CENTRE-FORWARD Nicky Forster was a prolific goalscorer for Brentford after a big money move from lowly Gillingham.

Forster, who later brought invaluable experience and goals to a young Brighton side (as I described in my 2021 blog post), scored 47 goals in 136 appearances for the Bees in two and a half years.

After his travels to Birmingham, Reading, Ipswich, Hull, Brighton and Charlton, he returned to Brentford in the twilight of his career, scored once in 26 appearances and between February and June 2011 was caretaker manager, with Mark Warburton as his assistant.

The pair were in charge for 21 matches following the departure of Andy Scott and, early into the role, Forster told the Keys & Gray programme on talkSPORT: “It’s a fantastic education. I’m really enjoying it and hope it continues.”

He explained that he’d got the management bug from ex-Albion and Brentford boss Steve Coppell, his manager at Reading, who he saw as something of a mentor.

“He’s a really good guy. He’s someone who is a deep thinker. He would just observe training all the time and not say a lot, quite quiet.

“But when he spoke, even if I didn’t like it, I very rarely disagreed with it. He’s a good guy.”

Forster added: “I enjoy the challenge both on a daily basis and we do set targets of where we want to be and what we want to do for the remainder of the season and how far we think we can go. I certainly want it to continue beyond the end of the season.”

Alas, the club had other ideas.

Forster was manager when Brentford made it to Wembley for the final of the Johnstone’s Paint (Football League) Trophy, but they lost 1-0 to Carlisle United and fingers were pointed over team selection.

“That game has caused me so many sleepless nights and subsequent thoughts about what I would do if I did it again. Still, to this day, I’m not too sure where I am,” he told Dan Long in a Boxing Day 2024 interview for brentfordfc.com. “There’s no doubt that the lads that came in on loan – Adam Reed, Nathan Byrne, Jeff Schlupp – injected a new energy, a new pace, a new vibrancy.

“Those boys were the ones that were pivotal in that, in lifting the spirits and the moods and the results of the ones that had been there previously and weren’t getting those results. Gary Alexander was scoring goals; Charlie MacDonald was scoring goals; Sammy Saunders was inspirational and getting deliveries into the box and making things happen. It was just excellent.

“So, it left me with a massive challenge. Do I go into the final and play the ones that got us here or the ones that have created this huge chance? And do I be fair to Kevin O’Connor and Marcus Bean?

“Or do I choose the team that I think has the best chance of winning the game, which then gives me the best chance of securing success for the club, but also success for myself, for my family, in terms of a better chance of perhaps being given a role come the end of this year.

“It was a balance that I didn’t like then, and I look back and I don’t like now.

“I was honest enough to tell Kev before the day. I told Marcus on the day and he was in a really dark place. I’ve subsequently spoken to both of them and apologised because I probably would play them if I was given the choice now.

“Some fans will not forgive me, especially for Kevin O’Connor, but I did what I thought was the right thing at the time.”

By the season’s end, Forster had steered the Bees to an 11th-placed finish in the league, but he was told he wasn’t being considered for the permanent job and former Manchester City striker Uwe Rösler was appointed instead.

When he reflected on that time in the interview with Long, he said: “In all honesty, I had no chance. Warbs didn’t get it and he probably had a much better chance of getting it than I did.”

If that period in his history with Brentford was full of regret, it wasn’t all plain sailing when he was first a player at the club, either.

At first, it couldn’t have gone better. He scored twice on his Brentford debut and developed an impressive forward partnership with Bob Taylor. Between them they scored 51 goals in all competitions in the 1994-95 season (Forster got 26 of them).

“Bob was a far better footballer than I was, it’s fair to say, and his finishing ability was just second-to-none,” said Forster. “He didn’t need that extra yard of pace, whereas I needed maybe two or three chances in a game to score a goal. He just needed one good chance and he’d score.

“Bob – along with Brentford’s nemesis Jamie Cureton – was one of the best finishers I ever came across. He was deceptively good in the air and I could just gamble off him, knowing he was going to win a large percentage of his balls.”

Forster explained that the pair thrived on excellent crosses into the box from the wingers, Lee Harvey and Paul Stephenson, but the season ended in disappointment when, although they finished in second place, a Premier League restructure meant they had to play-off to go up from the Second Division to the First. And they lost to fifth-placed Huddersfield on penalties in the two-legged semi-final. “Any other year we would have got promoted,” said Forster. “It was scandalous!”

Reflecting further on his career, Forster told Long: “Everyone asks who my favourite club was and, like a parent, I try not to have favourites but, if I had to, the favourite clubs would be Brentford, Brighton and Reading. They were the ones I had the best success with and where I played my best football.

“The first spell at Brentford was such a ride on the crest of a wave. We almost didn’t know what we were doing and how we were doing it, but it was just working and it was just great to be part of.”