History of Brentford F.C. (1954–1986)

Brentford Football Club is an English professional football club based in Brentford, Hounslow, London. The club was founded in October 1889, as the local sportsmen's latest attempt to form a permanent football or rugby club in the town. By 1896, Brentford had joined the London League, progressing to the Southern League in 1898 and entering the Football League in 1920.

Brentford's rise from the Third Division South to the First Division had come full circle by 1954, with the club back in the bottom-tier for the first time since 1933. After consistently challenging for promotion to the Second Division in the mid-late 1950s, a further decline set in, which led to relegation to the new Fourth Division in 1962 and the club almost went out of existence in 1967. Brentford yo-yoed between the Third and Fourth Divisions through much of the 1960s and 1970s, before finally re-establishing itself in the Third Division after promotion in 1978.

Relegation to the Third Division South at the end of the 1953–54 season meant that 1954–55 would be Brentford's first in the bottom-tier for 21 years. The £10,000 sale of Jimmy Bloomfield was used to pay off debts and though manager Bill Dodgin Sr. had no budget with which to work, the youth team's increasing productivity under Alf Bew presented the club with a conveyor belt of homegrown talent. During the season, the graduation of forwards Jim Towers, George Francis, Dennis Heath and goalkeeper Gerry Cakebread, allied with the experience of former youths Wally Bragg and George Bristow, would become crucial to future promotion-pushes. After a mid-table finish in 1954–55, Jim Towers' 22 goals in the 1955–56 season fired Brentford to 6th-place and George Francis established himself as Towers' strike partner in 1956–57, scoring 24 goals to secure another top-half finish. It was announced in March 1957 that manager Dodgin would leave the club at the end of the 1956–57 season.

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