From Griffin Park to the Premier League via Wembley

October 28, 2025

For lifelong Brentford fan and photographer Adam Rosenbaum, the final seasons at Griffin Park were about more than just the football – they were about community and belonging. Shooting on 35mm film, Rosenbaum intimately captured the emotion of a club on the brink of transformation: the tight terraces, the pubs on every corner, the faces that filled the stands week after week. His photographs document Brentford’s journey from the heart of West London to the Premier League, via Wembley of course – a farewell to an old ground and a portrait of a fanbase that never stood still.

Brentford - Griffin Park © Adam Rosenbaum — © Adam Rosenbaum

BRENTFORD… PART OF MY LIFE

I’m a lifelong Brentford supporter from Ealing, West London – where I still live today. I started my professional life as a video editor, but in the last year or so I’ve managed to go full-time with my photography, which is my real passion. In a short space of time I’ve been fortunate to work for some fantastic clients such as the Premier League, BBC Sport, and even the NFL.

Brentford FC has always been a huge part of my life. It’s hard to put into words really. I’ve spent countless hours following the club – so many good memories, some less good ones – but I look forward to Brentford all week. I love seeing us do well and it hurts when we lose, but it’s about more than the 90 minutes. I just really love being there, whether that’s in the ground or in the pub before or after with my mates. Sometimes on away days, I look forward to the train journey, having beers with the lads, as much as the game itself. It’s about the day out as much as anything else.

HOOKED ON ATMOSPHERE…

Growing up, I was obsessed with Alan Shearer. Don’t ask me why, but I used to send him letters when I was a kid. As soon as I started going to games, I was hooked on the atmosphere and the fan culture surrounding football. I cared about what was happening on the pitch, but I also had an eye on the stands – the songs, the chants, the differences between fanbases. I became a bit of a nerd for it. When I was younger, I’d come out of a game we’d lost and say, “Yeah, but our fans were better than yours,” as though that mattered just as much as the score. Obviously, you grow out of that mindset, but it shows how engaged I was in the whole match-day environment right from the start.

The photos in this project were mainly taken between 2019 and 2021 – a pretty special time for the club, COVID aside. It was a period that saw Brentford say goodbye to its home for over 100 years and win promotion to the Premier League. The final season at Griffin Park was special, although we were robbed of a proper send-off. Nobody knew it at the time, but that 5-0 battering of Sheffield Wednesday in early March 2020 was the last time we’d set foot in the ground for a game.

BURSTING WITH CHARM…

Anyone who went to Griffin Park knew how special it was. Fenced in by four residential streets, floodlights rising high into the sky. A pub on each corner. Terraces at either end. Fading flags draped along the back of the New Road stand. Each stand completely unique from the others. Bursting with charm. Exactly what a football ground should be. Grounds like that are disappearing fast from the English game. I wanted to document the place in its final season – its quirks, its character, but also the people who visited every week for years. Fans, staff, players, the manager – everyone had their own special relationship with the place.

Some of my photos are from the day we got promoted at Wembley in 2021. It was a surreal day in many ways. Still in the shadows of COVID, we were only allowed 4,000 fans rather than the usual 30,000. There were empty seats and massive gaps everywhere. Watching such an important game with so much space around you was odd. But ultimately, we got what we’d been waiting for. The game was comfortable in the end, and I don’t think people really knew what to do with themselves for the last 20 or 30 minutes. The celebrations, though, were unforgettable.

My favourite photograph from the series is one from the final. It’s my best mate, who I go to Brentford with, right after the final whistle at Wembley – arms aloft, with the words “You are Premier League” on the advertising boards behind him. It doesn’t get much better than that.