Two years ago I wrote a rather miserable blog about supporting a football team that was facing relegation. Dear old Brentford duly went down that year, and have played in the bottom division – Rebranded League Two, Division Four, whatever – for two seasons. These years saw matches against teams we had never played before, like Dagenham and Redbridge, as well as reunions with some old regulars also fallen on hard times, like Luton, Northampton, and Grimsby.

Those two years saw a major revival, though, and in a season that saw other teams – Luton, Bournemouth, Rotherham, and Darlington – burdened with points deductions for financial mistakes, some of the usual pressure was removed. From facing relegation from the League back at Christmas 2007, Brentford exceeded expectations and won the League with room to spare this year. They certainly exceeded the bookies’ expectations: my £5 each way at 16/1 before the season started certainly felt like a good investment after the final whistle at Darlington, my only regret being that I hadn’t risked a little more.

Supporting a lowly team like Brentford always means that the highs, when they come, are extremely high. In my 30-odd years of supporting them, whoever has to keep the honours board up-to-date has not exactly been inundated with work: the real Third Division title in 1991-92, the rebranded Third Division title in 1998-99, and … er, that’s it. Sure, this is better than the experiences of many teams, but it’s not the kind of thing that would keep a supporter of one of the currently natural Premiership teams happy. I try not to fall into the cliché of attributing too many life lessons to what we do in sport, but I’m sure that following a small team is healthier than following a big one: expecting success and assuming that failure can’t happen has never struck me as very helpful way of behaving, as witness this season’s wails from Newcastle that their club is too good to be relegated from the Premiership. And Brentford’s fixture list for next season is littered with some of those recently big teams – Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Norwich City, and Charlton among them – for whom these days must still feel like slumming it. Indeed, the fickle nature of the game was underlined by our opponents in that last match: Luton Town, Wembley regulars in the 1980s, slipped quietly out of the League while Brentford celebrated.

The last game this year was comfortable, as we had already secured the title the week before. There was a line-up with fireworks before kick-off, although 3.00 pm on a May Saturday isn’t the most effective time to light up the sky. After the game, despite the MC’s heartfelt protests, there was a huge pitch invasion, and the awarding of the trophy, complete with a podium on the pitch and Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ echoing predictably round the ground. As well as enjoying the moment, the celebrations sparked memories of other promotions: hugging Herman Hreidarsson after we secured promotion in 1999; going to Peterborough with low expectations in 1992 and coming home with a huge grin after a handshake with that year’s hero, Dean Holdsworth – I asked him not to leave the club but he didn’t listen; and drinking my first beer after winning promotion in 1978 (I hope there’s a statute of limitations on this as I was only 13, but I only had a few sips – honest). My brother somehow blagged his way into the dressing room that day and came home with striker Andy McCulloch’s shirt. Memories like this – the kind that never usually get written down – are part of the tradition that lies at the heart of all sports fandom. These key moments form the high points in the narrative of our relationships with our clubs.