Tags: Hey Jude, Brentford, Brentford Community Stadium, The Beatles

By James Flint

Brentford Football Club is much more than just your average Premier League club, from South West London and that wear red and white. It is community oriented and incredibly proud of their identity, even if they are branded by most other clubs in the premier league as a smaller club. No more is this the case than a very special part of any match day at the Gtech Community Stadium – with a little bit of help from a certain band from Liverpool in the 1960s.  

Brentford’s supporters are seen before the game and when the players and Thomas Frank walk around the pitch after every win, belting out the famous Beatles tune Hey Jude. You can feel how much it means to the club as the amount of passion from every man, woman and child that is in the ground is clear to see as they are all united with one song. However, just like a fan’s first match day at Brentford, the origins of how the song became the anthem for the bees, is very special. 

Peter Gilham BEM, Brentford Club Ambassador and Stadium Announcer at the Gtech Community Stadium, recalls the beginnings of how the song came to be: 

“Hey Jude had come out in 1968 and I started working at Brentford in 1969 and became the stadium announcer. I had been working in radio since 1966, so when a friend came along and said do you want the job, I said yes because I have been a fan of Brentford since I was seven.

“It was in the 70s that song came about at Brentford because I was in a group that went to all the home and away games. One of the people in the group was called Judy Kaufman who is sadly no longer with us, but we used to call her Jude. One match day I decided to put on Hey Jude for her.

“Then supporters started to create chants around the song, you know what fans are like, and it became bigger and bigger and has become the anthem that it is today.” 

Even the origin story of this emotional tradition mirrors the rise of Brentford as a club: from a small and humble beginning, that very first match day Hey Jude was played, to steadily rising through the divisions of English football, the section of fans that started to change the lyrics into a Brentford chant, to the promotion to the premier league, Hey Jude becoming the anthem of Brentford. 

Hey Jude means a lot to many Brentford fans just Isaac Abell, 20, Thomas Aymat, 20 and Theodore Raisbeck, 20, who are all season ticket holders at Brentford. With all three of them having distinctive memories with the song. 

Raisbeck says: “It means a lot, I have a lot of good memories with that song, it’s got a great sense of community and especially in the sense you can easily be accepted as a Brentford fan because its already a really popular song but with a little Brentford twist on it so it was very easy to get involved in it.” 

Aymat reflects on one of his earliest matchdays that he can remember and hearing Hey Jude at Brentford’s old ground Griffin Park, he says: “It was a week in December, near Christmas time in 2018 when we played Fulham at home, we beat them 1-0 it was a Bryan (Mbuemo) winner, Hey Jude was incredible that day.” 

However, if you ask any Brentford fan, what their best memory of Hey Jude being sung at Brentford is, most likely you are only going to get one answer: ‘Arsenal at home, first home game in the Premier League.’ 

Abell says: “It was just such a moment, first game in the prem, first game at the new stadium as well with fans back from Covid, it was just a whole moment, it was pretty surreal to be honest, the whole place was bouncing, it was unreal.” 

Aymat agrees with Abell as he says: “The whole night just felt like a dream. Friday night, under the lights, the game itself, what a win that was, but I just remember screaming at the top of my lungs singing Hey Jude at the end of the game when the players and Thomas Frank were walking around the pitch it was amazing.” 

Gilham was even feeling emotions just talking about that night as he says: “I am getting goosebumps just thinking about that night, it was incredibly special for everyone associated with Brentford football club, the atmosphere that night was electric, so many happy faces because it was a once in a lifetime moment.” 

However, from an outsider looking in at Brentford and perhaps didn’t know the background to the song, it would seem strange to choose a song from The Beatles as their club anthem. But Abell believes that it gives them an even stronger identity as he says: “I think a lot of people when they hear it will go ‘what is going on here, why are they singing that? But we have been doing it since the 70s and it has just become part of us now. As well as the lyrics fit with the song. It comes across weird at first, but once you read up on it, it clicks into place.”  

Raisbeck agrees with Abell as he says: “I think the fact that it did start with a small group of fans replacing the lyrics and creating a funny chant and now it has become a massive club anthem at Brentford is actually pretty cool.” 

No matter how weird and wonderful you may think it is, what is undeniable is how much the song means to any Brentford supporter. Aymat says: “It means a massive amount to Brentford, it is integral, it is absolutely fundamental to the club. If you remember all the great memories you have looking back as a Brentford fan, they are all going to include that song in some way. It doesn’t even have to be playing for you to be screaming Hey Jude in a pub. It’s instrumental to Brentford.” 

Abell agrees with Aymat in the sense that it no longer is just at the ground that he can still the affect of the song as he says: “Even if I hear it, like just in the shower or something like that, it gives me goosebumps because when you first hear it in the stadium, all of the people singing it together, it sticks with you. 

“I liked the song before Brentford, but now it’s just an association, everytime I hear it, I am always thinking about Brentford.” 

But Rasibeck has more fond memories of inside the ground as he says: “It means a lot, it reminds me of more recent memories, of big wins that we have had.” 

The amount of passion that you can hear when the fans sing Hey Jude can rival any other team in the country because it feels like a different kind of support when the song comes on, you’re not just supporting a football club anymore, you are supporting an identity and a community which is Brentford. 

No more can this be true, when Gilham talks about the former set pieces coach Bernardo Cueva initiation: 

“Every player and coach that joins the team, on their first away match with the club they have got to get up and sing a song. You know most of the time the players get up and do rap tunes and all that crap in my opinion, but when it became Bernardo’s turn to get up and do it, it was special because he got up and sang Hey Jude, and once it got to the chorus the whole squad started to sing it.

“Whether he did it on purpose or not, doesn’t matter. Whether he did it just to become a popular member of our squad or not, doesn’t matter. What matters in my opinion is it united the entire squad together as one.” 

As Gilham was saying this I could see that he was getting a little emotional even talking about it, but it just shows how much Hey Jude means to people. Even the players feel the emotion of the song as they are walking out to the pitch. 

Gilham reflects on that Arsenal match where he saw just how much it meant to the players, he says: “On the Arsenal match day, first day in the premier, I remember sitting right at the back where I normally sit for the games, and I was looking at Pontus (Jansen) our club captain at the time, and I could see him getting a bit emotional when the fans sang the song. For me that meant a lot because it just showed how much he cared about Brentford.

“Even Ivan (Toney) has said to me, as I am the player welfare officer as well, that it motivates him even more when he hears Hey Jude being sung by the fans, so of course it gives us an edge at every home game.”  

However, if Hey Jude was going to mean the most to anyone, it was going to be Mr Brentford himself as they call him, Peter Gilham, as he says: “It makes me incredibly proud to see something that started by just playing a song at a game to become the anthem of the club, my football club, it means an incredible amount to me, it’s everything to me Hey Jude, because it’s Brentford. That’s it.” 

(Featured image courtesy of sarflondondunc on Flickr. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarflondondunc/)