I travelled down with Gareth and we were parked up and in The New Inn for three-thirty. Nice pub but unfortunately decked out in green & white, of the Celtic variety, it was only the home of West London Celtic Supporters Club.
Next we visited The Royal Oak, definitely down market football pub, lack of seats and those that were there, were ripped or stained, although it was dearer than The New Inn
Third was The Griffin, a more traditional London pub selling Fullers London Pride, no northern ales in sight. And the dearest so far.
Finally we tested the juice in The Princess Royal, same price as The Griffin but very disappointed to be given plastic glasses. There was a complete lack of decor and atmosphere, although it was still early and only a dozen or so Boro fans in.
Back to The Griffin, timing it perfectly to see the Boro team arrive. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw them alight, not one player who started at Spurs on Saturday, we could be in for a tough game.
Our thoughts were not substantiated as Boro opened up with some slick passing move which could have resulted in two goals in the opening minutes.
In fact it took until the 18th minute before Boro made the breakthrough when Carlos Marinelli who fired a sweet left foot shot into the corner after good work by Allan Johnston down the left.
Two minutes later Boro got their second, Marinelli caused havoc in the Brentford box and crossed for Noel Whelan to score a simple tap-in.
Boro controlled the rest of the half and limited the Bees to a couple of half chances that Mark Crossley dealt with comfortably.
But it wasn't as easy in the opening period of the second half as Brentford tried to get back into the game. There were a few nervous moments in the Boro defence but they weathered the storm for 20 minutes then finished the game off.
Mark Wilson curled a lovely shot into the top corner with his left foot and then just a minute later Stewart Downing scored his first senior goal with a powerful left foot shot.
The Bees grabbed a consolation through Ibrahima Sonko deep into injury time.
There were some promising performances from the Boro team, none more so than Stuart Parnaby who had an assured game at left back, he was comfortable on the ball and made some intelligent advances up the field.
Carlos Marinelli had a fine game, he scored a great goal, made two, but still seemed to disappear on occasions. Mark Crossley, Tony Vidmar and Mark Wilson will also be looking for inclusion in the squad for Saturday's game against Bolton at the Riverside.
Overall a fine performance for what was really a 'reserve' team, but disappointing for the 1500 or so Boro fans who made the long journey south, or across London in a lot of cases.
Made the journey home in double quick time, thanks to Gareth's conservative driving, and was tucked up in bed by one o'clock.