During the 1948–49 English football season, Brentford competed in the Football League Second Division. It was Harry Curtis' final season as manager and he was replaced by Jackie Gibbons in February 1949. Brentford ended the season in 18th-place, just one point away from a second relegation in three seasons, though the Bees advanced to the sixth round of the FA Cup for the third time in the club's history.

Brentford manager Harry Curtis prepared conservatively for the 1948–49 Second Division season, with inside forward Viv Woodward and wing half Paddy Harris being his only additions to the first team. It was announced on the eve of the season that Curtis would step down from the manager's position at the end of the campaign and he reflected the need to build for the future with his signing of youngster Les Devonshire in May 1948 and over the course of the following five months,Jimmy Anders, Micky Bull and Billy Dare would all sign, though Dare would go on to be the only one of the quartet to make an impact on the first team.

After two wins from the opening seven matches, Curtis signed Leicester City forward Peter McKennan for £8,000, though he failed to have an immediate effect on the team's goalscoring problems. Brentford were able to stay afloat in mid-table due to the low number of goals conceded. The Essential Work Order made it almost impossible for the Bees to sign any player aged under 30, due to the club having spent £28,300 (almost double the club's net income) on six new players during the previous financial year, with only Jack Chisholm and Fred Monk aged under 30. Amidst a dire run of form in league matches around the turn of the year, Peter McKennan finally came into form and scored 9 goals in a seven-match spell, firing Brentford into the sixth round of the FA Cup for the second time in four seasons. In the midst of the run was Brentford's biggest win of the season (8–2 versus Bury on 19 February 1949), in which McKennan became the third (and as of the end of the 2015–16 season) most recent Bees player to score five goals in a Football League match. The Bury fixture also marked the first match in charge for player/manager Jackie Gibbons, having replaced Harry Curtis, who would remain with the club until the end of the season as an advisor to Gibbons. Brentford's FA Cup run ended with defeat to Leicester City in the sixth round, with the 38,678 crowd setting a new Griffin Park record which still stands as of May 2016.

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