Brentford FC have Southend United to thank for incredible Premier League rise | OneFootball

Few would have seen this 2008 transfer sparking the journey Brentford have been on since

Brentford are now part of the furniture in the Premier League, but it’s not always been that way.

Languishing in League Two in 2008, the Bees paid an undisclosed fee to Southend United — then in League One — for 27-year-old striker Charlie MacDonald.

Coming off the back of a season that saw him notch just one goal in 25 third-tier outings, it’s a signing that will have caught the eyes of few.

But now, with the benefit of hindsight, the transfer was an absolute gift from Southend, one that set Brentford on the path to the very top.

MacDonald made a strong first impression at Brentford

Having earned his move to the Football League in the 2006/07 season with 15 goals for Ebbsfleet United, that scoring instinct didn’t quite transfer to the third tier.

MacDonald didn’t arrive at League Two Brentford with much pedigree, then — but that would soon be forgotten.

In 38 fourth-tier appearances, he netted 16 goals and provided four assists, becoming the club’s top scorer that season as the Bees marched to the League Two title.

With that came a ticket back to the third tier and, unbeknownst to anyone at Brentford, the first major step towards the Premier League.

The Bees may not have adjusted to League One as well without MacDonald

Playing such a key role at the start of the club’s subsequent rise would have been enough to earn MacDonald a place in the Brentford history books, but he wasn’t finished there.

Even though he’d struggled in recent history with Southend at the level, he was given a second chance at the third tier with the Bees, and he took it with both hands.

Backing up his first season, he took the jump in division in his stride, plundering 15 goals this time, with five assists to go with it.

There was to be no promotion this time around, but MacDonald was crucial in establishing a mid-table base for Brentford in League One, after making the jump that many clubs struggle with.

Bees have MacDonald to thank for the base of their incredible rise

Any avid football fan will know what followed. Brentford didn’t rise rapidly, but steady progression from that point onwards saw them become one of the teams to beat in League One, and then the same in the Championship, before becoming what they are now: a Premier League regular.

Thinking about that rise, instinct will lead you to names like Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney — all played their crucial part, of course — but the early contributions of MacDonald, establishing Brentford as an upwardly mobile team rather than one content with settling where they’d slumped to, must not be forgotten.

Without him in the ranks to bridge the gap between the fourth and third tier, everything that followed for Brentford could have looked very different.

The modern era of Brentford under Thomas Frank in the Premier League attracts world-class talent with global reputations, but for plenty of Bees fans, it’s MacDonald who will always hold a special place in their hearts, for spearheading the club’s meteoric rise in those early days at the foot of the Football League.