Brentford Community Stadium/Gtech Community Stadium (Brentford)

The Brentford Community Stadium, also known for sponsorship reasons as the Gtech Community Stadium, is a stadium in Brentford, West London and the home of Premier League club Brentford, with Premiership Rugby club London Irish also tenants. The stadium has a capacity of 17,250 and is suitable for use for both association football and rugby union matches. Opened in 2020, the stadium is at the heart of plans to regenerate the surrounding area, including new homes and commercial opportunities.

General information

Official website: www.brentfordcommunitystadium.com

Arena capacity: 17,250 spectators

Address: Lionel Rd S, Brentford TW8 0RU, UK

GPS coordinates for the navigator: 51.4908° N, 0.2886° W

Year of construction: 2020

Construction cost: £71 million

Field: Desso Grassmaster lawn with dimensions of 105 x 68 m

Seating plan of Brentford Community Stadium

The stadium has a capacity of 17,250. Those seats are laid out in a bowl style, though in a smaller manner to some of the more impressive metropolitan stadiums on the continent.

The premium seats, dugouts, and media seats are available on the south stand. The family area is located in the North stand, while the hard-core supporters can be seen on the West stand. The south-east corner of the eastern stand will also host the Brentford supporters. The hospitality facilities provided in this new ground are built to modern standards.

As an away fan visiting Brentford’s ground, you will find yourself seated in the East Stand of the Brentford Community Stadium. You will not completely occupy the stand, as only a small section will be devoted to the visitors. There are premium seating options which are available on an individual or monthly basis.

Where to buy tickets?

Ticket prices for Brentford games are easy enough to understand. They put their matches into two main categories (A and B) and within each grade, they charge more or less depending on where in the ground you want to sit. You’ll also pay a different amount if you’re an adult, a junior or a senior citizen.

The prices are a little less for those buying tickets in the family stand, and you can also splash out and sit in the dugout.

Brentford Members get priority access to home games as well as a discount on ticket prices.

You can buy tickets online, in person from the box office or over the phone.

How to get there?

Getting to Brentford Community Stadium is simple, no matter where you’re travelling from.

Train

The stadiums is to be found about 100 metres from Kew Bridge Station, which is on the Hounslow Loop Line. It’s also about a mile away from Brentford Station, Gunnersbury Stadium and Kew Gardens Station. On top of that, it’s situated not far from Acton Town, Gunnersbury and Chiswick Park stations on the London Underground system.

Bus

Given the proximity to some major London sights, not least of which is Heathrow Airport, it’s fair to say that Brentford Community Stadium is served by a number of different bus routes.

Car

If you’re looking to drive to Brentford Community Stadium then either the M1 or the M40 will get you pretty close if you’re heading from the north. If you’re coming from further south then look out for the A4.

Taxi

Taxis aren’t cheap in London, not least of all because of the heavy traffic that sees the meter keep ticking around whilst you’re going nowhere. As an example, it will cost you in the region of £50 to do the short eight mile trip from London Heathrow.

Parking

As with the rest of London, parking is limited. Your best bet will be to use an official car park rather than trying to park up on the street.

Where to eat and sleep?

The stadium’s location so close to central London means that you’ve got a huge list of choices when it comes to the hotels that you stay in. There will be one available for virtually any budget, so we’ve chosen to stick with chain hotels because you know what you’re getting. You’re not going to struggle for somewhere to stay in West London, but here are a few options to get you started.

1. Holiday Inn Brentford Lock. The Holiday Inn at Brentford Lock has more than 130 rooms, is located close to the beach and has a fitness centre plus a restaurant.
• Take a look at the freebets offered by the bookmaker.
2. Novotel London Brentford. Novotel isn’t one of the most luxurious hotel chains out there, but the one in Brentford offers plenty of luxury. You can chill out in the indoor pool, for example, or look to improve your fitness in the fitness centre. There’s a terrace for you to enjoy if the weather’s pleasant enough, whilst the fact that it’s near to the beach will undoubtedly please some. A 24-hour business centre is available, plus there’s a restaurant and a bar on-site.
3. Hilton London Syon Park. When it comes to luxury, you can do worse than to stay in a Hilton hotel. The one in London Syon Park has both a spa and an indoor pool, which sit alongside the health club. A restaurant and bar on-site mean that you barely need to leave the hotel if you don’t want to. It’s close to the beach and has more than 130 rooms on offer, with breakfast available. Parking and Wi-Fi are included in the cost of your stay, too.
• What can you bet on today? The answer is here.

Similarly, there are plenty of pubs and other places to get a drink close to the Community Stadium, but these would be our first picks.

1. The Griffin. Let’s be honest, Brentford Community Stadium’s proximity to London means that you’re hardly going to be short of somewhere to go for a drink if you fancy one. If you want to go somewhere close to the stadium then you can’t go wrong with The Griffin, which is one of the four pubs that were to be found on each of the corners of Griffin Park. It’s a Fuller’s Brewery offering, so you’ll get great drink options and a decent menu of pub grub.
• No questions? Place a bet now.
2. One Over The Ait. Another Fuller’s Brewery offering, One Over The Ait is something of a local landmark. It’s located on the riverside, making use of its location thanks to balconies and other outdoor drinking areas. It’s not somewhere you’ll be heading to if you want to watch some live sport, but it’s big and airy and has a lovely atmosphere on offer for all who enter. It’s often buzzing with activity, being somewhere that both locals and tourists will head to for a drink and a rest before exploring what the local area has to offer.
3. Express Tavern. Describing itself as an ‘ale and cider house’, the Express Tavern is located on Kew Bridge and promises plenty of decent drinking options. There’s also a good menu available for those of you that want to get a bite to eat. Cask and keg beer is the order of the day, though, so it’s definitely a place for people who like to sample different beers. There’s a good wine list too, should you wish to explore your sommelier side. It would be untrue to say that this is somewhere for sports fans to head to catch up on events before the match, but they’ll be welcome regardless.
• Follow the link and get your prediction before the match starts.

Facilities

Brentford Community Stadium has excellent facilities and all of the mod-cons that you’d want to find in a brand new football ground.

As one of the newest stadiums in the United Kingdom, the Community Stadium has the sort of hospitality features that you’d expect. There are lovely new suites and boxes for people to use, all of which have access to the outside for excellent views of the pitch.

Again, the community nature of the stadium means that private hire of its various facilities will be easy enough to make use of.

Accessibility

As you may expect with a newly developed ground, Brentford’s stadium provides disabled supporters with good access and unlimited car parking facilities in the bays. The Brentford ground is completely accessible on a wheelchair. The ambulant seats and wheelchair spaces are seen throughout the ground. Disabled fans will also be able to get special access to toilets, which are located only 40 meters away from the viewing platforms.

Architectural Aspects

Brentford Stadium balances ambition with fanbase passion and commercial viability. The design was developed in step with a robust business model that also fully considered the club’s community initiatives, development of the player base, ultimate promotion and potential host for major events. For this reason, the stadium is Premier League and UEFA-compliant and was a host venue for the Women’s European Championship.

Hospitality options were modelled out together with the club’s financial, marketing and catering teams to provide a wide range of offers, targeted to precise demographics. This involved creating schedules and models detailing occupation ratios, views from lounges and quality benchmarking to realistic targets.

The success of this study has meant that the club targeted sales early and almost sold out their hospitality months before completion.

Four stands bound by a triangular form – the distinctive design has been influenced by a uniquely shaped site.

The stadium is surrounded on all sides by the M4 and two railway lines. Even with these restrictions, the bowl maximizes seat capacity with exceptional views, creates a revenue stream with adjacent residential developments, and leaves room for future expansion.

Due to the club’s growth plans, the business case supported the need for a new build stadium rather than redevelopment of the existing Griffin Park. The site was assessed together with the client and chosen due to its proximity to the existing venue, future flexibility, community requirements and site potential for wider masterplan development.

Planning involved close consultation with Network Rail to reach an agreement and enable assembly of the land necessary to deliver the masterplan.

By providing a joint venue, the stadium is built on a foundation of commercial viability. London Irish RFC will also be able to attract a larger supporter base within its original home catchment area. The stadium is only a few miles away from the club’s training base at Hazelwood, Sunbury, also designed by AFL.

The challenge of implementing joint branding for both clubs has been met through simple yet highly effective means. Lighting throughout the concourses can be changed quickly from red to green. The lounges also retain a neutrality while being unmistakeably unique to Brentford Stadium – a hexagonal motif appears throughout the interiors, both referencing The Bees and the angular venue itself.

Seat colouration is not club specific. Rather, it has been modelled out to produce the illusion of a stadium at full capacity. Originally designed for the benefit of broadcasted matches, the impact of the pandemic has further supported the use of this technique when reduced numbers of fans return to the stadium under social distancing regulations.

Supporters finally have a stadium that reflects their ambitions and passion for the future of Brentford FC, and London Irish RFC can return to their home turf.

History

Brentford had been trying to get a new ground to play their games in since the 1970s. With hopes of moving first mooted in 1973, it took until 2007 for the likelihood of it happening to actually come into focus. That’s when the club was handed an option to buy some ground about a mile away from Griffin Park, with hopes boosted further when the economic downturn meant that Barretts Homes had to pull out of a plan to build houses in the area in 2012.

The London Borough of Hounslow gave outline planning permission for the site at Lionel Road in December of 2013, with final approval coming in March 2014 when the then-Secretary Of State For Communities And Local Government, Eric Pickles, signed off on it. Preparation for construction began in March 2017, with the actual building getting underway around a year later. The deal to ground share with London Irish was signed up to in December of 2018 and it was hoped that the building work would be completed in April of 2020, allowing both clubs to use it for their respective 2020-2021 seasons. Work was delayed because of the Coronavirus outbreak, but it was still completed in 2020.