These are the stories of three individuals, each of whom, together with Brian Burgess and Paul Stedman, have a chapter in our book. The story of the journey to Lionel road.
Matt Dolman reckoned we could build a stadium at Lionel Road
In 2002 Matt was a newly qualified architect lodging in Layton Road TW8, just two streets from Griffin Park. “One of my post graduate projects at Cambridge was about the railways’ lands at the back of King’s Cross.
He set himself a challenge: would it be possible to fit a new stadium into a tight triangle of railway lines at the other end of Brentford?
Mike Power (Former CEO of the London 2012 bid team), Greg Dyke and Cliff Crown
Greg Dyke, was Chairman of Brentford FC from 2006 to 2013. A veteran of GP since the age of 8, he invested £100k when he was appointed (returned when Greg was appointed to the Chair of the FA)
One of Greg’s first games was when Brentford knocked Sunderland out of the FA Cup in January 2006 with those two goals by DJ Campbell.
A friend rang Greg at the time and said “Greg, leave now. Resign. It doesn’t get any better”.
It did but with some hard graft. Greg’s contacts were useful with the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown onside and Ken Livingstone former Mayor of London. Greg’s chapter is below
Cliff’s speech at the stadium groundbreaking, March 2018
Cliff Crown is a figure we all know of course but the story does go back to 2010.
Cliff qualified as a chartered accountant in 1981 and achieved partner in 1985. Cliff joined Matthew Benham’s, Smartodds as CFO in 2010 and was appointed to the BFC board in June 2012, becoming Chair a year later taking over from Greg Dyke as Club Chairman in June 2013.
In his annual report, Cliff wrote about the ‘ target date of playing our first game in the new stadium at the start of the 2016-17 season’. And the journey became successful reality in September 2020, hosting its first Premier League match in August 2021 beating a North London team to open that season! Cliff’s chapter is below.
Matt Dolman
Greg Dyke
Cliff Crown
