In 2013/14, Brentford finished runners-up in League One. It was the Bees’ first promotion to the second tier in more than 20 years and marked the beginning of the club’s eventual rise to the Premier League.

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Brentford’s 2013/14 promotion-winning campaign, we’re speaking with the key members of the squad and staff to discover the secrets of a successful season.

Next up is Sam Saunders, who, having been the Bees' midfielder maestro during that historic season a decade ago, is now B-team assistant coach, helping nurture the next crop of first-team players.

In May 2013, Brentford’s now-banished play-off hoodoo returned. Uwe Rösler’s men had just been beaten 2-1 by Yeovil Town at Wembley, missing out on a long-craved place in the Championship as a result.

Sam Saunders had played the final 23 minutes plus stoppage-time as Harry Forrester’s replacement, but had been unable to help force the extra half hour that every Bees fan had prayed for.

He and his team-mates sunk to their knees, sapped of energy, empty and bereft. Their efforts over 59 games in league and cup competition had amounted to nothing. To say it was a gut-wrenching outcome would be quite the understatement.

It was that day Saunders experienced a sliding doors moment that has determined the direction of his career ever since.

“I'll be honest - I don't know if I'd have got another contract if we'd got promoted to the Championship,” he says sat in a modest, chilly dressing room in the pavilion at Brentford’s Jersey Road training ground.

“I was in and around it at the time and maybe both the club and I thought we were going in different directions.

“After the play-off final, Yeovil approached me on the pitch and asked if I'd be interested in going down there as I was out of contract. I knew I was speaking with Matthew Benham and Uwe the next day, so I said I'd let them know how it went.

“It was really nice ammunition to have; I explained I’d been offered a two-year contract, but that I was desperate to stay and didn't want to leave.”

The talks progressed well and in June 2013, Saunders duly signed a two-year deal to extend his time in TW8 - but a contract extension did not guarantee a starting spot. By the end of November, Saunders had started just twice in League One and twice in the League Cup.

“Yes, it was frustrating, but I wasn’t doing well,” he admits, of course with the benefit of hindsight - even though he doesn’t look a day older than he did a decade ago.

“I couldn't expect to play on the basis of my previous performances and I didn't do well enough in pre-season. You've got to take accountability and responsibility. Players were doing better than me. Harry Forrester had a really good pre-season - he was my house-mate and he was doing better than me.”

There was never any talk of a possible loan move away, so he shifted his mindset to try and turn his fortunes around: “At that time, I was a particularly good finisher, in that I was able to make a good impact off the bench. I wanted to start, but I realised I’d rather a strong half hour than an average 60 minutes.

“I knew if I kept doing well from the bench, I'd get an opportunity and I felt I was doing that consistently. You can get tired of just being a good sub, but I was confident enough in my ability.”

Saunders makes it clear he had a “fantastic” relationship with Rösler, but after the German’s sudden departure to Wigan Athletic, Mark Warburton provided him with the chance he had longed for.

"With Uwe, we were told what to do and where to do it, whereas Mark gave us more opportunity to express ourselves,” Saunders says.

“I loved going to attack, rather than being pigeon-holed into doing certain aspects of the game.

“Uwe and Mark had completely different styles and I think that really combined well for us. It was the perfect cocktail. Uwe taught me so much, but I also really enjoyed playing under Mark."

In the sporting director-turned-manager’s first league game in charge, Saunders came off the bench to lay on an assist for Jonathan Douglas to head the winner in a 1-0 win over Oldham Athletic and replaced the injured Kadeem Harris at Preston North End the following week, scoring the third goal in a routine 3-0 win at Deepdale.

He received the perfect Christmas present on Boxing Day, when he started against Swindon Town, yet all was not as it seemed.

Saunders recalls: “I remember Mark asking me if I could do it from the start, so that was my rocket fuel to prove I could in that game, but I remember being ill all week in bed and it was typical that was how I felt before my first start in ages. Mark called, asking if I was well enough to start; I wasn't but I was never going to say that.

“I was really poor and sluggish in the first half hour and I thought he was going to say I couldn't start again - and that's when I scored that free-kick. Having not started and then fallen over at the free-kick, I thought that was me coming off at half-time!”

Another goal and assist against MK Dons helped Saunders deservedly pick up the League One Player of the Month award for December and he started 2014 as he finished 2013, with a goal and an assist against Peterborough United.

However, Saunders would manage just one more game that season. Just as he had been blessed with a stroke of luck, it was ripped away by a knee injury within a month.

"I picked up a knock the game before [v Peterborough] so I had a bike session on the Thursday and when I was doing that, I felt discomfort in the side of my knee”, he states.

“I trained on the Friday and, on the Saturday, it got to the point in the game against Port Vale where I literally couldn't bend my knee anymore.

“We discovered it was inflammation of the ITB band, which is more often a runner's injury. It got to the stage where it had doubled in size and was so sore, I couldn't get out of the car.

“There were a couple of options: complete rest and hope, or go in, trim it down and go from there. I went for the quickest option, which was to undergo surgery to trim it down.

“It was just absolutely devastating to pick up the injury at that time because I really felt like I was going from strength to strength and people were seeing the real qualities I had."

Saunders worked his way back to fitness and was initially included in the matchday squad for the Preston game, in which Brentford sealed promotion, only for a quadricep injury to rule him out. “It happened because I was probably trying to rush back,” he concedes.

He finished the season with five goals and nine assists from 22 games in all competitions, playing a key role in promotion, despite the stumbling blocks he was presented with.

Once promotion was secured on Good Friday, his sole focus was on preparing for the new season. It was another setback, but he had come out of the other side of a frustrating injury and grown as a result.

In fact, he suggests the role he played during the time he was sidelined that year is one of the reasons he is still at the club, working as B-team assistant coach, almost 15 years after he first signed for the club.

"I still think about the bonuses I missed out on when I was injured!” he jokes.

“As a player, you just want to be playing every game, but particularly when you're up near the top of the league. I used to love the pressure games; the bigger the game, the better I played. I was just really disappointed not to be able to help.

“I had to just try and get myself to the stage where I was helping in other ways. It wasn't easy to do, but you've got to be the bigger man and that's where I think my grounding of working nights on the underground and not being a pro until late really helped me.

“I was always a glass-half-full kind of guy when it came to that as I knew it could be worse and I could be working nights and playing non-league.

"That's exactly why I'm here now. If I was the other way, the club wouldn't have given me a job in a coaching capacity trying to help the youngsters. I’m in the job I'm in now because they know what kind of character I am."

The 40-year-old’s answer to how he looks back on the campaign is concise. “Job done,” Saunders says.

“We set our target to get promoted and we did it. Selfishly, I’d like to have played more, but my body didn’t allow that.

“We went to Vegas to celebrate and - cor, blimey - you could have another whole interview on that…”