Brentford FC (nickname the Bees) is a professional English football club based in Brentford in the London Borough of Hounslow. Founded in 1889 to serve as a winter pursuit for the Brentford Rowing Club, the club spent its early years in the lower divisions of the Football League and achieved little of note, apart from a move to its present day home ground, Griffin Park, in 1904. In 1920, Brentford was a founder member of the Third Division South. After several near-misses, promotion to the Second Division was finally achieved in 1932-33. Two years later, Brentford reached the First Division where they finished 5th in their debut season - which is still the club's highest ever league position. Brentford achieved a number of  impressive placings in the league for the rest of the decade (6th in the following two seasons) before the outbreak of the Second World War and the suspension of the league interrupted. The club was relegated in the first season after the War, and a downward spiral set in which culminated in relegation to the Third Division in 1953-54 and the Fourth Division in 1961-62. The survival of Brentford FC was threatened by a projected takeover by Queens Park Rangers in the late 1960s - a bid that was only narrowly averted with an emergency loan of £104,000 - while the club continued to yo-yo between the third and fourth divisions during the next three decades. 

The club won promotion in 1962-63, 1971-72 and 1977-78 but only on the final occasion was it able to consolidate its place in English football's third tier. After a 45-year absence, Brentford were promoted back to the Second Division (renamed the First Division with the advent of the Premier League in 1992) in the 1991-92 season as Third Division champions, though they were relegated again the following year.  On 25 April 2009 Brentford sealed promotion from League Two (English Football's 4th tier). Having established themselves in League One, they secured promotion to the Championship at the end of the 2013-14 season where by the end of the decade they established themselves as one of the stronger teams in the league losing four play-off finals. They finally reached the top tier of the English football again after winning the 2021 championship final, playing in the top tier for the first time since the end of the Second World War.