Darius Charles: How I went from cage football to Griffin Park | OneFootball

Darius Charles joined Brentford’s Centre of Excellence at the age of 10 in 1998 after being spotted playing cage football on a local estate.

Over the next six years, he worked his way through the ranks, first as a striker, then as a left-back and central defender - and did so with the friends he had made along the way: Ryan Peters, Karleigh Osborne, Charlie Ide, Ryan Watts and Sean Hillier.

“It was the best thing ever and we’re all very good friends to this day,” says Charles, speaking in between meetings at Fulham, where he is currently working as Under-16s assistant coach.

“Before anyone was driving and we were training at Tolworth, we would all catch the 65 bus to Kingston and then the 237 - or something like that - jump off and walk to the training ground and we'd do the same on the way back home.

“We were literally friends that spent every waking moment with each other.”

Charles was still at school while playing for the Centre of Excellence, and his ties to the club no doubt helped him get work experience with the scholars before he eventually became one himself.

The wonderment in his voice as he recalls that time shows how much of an impact it had on him.

“Somehow, I was able to swing a job in work experience training with the scholars, so I was around Ibrahima Sonko, Ívar Ingimarsson, Jay Tabb and Andy Frampton because Tolworth was just one building, so you were in and around it all. I was going to the games as well. It was the best two weeks ever.

“I looked up to Sonko especially as I was playing centre-half. He had such a towering stature and seeing him go up for aerial duels, winning tackles and whatnot, I’d just be like, 'Oh my god, this guy is a beast, he's so good!’”

His own scholarship started in 2004 and, at the end of the 2004/05 season, once Brentford had wrapped up a spot in the League One play-offs, Charles was given his debut in the final day 2-1 win over Hull at Griffin Park. Osborne, Ide, Watts and Peters played that day, too.

He had come a long way from the cage.

“That was an incredible day,” he says. “I was playing with my best mates and Jay Tabb who, at that time, I idolised because I was his boot boy at Jersey Road and he's such a lovely guy. He was tipping me £100 at Christmas! The sun was shining, my family were there and it was amazing.”

Another core memory was created when he travelled with the first team to the play-off semi-final first leg against Sheffield Wednesday five days after his debut.

“That atmosphere was insane. I'd have been about 18 then and Hillsborough’s huge. I've been there since and it's still an intimidating place to go but, as a young teenager, going there was honestly like being at Wembley.

“It felt like there were 100,000 people in there. The noise was deafening and it was just an incredible spectacle. The buzz around the place and the Martin Allen antics in the lead-up to the game were hilarious, but also great to be a part of.”

Eight months later, in January, as a second promotion push was taking shape, Martin Allen revealed in ‘Martin’s Tuesday update’ on the club’s official website that Charles had been given his first professional contract – a one-year deal with a one-year option - which would start in June 2006.

“More than anything, that was a relief because about six months before the decision, my youth team manager at the time, Scott Fitzgerald, said, ‘If you want to get a pro, you need to do more,” he explains.

“It might have been reverse psychology but, from that moment onwards, I was so dialled in. I was so focused. I'm super competitive, so I took everything seriously. From that moment onwards, I had a cold focus.

“I was so happy when I got my pro [deal]. My nan has the programme to this day with a picture of me, Martin Allen and my auntie and uncle when I was signing. It meant the world to me.

“I've got nothing but respect for Martin. He gave me my professional contract and he instilled a lot of things in me that I carried with me to the end of my playing career.

“The discipline, the determination, the hard work that we would do just to be in contention to be involved were things that stood me in good stead to allow me to have a football career.”

The unfortunate thing was that, by the time Charles’ professional contract had come into effect, Allen had left the club after a second successive play-off semi-final defeat.

“I remember being nervous. I was young, had been out on loan and played the odd game here or there, then the manager that has given me my pro, the one I've known for years, is gone and I'm like, ‘Oh my God, what does this mean?’

“I remember there was a feeling of deflation because we just couldn't get over the line. In that moment in time, it was tough and a lot of players ended up moving on, especially the better ones.

“It’s not only your management leaving, but your better players are leaving as well so you go into a rebuild phase which is never easy, especially for the ones who are getting left behind.”

Charles started Brentford’s first two games of the 2006/07 season, in which they beat both Blackpool and Northampton 1-0, but that was as good as it got under Leroy Rosenior, who lasted less than six months as Allen’s successor.

He was shipped out on loan again, to Staines and Crawley in non-league, and made 19 Brentford appearances in all as they finished bottom of League One, 14 points from safety.

“That’s one I block out of my mind!” he jokes. “No, it was an interesting season because it was the first time I was really in the first team as a first-team player.

“It was really hard because a rebuild takes a long period of time and Brentford didn't have the resources they have today, so we were never going to get the players that were going to replace the ones that left. How do you replace players like Jay Tabb, Stephen Hunt and DJ Campbell?

“It's really, really tough and, unless you have a war chest of money, you don't just find those players. It was a perfect storm for things not to go well.”

After relegation to League Two, it didn’t go very well under Terry Butcher, either.

“Even though I never experienced Terry playing, we’ve all seen the games, we've all seen the iconic blood through the bandage picture. When you see these things as a kid you're like, ‘Wow, bloody hell, he's that guy! I want to be like him!’

“Coaching and managing has come a long way from what it was back then and he definitely had to come in and turn things around for us. It just so happened that, at that time, maybe the group wasn't ready to change in the way that it needed to change [and] at the speed it needed to change.

“Maybe the playing personnel wasn't right, maybe it was just a mismatch - who knows? Martin Allen was successful for us. No one expected us to get promoted either time that we were in the play-offs; we were coming up against Goliaths like Sheff Wednesday. It’s really hard to come after a successful manager.”

When Butcher left by mutual consent in December 2007, Charles was given just one more start by Andy Scott once he stepped up to take the reins, firstly as caretaker, then on a permanent basis.

Over the next three months, he made just three substitute appearances. On 11 occasions, he was an unused substitute and four times he missed out on a place in the squad altogether, so there was no real surprise when he finished the season on loan at Ebbsfleet in the Conference.

Charles is measured in his analysis of the situation, 17 years on.

“Did I get what I wanted? No. That being said, was I ready? Maybe not.

“One thing I can say is I was young and, when we’re young, we know it all. That's just me taking accountability for the season I had when Andy Scott was there. Would I say I got a fair crack of the whip? It was so long ago now I don’t know if I did or didn't.

“I definitely didn't get the guidance I would have liked, but I'm saying that with the hindsight of how players are managed today, so I can't possibly put that on Andy. That was just the nature of the times that we lived in back then.

“Fair crack of the whip or not, really and truly it means nothing in the grand scheme of things because I was fortunate enough to have a playing career that spanned 17, 18 years.”

Charles remained on loan at Ebbsfleet for the 2008/09 season and, in January 2009, his stay became permanent, which brought the curtain down on an 11-year affiliation with his local club. He played 42 times for the Brentford first team in the end, scoring once.

“Whenever I went on loan, I always said to myself, regardless of whether I want to be here or not or regardless of whether I'm going to be at Brentford, I know this club will sign me so it was always my intention to go somewhere and really add value,” he says.

“I went to Ebbsfleet, did really well with that loan, loved the place, loved the boys and Liam Daish, the manager, was quality.

“I don't think that, at that time, I was too upset to leave Brentford - and I say that as someone who really wanted to play but felt so distant from the first team at the time or opportunities of playing there. I just wanted to go somewhere where I was loved, essentially.

“I bounced around for so long; I was just going from one place to another.

“The Brentford fans were amazing - I love them to this day. When I’ve been back, there's been people who remember me. My name is a very small name in Brentford history, but that being said, the fans loved me because I was one of their own.

“I love that club, it's my club. Without it, I wouldn't be here today. I just needed to grow a pair of wings and go out and forge a career for myself.”

Charles did just that. He went on to play for Stevenage, AFC Wimbledon and Wycombe, and won promotion with each club between 2011 and 2020. With the latter, in 2020/21, he finally managed to play in the Championship, too.

In fact, while he played two EFL Trophy games for the Dons in 2021/22, his final involvement in league football came where it all started.

“This is a true story - my career started at Brentford and my career essentially finished at Brentford,” he adds.

“When I was at Wycombe, we played in a 7-2 defeat and I remember after that game thinking I'm done - and I didn't play another game for Wycombe.

“It was a very serendipitous, full-circle moment. I look back and there couldn't be any other way for my career to end. There was no better place to finish than where it all started.”