Brentford manager, Uwe Rosler

“Brentford fans used to say that ‘we never win on the telly’, although that has changed in recent years – one thing we can say still is that ‘we never win on Setanta’ and the Bees are not likely to either”

FA Cup First Round weekend is upon us and Brentford have been drawn at home to Blue Square Bet South side Basingstoke.

Whenever the FA Cup pits a side a couple of divisions apart pundits always come out with well used clichés; ‘It’s the magic of the Cup’, ‘banana skin’, ‘David against Goliath’ and so on and so forth – I’m sure we’ll see all of them mentioned in quick succession on ITV when Halifax play Charlton. I’ll try and keep those clichés away from this blog.

Over the years Brentford have shocked some top flight sides, most recently beating Sunderland in the fourth round of the 2005/06 FA Cup (the year they went down with the lowest points total at the time).

However Brentford have also been beaten by non-league sides, most recently away at Barrow in the 2008/09 season on a cold Friday night in November (that match was only a slight black spot as the Bees went on to claim the League Two title that year). The match was live on Setanta before they went into financial turmoil.

Brentford fans used to say that ‘we never win on the telly’, although that has changed in recent years – one thing we can say still is that ‘we never win on Setanta’ and the Bees are not likely to either.

Being realistic the best Brentford can hope for is a run to the latter stages – it would be great if the Bees could draw one of the Premier League giants away from home.

That is, of course, if the Bees can get past Basingstoke at Griffin Park on Saturday, which is something nobody can take for granted in this competition. At the end of the day the Dragons pose a potential banana skin to Brentford’s progress in the greatest cup competition in the world. So close!