This week Brentford Football Club hosted a Fans Forum.

Supporters attended the event at the Gtech Community Stadium with hundreds more joining online via a livestream courtesy of our partner BlueJeans by Verizon.

Fans had the opportunity to submit their questions to Brentford head coach Thomas Frank; chief executive Jon Varney; and director of football Phil Giles.

Varney reflected on a number of matters and spoke about the recent successes and issues relating to Brentford’s future. 

Here are Varney's key lines from the evening.

Our 2-1 win over Manchester City last month

Absolutely incredible and I'm delighted I was there. It was an incredible occasion and what for me was Brentford’s greatest-ever win.

Off-the-field achievements

From a fans’ perspective, we’re really proud of the work that's gone on with the new website development and hopefully that will make your lives a little bit easier in the future, particularly around the ticketing journey.

I think the other area that we're very proud of is the quick turnaround of safe standing. We went to all the fans in the closed season, and asked the question, ‘Do you want safe standing?’ And our operations department did a phenomenal job to turn that around in the summer. 

The other big achievement for us, commercially, was to bring Gtech in as a naming rights sponsor. I know it wasn't everybody's favourite deal for a football club to name a stadium, but we have to be smart commercially. They're a fantastic new partner. I’m really proud of that, along with all the other deals that the commercial team have done.

The other area that I'm really proud of is our staffing. With the transition from Championship into the Premier League, we've had to recruit the best part of 70 new staff. To embed everybody into the organisation is no mean effort. I think there's lots to be proud of.

Ticketing arrangements

I think the biggest challenge that we've got, and one that we're going to work hard on with BIAS and Bees United and we've started those conversations already, is how we ensure that all Season Ticket Holders are turning up to every game. And if they're not going to turn up for every game, we have to make sure that it's easy for them to list their tickets and those tickets go back into the hands of other Brentford fans. 

I don't think there's one sweeping answer to the whole issue. I think it's lots of small things and we're going to work really hard to ensure that that we get the right people into the right areas of the stadium.

Supporting Season Ticket Holders to bring family and friends to matches

That’s definitely an area that we're looking into. I think TAPs could be the answer. But it's again something that we're going to have to sit down with BIAS and Bees United to work through. It's one of the challenges with having a smaller stadium - that we can't bring our friends and family to all of those games.

I think one of the things I've really been proud of this year is the Gillingham game. From our perspective, a third round Carabao Cup game that was sold out - I think that was one of those opportunities where season ticket holders and members could bring their friends and family. It worked for us, and we had great support from Gtech with the kids’ tickets. So, I think more initiatives around cup games are important.

Commitment to improving catering

We know we haven't nailed it. We know that there are some challenges. I'm very confident in Levy, our catering partner. They cater a number of venues, not football venues, but rugby venues, cricket venues and horse racing venues across the length and breadth of the country.

So, we're in good hands with Levy. We need to hear more from the fans of what they like and what they don't like. We'll react to that because we want everybody to enjoy the matchday experience.

Developing women’s football

Clearly, the whole of women's football has had a huge boost recently. We’ve had two choices - do we organically grow something that is already been there and been nurtured and established? Or do we supercharge? One of our core values is being respectful and we have a group of girls who are competitive at their level and want to get better. So, we want to support them as much as we possibly can to put more games on at theGtech in the future.

Along the way, we want to make sure that the girls are playing an active part in a lot of the commercial activities that we're doing.So, kit launches, and we've done some work with them already on that and making sure they're involved in activations alongside their sponsors, to raise their profile.

We're at the beginning of our journey with women's football, but it’s something that is absolutely right that we continue to invest in.