A MANAGER PRAISING HIS CLUB’S supporters is routine stuff — not to mention basic PR — but the bond between Martin Allen and the Brentford fans seems to be genuine. Last week, he spoke out on their behalf after the club’s bungling had denied many of them seats for Saturday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie and even drove to Southampton to appeal to Rupert Lowe, the Barclays Premiership club’s chairman, for more tickets.
On Saturday, they showed their appreciation as he conducted their cheers after the final whistle, and no wonder, after the team he has built had come back from 2-0 down at St Mary’s to reach the draw for the sixth round for the first time since 1989. Those who missed attending this match and had to content themselves with watching it on a big screen at Griffin Park were cheering just as loudly now that the Coca-Cola League One club will get a second chance to see their team play Southampton, in the replay tomorrow week.
Allen permits them to take liberties that others are not allowed, such as calling him Mad Dog, the nickname that has stuck since his playing days but one that he does not like. “Would you?” he asked. “The people that pay their money can call me what they like. But people who don’t know me, don’t know how I operate and the work I put in, and the depth of preparations and organisation, just think it’s motivation and diving in rivers.”
He has done little to counter that impression by braving the Tees and the Solent before the team’s past two matches, but he expects to give the Thames a miss before the replay. “You don’t get a team to play like that by diving in a river,” he said. “You get a team like that by working long, long hours on the practice pitch so they all know their job. And then people say, ‘He’s mad and he gets them to run like crazy.’ There’s a great deal more than that at Brentford. On Monday lunchtime, when the name of Brentford comes out, it is going to be very special.”
However, Brentford were a long way from that sixth-round draw when Southampton led 2-0 after 36 minutes, and it could have been more. Five minutes before the interval, though, Isaiah Rankin took Sam Sodje’s pass down the left, stepped inside Claus Lundekvam and curled the ball round Paul Smith, the former Brentford goalkeeper, and Allen took the opportunity to deliver an unusual half-time talk. “I told them to be nice to the ball instead of bashing it,” he said. “I asked them to treat the ball like they treat their girlfriends — with respect.”
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The players’ response reflects well on their relationships with their significant others. They relaxed, began to dominate and equalised when Sodje, a central defender signed on a free transfer from Margate last summer, arrived to head in a delicately flighted cross by Jay Tabb.
Southampton had shown their worried supporters that their habit of blowing match-winning leads is not confined to the Premiership, although they were unlucky when a strike by Kevin Phillips with the last kick of the match was incorrectly ruled offside. A draw was almost the worst result for the home team, for defeat would have avoided the need for another match and the risk of a humiliation greater than their 5-2 Carling Cup defeat away to Watford in November.
The FA Cup is proving an unwanted distraction for Southampton because it is the Premiership that they want to stay in at all costs. Tomorrow evening, they play West Bromwich Albion away and Harry Redknapp, the Southampton manager, knows that he cannot risk playing the open game at The Hawthorns that he did on Saturday, with Peter Crouch, Henri Camara and Phillips up front. Camara scored twice from close range to bring his total to four goals in three appearances for the club, but the third that would have settled the tie refused to come.
“It was a gamble to play as we did and it all went well for 40 minutes,” Redknapp said. “I’m happy we are still in it, but we have some important league games and I could have done without the replay stuck in between. We should have won today, but of course we want to win on Tuesday.”
Harry Redknapp still found time to praise Allen, who played for him at West Ham United, although he could not resist a final barb. “I like Martin,” he said. “He has done well. And he jumped in the Solent. What do they say? ‘No sense, no feeling’.”