Griffin Park

Griffin Park was a football ground in Brentford in the London Borough of Hounslow. It stood in a residential area and was known for having a pub on each of its four corners. The ground took its name from the griffin in the logo of Fuller’s Brewery, which once owned the orchard where the stadium was built. Brentford played there from 1904 until 2020. The site had once been home to a gypsy camp before work began. Local volunteers cut down the orchard trees and kept the wood for themselves. The ground opened with a Western League match against Plymouth Argyle on 1 September 1904. The first competitive fixture ended in a 1–1 draw after Tommy Shanks equalised in the final minutes. The Braemar Road grandstand was declared unsafe on the same day and closed until repairs were made. Brentford’s first Football League game at the ground came in 1920, with Reginald Boyne scoring the only goal. A new grandstand replaced the old ‘cow shed’ after the club’s FA Cup run in 1926–27. By the mid-1930s the ground held 38,000, its largest capacity. Visitors found four distinct stands: Braemar Road, Ealing Road, Brook Road and New Road. The Braemar Road stand housed dressing rooms, offices and a recreation room beneath its seats. The Brook Road ‘kop’ was later replaced by a two-tiered stand nicknamed the ‘Wendy House’. A fire in 1983 damaged the Braemar Road stand, leading to a rebuilt players’ tunnel at the western corner. The pitch was moved a few metres west in 2006 to fit box goal nets. The ground’s final years saw LED boards and goal-line technology installed before Brentford left for a new stadium.