FRIDAY FEATURE: Melvin Collins – 60 years as a visually impaired Brentford FC fan

Few football fans achieve 60 years of support for their team and amass almost 2,000 matches. Even fewer do it when they are blind.

But one who has is 68-year-old Brentford supporter Melvin Collins.

He attended his first game on the 4th February 1953, a 2-1 defeat against Aston Villa at Griffin Park in the FA Cup.

Melvin has supported the London club for almost half of its existence and has experienced 32 managers come and go in that time.

Born partially-sighted Melvin has visited 83 of the 92 football league grounds in England without seeing a ball kicked.

He recently marked his 60^th anniversary as a fan by turning out as mascot at Griffin Park as the Bees took on Bury in League One, a day which he felt was special.

“The purpose of that day was that it was a 60 year milestone, my sons have led the teams out as mascot but I’d never done it myself,” he said.

“I just felt it was an achievement of 60 years of support, just something very special and so I wanted to turn the day into something special.”

Melvin’s motto is: “I came with it, I’m stuck with it and I’ll die with it, while I’m here I’ve got to make the best of it.”

He stood by his adage with his obsessive support for Brentford and his work with blind charities as well as previously running competitively against other visually impaired athletes.

He has been involved in politics and has also sung at the Royal Albert Hall in his very busy lifestyle.

Brentford have always held a spot in the lower rungs of the Football League but their aim to welcome fans from all walks of life attracted Melvin despite having Premier League big boys Chelsea and Fulham on his doorstep.

“I just eat drink and breathe Brentford. Everything about me is Griffin Park,” he says.

Melvin sits in the Braemar Road Paddock, where commentary is put on for the disabled, blind and partially sighted fans.

“It’s not just listening to a commentary, it’s the camaraderie that goes with it,” Melvin explains.

He takes advantage of the blind-scheme at Griffin Park which has been running since 1951, the second oldest in the country after Preston North End and advises other visually impaired fans to get involved.

“They’ll be doing something that everybody else does on a Saturday afternoon that likes football or is a madman like me,” Melvin says.

Like most young lads Melvin got into football through his Dad and with Brentford on his doorstep Melvin took an interest from an early age.

“My father worked for Firestone Tyres on the Great West Road, he got chatting to a colleague at work and discovered Brentford had a scheme for the blind,” He said.

His father’s colleague said: “Why don’t you bring your son along, let him listen to the commentary for the blind,” he then said “We’ll go from there if he doesn’t like it well tough, if he does like it then he’s welcome along when he comes home for holidays.”

“So that’s how it started,” Melvin explained.

“I just enjoyed the shouting of the crowd and the commentary and I said when I came back from school at Easter, ‘Can I come again?’ and it progressed from there.

“I can’t tell you how many games I’ve been to I haven’t counted them, but it’s a lot,” said Melvin who attends as many matches as he can.

Melvin who remembers players like Alfred Jefferies the Bees goalkeeper from 1949 until 1953 and Tommy Lawton who was the player-manager at Griffin Park when Melvin attended his first game in 1953, Lawton scored 17 goals in 50 appearances for Brentford.

“They’re names that stick out in my mind, in one of my early games Oldham Athletic came on a Christmas morning and we beat them 3-1 and the name that stuck in my head from Oldham was a player called George Hardwick,” Melvin enthused.

Hardwick was a player who was the captain of the first post world war two England team and was regarded as one of the best players to play for Middlesbrough and Oldham.

Being there from almost day one of the clubs visually impaired commentary scheme he’s followed an estimated three thousand players wear the red and white strip.

Melvin believes the Griffin Park club is a fantastic place for the blind and people with other disabilities.

“Because the commentary at Brentford has always been so accurate, they do have their bias to Brentford, but if the opposing side has scored a really brilliant goal, they’ve acknowledged they really scored a brilliant goal,” Melvin said.

“What they offer to their local community is outstanding in my opinion, not only for the blind but pensioners and people with disabilities full stop with their football in the community.”

His rich memory for Brentford fixtures would be impressive for a fully sighted fan and has been faithful to the club come rain or shine.

“When we had played Guilford City at Griffin Park, we were 2-1 down and the snow came down and the match was abandoned, we replayed the game in the following week, it was equally as cold it was 2-2 and that meant a replay down at Guilford.

“It absolutely ‘hoiked’ it down, all the Bees fans were made to stand on these greasy horrible railway sleepers and we lost 2-1 after extra-time and that the most miserable I’ve been when watching Brentford.”

Other memories of his time following the Bees include watching them play at the Millennium Stadium and walking in front of the away end to huge applause in the Division Three title-winning game at Peterborough in 1992.

Visually impaired fans are in their minority in the UK but Melvin enjoys the smell of the pies, the shouting of the crowd which creates an exciting atmosphere without even seeing a ball kicked, but he does feel the commentary is vital.

“Naturally because of being nearly sightless and some of my colleagues being completely sightless the commentary is the pinnacle.

“But that fact that we actually sit in the stands alongside the rest of the crowd it makes it worthwhile getting out your bed and getting your arse out the door and going whether it is being home or away,” he said.

“The ‘interactiveness’ with the crowd, and particularly at the part of the ground where we sit, we’re not a million miles away from the away support, so you’re picking up the counteraction of the away supporters,” Melvin said.

His wife Jackie, a long-suffering football widow has always been disinterested by Melvin’s obsession with Brentford FC and with sons Robert and Douglas living away from home she gets the full brunt of the football talk.

“Everybody that knows me knows that I’m that mad keen Brentford supporter,” he declared.

“My wife absolutely hates me because I can recall events by Brentford football scores, and she thinks I should be locked away and the key thrown away.

“She said you have three main things about your life, one is cathedrals, the other is politics and she said ‘I ain’t going to shake you off them but everything you talk about it always comes back to football,” he said animatedly.

Jackie has accepted that Brentford is his first love, “Every Saturday he goes to the football, he disappears, you just get used to it I guess,” she said.

“He doesn’t bring his emotions home really, he knows it bores me, I think football’s silly, but I won’t shake him off it.

“He just phones up his friends and talks about football, it just doesn’t interest me.

“He’s always loved his cathedrals, politics and football, it’s just him, that’s why I’m with him, at the end of it,” she explains.

Melvin admits he wouldn’t have been able to be so faithful to the Bees without the support of his cousin, David.

His companion stuck by him through many seasons and in their early years and lads being lads, they ended up in trouble on more than a few occasions.

“We went to QPR and won 4-2 and some of the supporters took a great dislike to me and my cousin and he just grabbed my arm and we ran the full length of Shepherds Bush market to escape, we only got to a place of safety when we got on the bus to Brentford,” Melvin joked.

“My cousin never discarded me, even if they went up the park and played football, and said  ‘Look you want to play?’ I said ‘Yeah, I’ll do what I usually do and play out on the wing and if the ball comes and if I find it fine and if I don’t, well I’m still playing with you.”

I owe a lot to David,” he said.

As a part of his upbringing at Dorton House a school run by the Royal Institute of Blind People, he was taught to sing.

Reading from braille Melvin got in touch with his creative side and has even appeared at some grand venues including the Albert Hall.

Despite his talent for singing, Melvin isn’t vocal at Brentford matches as he feels it would distract him from the commentary, which grips him to every kick of the ball.

His sporting relationship not only stems to sitting in the Braemar Road stand but has also taken to the athletics field as a younger man.

“Up until the age of 42 I used to be an athlete, I used to run and walk against other visually impaired athletes, I used to run for medals and I then I did my shoulder in and unfortunately had to pull out of that, I used to do 100 meters in 15.8 seconds,” Melvin said.

Not only is Melvin a singer and former athlete but also is a Labour councilor for the Brentford Ward in the Hounslow Borough Council.

And he looks to encourage the growth of sport in the local community.

“There are great potentials for me as a councilor, outside of the stadium in terms of what we can do, with a couple of the parks close by to enhance and encourage sport. And I’m working very closely with the football club, to try and incorporate that,” he said.

With the club planning a new stadium on Lionel Road in the future after being at Griffin Park for 109 years Melvin doesn’t feel ready to leave behind the old stadium.

“I’m ruing the day they leave Griffin Park because it’s just such a homely place, Griffin Park could be made a nice place on its own patch.”

He knows the club must move forward though and knows there’s no time for nostalgia in football branding himself an ‘old fuddy duddy’ in the modern game.

But either-way Melvin intends to stick by his life motto and make the best of it and won’t be giving up his support for Brentford football club any time soon.

By Peter Howard

@pierrehowardo