What we’re reading between the lines - Christmas Special
Hello!
Each week we put together a curated list of the best of what we’re reading from around the web. This week we wanted to use this space to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!
With Christmas fast approaching and the end to the strangest year in a number of generations visible across the horizon, we’re in a reflective mood at Bees Tactical.
We want to thank-you all for your views, shares, retweets, donations, coffees, subscriptions and any contribution you have made to Bees Tactical throughout the year. It means the world to us and keeps us going.
Around us, the world is going through dramatic changes. Industries often thought of as pivotal are suffering in their droves. Unless you happen to work in disasters or food retail, every walk of life has been affected in a negative way.
However, amongst the continuous waves of darkness, tiny embers of light have shone through.
Whatever our individual views on the morality of football being played throughout a global pandemic, we did get the sport we love, back.
We were entertained and distracted when it mattered most - especially so as Brentford fans - even though it was a sanitised version of the spectacle we know and love. Even though it was a mimicked version, a muted version with it’s core element removed, it was some version, and it brought us such joy, the run to the Play-Off Final, for instance.
We started this page last year because we felt Brentford FC was both underrepresented and misrepresented in the media. At mainstream level, there is almost no serious coverage of The Bees. If feels like there is little bother to cover Brentford other than through an obligation. It has no dedicated beat journalist getting into the thick of things at Jersey Road and it has taken people like Stuart Hughes, the creator of Bees Bulletin to carve out a news media channel from a shed.
London itself has very few journalists scrutinising this great club and Brentford is rarely covered in a way that exceeds box ticking. For a team that is so interesting, for a team that doesn’t follow the herd, it should not be the case.
That’s why we started our page, Bees Tactical, to help scrutinize and analyse the game by game process of it all.
That being said, we’re still a really small voice.
We at times feel like we’re fighting into the wind and screaming into a void that echoes back “Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester United”, but as a group of people contributing, we are slowly growing in weight.
With your support we’ll continue to expand. We’ll preview, review, analyse and talk about what we’re seeing and predicting and we’ll continue to do it all in the hope that the story and coverage of Brentford improves further.
With your help and the help of others we are sure it will.
It’s been a topsy turvy year for most of us outside of football and it’s been a topsy turvy year for us on the pitch too. What does the phrase “topsy turvy” even mean when it comes to football? I think it means highs and lows, ups and downs, good and bad, nearly and maybe. So I guess it is right, then, in this context, and we wouldn't have it any other way. It’s Brentford init.
As our search for the Premier League continues throughout the busiest time of the year we’ll leave you with this message:
Have a wonderful and safe Christmas. Keep your loved ones safe and remember postponements aren't forever.
We fully intend to ease right down and have a break in the next week or so yet something tells us the buzz will keep us going throughout.
Whatever happens across the festive weeks, we’ll be refreshed and raring to go in the New Year!
Stay safe and well, thanks for your support and be sure to look after yourselves.