The style of play, the interviews, the ‘no d*ckheads’ policy and, of course, the hair – Johnny Nic loves everything about Thomas Frank. Here’s ‘What’s So Great About…’ the Brentford boss…
Who’s this then?
Thomas Frank is the 48-year-old manager of Brentford. A Dane born in Frederiksværk, he never played football professionally. The boys willnae like that. Laptop guru is he? Yes he is but despite never having been paid to play football, he built a reputation as an excellent youth coach at Frederiksværk BK, Hvidovre IF, B93 and Lyngby. This brought him to the attention of the Danish FA who took him on as coach for the U16s and U17s in 2008.
He took the 17s to a Euro semi-final and qualified them for the World Cup. This success led him to be appointed U19s manager which he did from 2012 to 2013 before being appointed coach of Brondby. Aged 39, this was his first senior position in football.
The club finished third and fourth, qualifying for the Europa League but he resigned after nearly three years because the club chairman had a pop at him on a fan forum under a false name, which seems vaguely bizarre.
Nine months later he took an unusual move abroad to Brentford to work as an assistant coach to Dean Smith, working with the reserves. He said both he and his wife and family wanted to experience a different country and a different culture. That’s very refreshing to hear in these times where freedom of movement is sold to us as a very bad thing. Can you imagine what sort of mental straight-jacket you’d have to wear to think that?
He did a good job, was well respected and got a contract extension to the end of 2018-19 season. But in October 2018 Dean Smith went to Villa and he took his chance to take the big chair for himself.
Brentford were in the Championship and he had an inauspicious start, registering only one win in his first 10 games, but form picked up in the second half of the season and they finished 11th.
Absolutely no-one took this as an indication that they would be candidates for promotion the next season but they finished third, got to the play-off final but lost 2-1 to Fulham. Close but no cigar.
That would come next season when they finished third again and beat Swansea in the play-off final 2-0 ensuring promotion to the Premier League.
This was no small achievement for a club that was last promoted to the top division in 1935 and one that was made on a relatively small budget. They were relegated in…
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