Chris Kamara opens up on the racist abuse he suffered during his football career; his formidable midfield partnership with Stan Bowles and Terry Hurlock; and his reason for leaving Brentford in August 1985.

The castle crest was used by Brentford from 1975 to 1993.

Promotion was won twice during that period, from the Fourth to Third Division in 1977/78 and from the third to second tier in 1991/92. The other highlight was a run to the sixth round of the FA Cup in 1988/89.

To celebrate the return of the castle crest on our 2022/24 second kit, we’re speaking with those who wore it best the first time around.

A mainstay on our television screens, Chris Kamara recently received and MBE for services to football, anti-racism and charity.

Kamara was the first Black player to represent Brentford in the Football League and made his debut for the Bees in October 1981.

He played 190 games for Brentford before leaving in the summer of 1985 and went on to have further success as a player – featuring for Leeds United, Luton Town and Sheffield United in the top flight.

Over the past 25 years, Chris Kamara has become a regular fixture on television screens up and down the country.

Whether it was reporting on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday, where the famous ‘Unbelievable, Jeff’ line was coined, co-presenting Ninja Warrior on ITV or, most recently, appearing on The Masked Singer, the 65-year-old has gained a reputation as a much-loved, jovial character, with an infectious laugh that could crack the most stone-faced individual.

It goes without saying that his career in the media has gone from strength to strength since he left football behind after a short spell as manager of Stoke City in 1998.

The bulk of his playing career was spent at Swindon Town, for whom he made just shy of 300 appearances during two separate spells. Sandwiched in between those two spells, however, was a four-season stint in west London with Brentford, which began in October 1981.

“I was at Portsmouth for the second time and they needed a striker, so they had been onto Brentford about signing David Crown,” Kamara explains.

“Fred Callaghan said I was the only player he would take in exchange, so it was put to me. I travelled up to meet Fred and Martin Lange, the chairman, and they sold the club to me.”

On Halloween, he and fellow debutant Stan Bowles made their bows at Griffin Park, where a goalless draw with Burnley was watched by a crowd of just under 7,000.

The game was largely forgettable, but unbeknownst to him, Kamara had, indelibly, written himself into Brentford’s history books.

That afternoon, he had become the first Black player to pull on the red and white stripes for Brentford in the Football League.

“I'll forever have that accolade and I’m dead proud of it,” he says.

“I have to say, I didn't know that was the case until I read about it in the Middlesex Chronicle. And you wouldn’t have known I was the first Black player to play for the club, either.

“I remember all my debuts from throughout my career and, when my name got read out against Burnley, I got a decent cheer from the crowd. Not a big cheer, because they didn't know me that well, but there were no dissenting voices, which normally suggests that one or two people are not happy about your colour. That was a real honour.

“My first season as a professional was 1974/75 and, back then, you’d get abuse at quite a few away grounds. There was usually a section that would boo you, throw bananas, and all those sorts of things, but you had to not let it worry you.

“When I started at Pompey, we used to get good gates of around 12,000 and there would have been about 200 National Front supporters in the crowd so, not only did they boo you off, they booed you on, and that's something that's hard to contend with, even though I never ever let it affect me.

“Players, sadly, still get racism on social media nowadays but, back then, they would say things to your face on the pitch or walking down the street. It was hard.”

Kamara slotted into the Brentford midfield seamlessly and featured in all but two of the remaining 32 Third Division games that followed his debut, scoring five league goals, as well as being named captain in March 1982.

Fred Callaghan’s side finished eighth that year. A string of five straight defeats in January 1982 meant they missed out on promotion by 10 points, yet they still managed their highest league position since finishing fifth under Tommy Cavanagh in 1964/65.

Almost from the word go, Kamara, Bowles and Terry Hurlock formed one of the most impressive midfield units ever seen in west London. To this day, some Brentford fans still cannot fathom it was not a unit that ever played in the Second Division or above.

“Me and Tel frightened teams before we even kicked off!” Kamara laughs.

“We had a great relationship; we liked to get stuck in, but we both could play, too. Terry was captain when I first went there and, at one point, he went missing for a week or two, so I ended up getting the captaincy by default!

“Stan was brilliant. You could give him the ball and know he would look after it. The only thing he didn't have were the legs of old but, in terms of quality, vision, passing, dribbling ability, he had it all.

“I loved playing with him because I knew how good he was and that I could link up with him. We had a special relationship off the pitch as well. 

“What we were missing was a striker who could score goals, and Fred Callaghan got that with Tony Mahoney in the summer of 1982. Unfortunately, Tony broke his leg that season, against my former club Swindon in the FA Cup and, from looking like we would breeze the division, we ended up falling short.

“Tony was playing the best football of his career and he was not just a handful, but a really good finisher, too. The lads who came in and helped out did great, but nobody was as reliable striker for us as he had been and we petered away.”

Despite missing out on promotion again after a ninth-place finish - 18 points off the automatic spots this time around - Kamara made 57 appearances in all competitions that season - a figure he never bettered throughout his entire playing career.

Successive top-10 finishes had set expectations reasonably high at Griffin Park and so, when Callaghan was unable to replicate similar form in 1983/84, he was sacked and replaced by Arsenal legend Frank McLintock.

“Frank was a bit of an icon, someone who played at the highest level, was high-profile and had an amazing career. He was a lovely bloke as well - he was so nice,” Kamara adds.

“I just think he found it difficult adapting to manage at that level, to be honest. I worked with him later at Sky and he asked where he went wrong. I told him he didn’t, really, but that you just need a bit of luck as a manager and he didn’t really get it at Brentford.”

Kamara initially felt the transition from the Callaghan regime to the McLintock regime would spell the end of his time in TW8.

“The first year Frank came in, I thought I would be leaving at the end of that season,” he admits.

“One or two clubs had spoken to us, one of which was Wimbledon. Harry [Dave] Bassett was desperate to get me there.

“My wife Anne wanted to be close to her mum, so she went back to Swindon at that time and I never expected to come back to Brentford. But I did and we saw out another year.”

With indifferent league form yet again ruling out a promotion, the high point of the 1984/85 campaign was the run to the Freight Rover Trophy final.

But it was to end in a gutting 3-1 defeat to Wigan - and Kamara has his own justification as to why that afternoon panned out the way it did.

“It was superb, playing at Wembley, but we let the supporters down on the day. It was all down to a trip to Corfu that was arranged before the final. It didn't work. We went for some warm weather training and when we came back, we were sluggish,” he says.

“I always thought we were a better squad that Wigan but, looking at their squad, the players they had and the players that went on to do things, maybe I was wrong.

“They had Tony Kelly, who was a good player for Shrewsbury and Bolton eventually, my old mate Paul Jewell was there, Mike Newell was there, Steve Walsh, the big centre-half who later played for Leicester, was there. Maybe they didn't get the credit they deserved.”

Sadly, the final proved to be Kamara’s final appearance for Brentford. In August 1985, he re-joined Swindon for a fee in the region of £15,000.

“My wife and my kids were living in Swindon, so I'd been commuting to Brentford, which is never a good thing. It’s only an hour to Swindon on a good day, 70 miles away, but on normal days when there's traffic, it's an hour-and-a-half to two hours, so I was getting fed up with that,” Kamara states.

“You also know when things are not quite right and me and Frank’s assistant John Docherty didn’t get on too well, either, so Frank and I had agreed that if someone came in for me I could go and that's how it worked out.”

That is not to say he was not sad to depart. Saying goodbye to the Bees fans was perhaps the biggest wrench.

Kamara admits: “I loved it at Brentford. I was very fortunate to win the Supporters’ Player of the Year award in 1983/84 and something like that gives you an attachment to the fans. For them to do that was brilliant. I did have a good season and it’s the best accolade you can get from the fans. 

“Life was difficult in the 1980s, playing around the grounds, but the way I was treated by Brentford fans was incredible. I’ll be forever grateful to the fans for their attitude towards me - that's something you never forget.”

Enjoyed this interview? Read the rest of our Kings of the Castle series.