Brentford vs Middlesbrough Championship play-off semi-final: Bees buzz with belief despite Boro supremacy

Aitor Karanka's defensively strong side have already beaten Brentford twice this season

Brentford striker Andre Gray says the fact his side have lost twice to Boro this season counts for nothing (Rex Features)

Brentford must overcome recent history and more fancied opposition if they are to eliminate Middlesbrough from the Championship play-off semi-finals, starting at Griffin Park.

Whatever happens, the home leg will be manager Mark Warburton’s last game at the ground, following his decision to resign at the end of a campaign that will conclude either at the Riverside Stadium next Friday or under the Wembley arch on 25 May.

Relentlessly positive since being promoted from his role as sporting director 17 months ago, Warburton still knows that there is a historic imbalance between the clubs, who have only ever been in the same division three times since the Second World War.

Middlesbrough, a Premier League club when Brentford were in League Two six years ago, have won five and drawn the other of the sides’ last six league encounters, including both of this season’s, by 4-0 and 1-0.

Then there are the grounds; the Riverside, now 20 years old, holds 35,000 and has been used by England for a European Championship tie, while Brentford have finally won permission to build a new stadium rather than attempting to expand their cramped current home, with its capacity of little more than 12,500 people.

The Bees’ play-off history is a tale of misery, with seven failures in as many attempts against opposition as modest as Tranmere, Huddersfield and Yeovil; the latter coming at Wembley two years ago.

None of this deters leading scorer Andre Gray, who says of the two defeats this season by their playoff opponents: “The first time we lost 4-0 but we were a completely different team to the one we are now. If anyone watched the second game, [Middlesbrough] didn’t deserve to get the win. If we get an early goal they’ll open up a bit more and come at us.”

The contrasts, nevertheless, extend to Gray, a Conference footballer with Luton Town this time last year, and his opposite number Patrick Bamford, a Chelsea loanee and England Under-21 international. Gray, rejected by his hometown club Wolves at the age of 13, joined Shrewsbury but dropped into non-league football with Hinckley.

Hanging out – by his own admission – with the wrong crowd, he was stabbed in a street fight and is reminded of a misspent youth every time he looks in the mirror by a long scar down his face.

“It could have been my eye or my neck,” he says. “It made me get up and get on with it, move on with my life. Where I’m from there are still people doing the same stupid things but signing for Luton gave me another kick up my arse to get out of a situation where I don’t need to be. And I haven’t looked back since then.”

Bamford, who looks as though he would pass as a member of either a boy band or the Bullingdon Club, played rugby at Nottingham High School, achieved four A-levels and was offered a scholarship at Harvard University in the United States.

Top scorer for Boro with 17 goals, he was recently named Championship player of the year, and hopes to impress his Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, further by leading Aitor Karanka’s defensively strong side back to the Premier League after a six-year absence.

However, the striker is doubtful for the first leg. He is struggling to shake off an ankle problem that he picked up at Norwich almost three weeks ago and did not train on this week’s trip to Spain.