion season. Under Danish coach Thomas Frank, Brentford finished ninth in their debut Premier League season of 2022-23 with 59 points and built a reputation for direct, efficient football that consistently outperformed their resources. Frank departed for Chelsea in January 2025, leaving a legacy as the club's most impactful manager in nearly a century.