Harry Forrester: How crossing paths with Christian Eriksen led to my Brentford move

Harry Forrester was faced with a difficult choice in the summer of 2011.

After impressing for Aston Villa during a Hong Kong Soccer Sevens tournament in May, he had been invited for a trial at Ajax. But knowing his contract was about to expire, he had also been in conversation with Brentford sporting director Mark Warburton - coincidentally, his coach at Watford from the age of 10 to 15.

Keeping his options open at a pivotal moment in his career, the 20-year-old spent time in pre-season with both - notably scoring a hat-trick for Jong Ajax - until he was forced to make up his mind.

“The trial at Ajax was meant to be one week, then it went to two weeks, then they wanted me to stay for a month - and I had Uwe Rösler asking if I was going to be signing or not as Brentford needed to know,” he says.

“I decided that, unless I was going to be in Ajax’s first team, with Christian Eriksen in front of me in my position, the best thing for me was going to play first-team football at Brentford, with the aim of playing in the Championship within two years.”

Forrester had only played eight senior games, during a loan spell at Kilmarnock, when he signed a two-year contract at Brentford and he was eased into the side in 2011/12, appearing 20 times, though only seven times from the start.

Brentford were in a transitional period at this time and Uwe Rösler tinkered with his formation and forward personnel throughout the campaign, meaning Forrester, Myles Weston, Niall McGinn and even Sam Saunders were often competing for that spot on the left flank.

“It was good competition, but I was frustrated because I probably did expect to play a little bit more, especially at times when people weren’t pulling up trees,” he states.

“But if you want the truth: I wasn’t as fit as I should’ve been to play in League One at the start.”

It was a transitional period for Forrester, too. His first full season in senior football was nothing to write home about and he is well aware of that.

That’s likely why his second season at Griffin Park was a totally different story altogether.

Forrester says there was friction between him and Rösler from the get-go: “I always had a massive point to prove, no matter what I did.”

That need to perform intensified in the summer of 2012, when Rösler told the press he would set him a challenge.

“I told Harry when we come back from holiday I expect him to be in the top six in the bleep test,” he said. “When he achieves that he will have a good season. If he finishes 21st like he did last year, then it will be difficult.”

As irked as he might have been by the public nature of the task he had been set, Forrester knew what he had to do.

“I went away and I worked so hard in the off-season,” he says. “I ate really well and ran pretty much every day. The way I was playing was high intensity and I had to be fit to maintain that level for a long time.

“I’d always do stuff in the off-season, don’t get me wrong, but I would come back with the mindset of having x amount of time in pre-season to get fit. That year, I was already fit coming in - probably the fittest I’d ever been - and I used that previous get fit period to get sharp and confident.

“Come 60-70 minutes, when I was normally getting tired, I was fine, and when my defender was tired, I could just keep going. I got my confidence and owned the shirt from early on, so I felt like I was a big part of what was happening, rather than trying to find my way in.

“When I wasn’t thinking about it and wasn’t nervous about making a mistake, I felt like I played off the cuff and that’s when I would do things that came so natural to me. I felt like I was unstoppable for a period.

“On the flip side, it happened a few times in my career that when I wasn’t confident, I was a shell of the player I could be. I would overthink everything. The mental side of the game was a big part of whether I was an 8/10 or a 5/10.”

His new approach worked like a dream. From two assists in his first season at Brentford, Forrester scored 11 goals and racked up nine assists in 49 appearances in all competitions in the second. Arguably the most memorable of those was the FA Cup fourth-round tie against Chelsea at Griffin Park in January 2013.

First, his dipping shot was only parried by Ross Turnbull, which allowed Marcello Trotta to fire in the shock opener and, after Oscar had equalised after a piece of individual brilliance, Forrester tucked home a penalty after Tom Adeyemi had been brought down. The Blues’ blushes were only spared late on by Fernando Torres.

“That was a good day,” he says, too modest in his recollection. “I feel like I did better in those situations than if I was to play against someone where I was expected to do well. That’s why playing in front of big crowds at Ibrox for Rangers later in my career was almost easier than anything else because, if I got that adrenaline rush, that’s when I perform best.

“Playing against those players, in a packed stadium, in front of my family, on TV, it felt like this was my time to prove whether I had it or I didn’t.

“Now I’ve retired and I’ve got a chance to reflect on stuff that has happened, it’s nice to see. When you’re playing, you don’t even have time to think about what you did, who you played against or the magnitude of stuff you did. It means more now than it did at the time.”

Forrester is frank when he talks about working under Rösler during his time at the club.

“I didn’t enjoy working in that environment, but that year at Brentford was probably one of the best of my career,” he admits. “It was probably the best I felt until I went to Rangers.

“Though I didn’t like the environment, some things that were happening and maybe the way I was treated at times, did he get the best out of me? Probably, yes and I can’t be too critical of that.

“Is that good management or me getting the bit between my teeth and proving him wrong? I don’t know.”

Understandably clubs were starting to circle at this point, having got wind of the fact Forrester’s contract was expiring at the end of June 2012. Leeds and Ipswich were interested, he reveals, with even the idea of a return to Aston Villa floated.

Forrester’s two-year plan of reaching the Championship looked very much on the cards towards the end of the 2012/13 season, so contract negotiations started.

“I was on a lot less money than a lot of the other boys,” he says. “I didn’t ask for top-end money, but I wanted to be respected as one of the better players in the squad and I felt like I deserved that.

“After a lot of dragging of heels, I got offered a contract I would’ve been happy with and would’ve signed.”

Then the Doncaster game happened. Then the Yeovil game happened after that.

Then, when his Brentford contract expired, Forrester signed for Doncaster, which made his exit all the harder for Bees fans to stomach.

“If Brentford went up, I guarantee I would’ve stayed,” he says.

“There was just a plan. It was a career choice, as well as the fact I didn’t feel too admired by the manager at the time. If I went back and didn’t play, I’d have really regretted it

“It was bittersweet having to leave because I didn’t really want to, but for my career, I had to.

“I wasn’t there for a long time, but I think there’s a mutual respect as I was part of history and I gave everything for the club.

“I loved every minute of it, I’ve got great memories and I love what the club are doing now.”