‘IF YOU DON’T REACH UP FOR THE STARS, YOU WON’T GET THERE’
AS SOON as you arrive at Brentford’s tidy Osterley training ground on Thursday afternoon, you realise this is no run-ofthe-mill occasion.
The weekly press conferences before Saturday matches tend to be cosy affairs with numbers on the low side.
But when there’s a new manager in town, everyone’s keen to hear what he’s got to say. The television cameras, the radio stations, the written press all turn up for a slice of the action.
So it was that Thomas Frank, the new Bees boss, breezed into the simple portakabin used for media duties, shook everyone firmly by the hand and sat down for his introductory chat.
Of course, this, in many ways, is the calm before the storm. No matches have been lost, no relationships have become strained. There is a largely positive mood with the man himself a willing interviewee.
He speaks well, displays a sense of humour and suggests there will be evolution rather than revolution at Griffin Park. That makes sense because Brentford have thrived under manager Dean Smith and his assistant head coaches Richard O’Kelly and Frank, who joined the Bees in late 2016.
Smith and O’Kelly have moved on to the Bees’ Championship rivals Aston Villa, where they have teamed up with a certain John Terry.
Frank, meanwhile, was more than happy to pick up the pieces at Griffin Park. So who is he? Well, he’s a 45-year-old Dane who freely admits he couldn’t make a living from playing the game.
“I played a lot of football at grassroots level, but I just wasn’t that good,” said the former midfielder.
That’s why he moved into coaching in his early 20s, in the youth section of a number of clubs in his homeland. He progressed to be manager of Denmark’s Under-16, 17 and 19 teams before taking on his first senior team manager’s role with Brondby in 2013.
Resigned
He led them to finishes of third and fourth in the Danish Superliga, earning Europa League qualification in the process. Bizarrely, he reportedly resigned in March 2016 after the chairman criticised him, using a pseudonym, on a fans’ forum. He doesn’t expect that to happen at Griffin Park.
Indeed, he’s just relishing his new challenge as the top man of a club in English football’s second tier.
“I’m in a very privileged position,” said the head coach. “I know
every staff member, every player, the sporting directors (Rasmus Ankersen and Phil Giles), the owner (Matthew Benham) – and they know me.
“The philosophy and the strategy are aligned and we know which way we want to go. Now it’s just up to me to push to the next level.
“We do things a little bit differently at Brentford and that suits me perfectly. We search for every small margin that we can find to our advantage.
“I believe in togetherness. We need good people, staff and players, and I believe that’s one of our main qualities. I believe in hard work, I believe in being open, honest and direct. I’m a little bit Danish in that way.
“I like to dominate on the ball and press very aggressively when we don’t have it, and that’s what we’ve been doing the last three years. We’ve been adding small details and I’d like to push these two aspects even harder.”
Frank is grateful to the departed Smith and O’Kelly for the role they’ve played in his adaption to English football.
“Dean and Richard have been pushing the club towards the level it’s at now,” he said. “They introduced me to English football, helped me and together we developed the team. Without them, I wouldn’t be sat in this chair now.
“Dean gave me a call the night he was appointed Villa manager and I wished him all the best. After I was announced as head coach here, he called me and offered his congratulations.
Congratulations
“We wished each other the best of luck and agreed that both teams can finish in the top two – with Brentford number one!”
The slim Dane is eager to continue to take Brentford forward after the shock of losing their well-liked manager and one of his key men.
The Bees have come on leaps and bounds over the last decade or so and plan to move into a plush new 17,250-seater stadium at Lionel Road, less than a mile away from Griffin Park, for the start of the 2020-21 season.
That will give them the chance to earn greater revenue than they currently can at their beloved but cramped current home.
“Griffin Park is a wonderful place,” said Frank. “There is that little bit of extra atmosphere there. It’s a big part of the English football soul. You can feel it, sense it, smell it. We need to bring some of the soul and smell to the new ground.”
The new boss promises to leave no stone unturned as he bids to take Brentford to the promised land of the Premier League. They made the Championship play-offs in 2014-15 under Mark Warburton and have since been a steady top ten side in the second tier.
“I think we are on a high level, but if you don’t reach for the stars then you won’t get up there,” said Frank, who used to watch the likes of Jan Molby (Liverpool) and Peter Schmeichel (Manchester United) playing in English football when he was younger.
“We performed at a top level against Leeds (in the 1-1 draw at Elland Road two weeks ago) and the big thing is to do that consistently. If we do a little bit extra every day, we can go to the next level.”
Whether Frank, who is looking to bring in two assistants, will be as popular with the players now that he’s in charge remains to be seen, a fact he himself acknowledges.
“On Friday mornings some of them will not be happy (when I name the team),” he smiled. “That’s the biggest change. I’ll still try to be close to them.”
Frank will hope that his players can continue to shine this term. It won’t do his standing in his native Denmark any harm if he could take the unheralded Bees, seventh pre-weekend, into the Premier League.
“The funny thing is that 25 years ago I didn’t have a dream to be a coach in a foreign country,” he said. “It was step by step, trying to keep my head down, work hard.”
He names former long-standing Denmark boss Morten Olsen, who he later worked with in the national team set-up, as one of his inspirations and admits there is one manager’s job that could tempt him in future if it was offered to him.
“I think everyone should have an ambition, a dream, to coach their country, but it’s not in my mind at all now,” he added.
He’s got enough on his plate.