BRENTFORD
Premier League, Gtech Community Stadium, Sunday 14 May 2023, 2pm
West Ham United take on Brentford in their penultimate away game of the 2022/23 Premier League season on Sunday.
The Hammers’ final London derby of the campaign will pit David Moyes’ side against Thomas Frank’s high-flying Bees, who have enjoyed a second successive impressive top-flight season.
Opened in September 2020, the 17,250-capacity Gtech Community Stadium initially hosted EFL Championship fixtures without supporters present due to the COVID pandemic, with Brentford playing a home game in front of fans there for the first time when drawing 2-2 with Blackburn Rovers on 5 December 2020.
Since then, Brentford celebrated an historic promotion to the Premier League, finishing third in the Championship before defeating Swansea City 2-0 in the 2021 Play-Off final, before finishing 13th with 46 points last season – a tally they will almost certainly better this term.
How to get there…
Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium is well served by public transport, with a number of railway and Underground stations within walking distance.
The nearest station is Kew Bridge, which is in Zone 3 on the South Western Railway line from London Waterloo and Clapham Junction.
An alternative route is via Gunnersbury, which is a ten-minute walk east of the stadium and is served by the London Underground District line and London Overground.
There are other nearby London Underground stations within a 20-minute walk - Chiswick Park (District line), Acton Town (District and Piccadilly lines) and South Ealing (Piccadilly line).
Where to stay…
You are unlikely to be staying overnight for a Sunday afternoon kick-off in west London, but if you are travelling to London from outside the capital, there are literally thousands of hotels, guest houses, apartments and more to choose from all over the city if you need overnight accommodation.
If you would like to stay near the stadium, Brentford is served by at least three well-known branded hotels, as well as a number of independent accommodation options.
What to do…
London, of course, has attractions for all the family and to suit all budgets and tastes.
While the capital’s top tourist spots are well-known, we will concentrate instead on things to do in and around this particular area of west London.
The most famous attraction, by far, is the Royal Botanic Gardens, just across Kew Bridge on the south bank of the River Thames, which opened in 1759 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Open from 10am-7pm, you can book tickets in advance from £15 for Adults and £5 for Children aged 4-15. Inside, you can view one of the largest living plant collections in the world and a host of historic buildings, including the Temperate House, Palm House and Great Pagoda.
What’s happened there before…
This will be just our fourth visit to Gtech Community Stadium, and our second of the current campaign.
The Hammers have mixed memories of their three previous visits, having won a pre-season match 1-0 there in July 2021, but then been beaten 2-0 in a Premier League fixture in April 2022.
Former Bees winger Saïd Benrahma netted the only goal of the game to secure that pre-season win, with only 500 West Ham fans present to celebrate it due to ongoing COVID pandemic restrictions.
There were significantly more Hammers in the crowd for the Premier League fixture, but those who were will want to forget a dismal performance and a win for the home side capped by second-half goals scored by Brentford forwards Bryan Mbuemo and Ivan Toney.
Benrahma struck again in January this year, rifling a 25-yarder past Thomas Strakosha after Declan Rice had won the ball back inside the Brentford half to secure a 1-0 Emirates FA Cup third-round win over his old team.
