Griffin Park played host to a Fans’ Forum this evening.

Brentford Chairman Cliff Crown, Manager Uwe Rösler, Chief Executive Mark Devlin and Brian Burgess, a Director of Lionel Road Developments Ltd, were the panel for the evening and took question on a range of subjects.

For more than 90 minutes attendees were able to ask about all aspects of the club at the event, organised in conjunction with the Brentford Independent Association of Supporters (BIAS).

Among the topics raised by supporters were Uwe’s thoughts on the 2013/14 League One season, plans to raise attendances at Griffin Park and the Lionel Road Stadium project.

Brian Burgess urged those at the forum to support the Club’s plans to build a new ground at Lionel Road South.

More information on how fans can add their voices to those backing the scheme is available here.

Uwe said Wolverhampton Wanderers should be considered favourites to win League One this season but Brentford would challenge.

He said: “Wolves will receive a parachute payment of around £19m.

“The must do a lot of things wrong to not win the league.

“The teams coming down with them – Bristol City and Peterborough United – will have budgets ahead of ours.

“Matthew Benham, the Owner, has allowed us to increase our budget this year after it has been the same for the last two years as it was under the previous manager.

“I think with the experience and spirit we have as well as the support of our fans we can challenge.

“We want to win promotion.

“We want to do better than last year, that’s the aim.

“We have a squad capable of doing that, we will go out and fight for it.”

Uwe also told the forum the decision to invite Celtic to Griffin Park for a pre-season friendly was made by the football staff.

“I wanted the test; [Sporting Director] Mark Warburton wanted the test, we were very happy to get Celtic down here.

“I think it’s fantastic and it is absolutely crucial we have a better match programme in this pre-season.

“We played Basingstoke Town and Wycombe Wanderers last season because of the London Olympic Games.

“We dropped a number of points at the beginning of the season.

“This year is the best match programme for pre-season this club has ever had

“We hope to get more points and win promotion.

“The Celtic game will help us prepare for the bigger games this season.

“I will take responsibility for the decision to play against Celtic and I would invite them down again.

“Celtic have a good squad of players and gave us a very good match.

“They did not bring all their big guns and it would have been good if they had but they beat us, that team certainly gave us a game.”

Mark Devlin spoke about the Club’s contract with adidas to supply the Brentford FC kit.

Mark told the forum the kits worn by the First Team this season were the only options available.

The Club has still not received the new yellow and blue away kit to sell and Mark said the Club had used the delivery issues this season to push adidas to ensure there were red and white stripes on the back of the 2014/14 Brentford kit, something adidas would not ordinarily have done.

“I have never experienced a delay to delivery of kit like this in my years in football,” said Mark.

“We have items outstanding for the First Team with the season upon us.

“We have already signed off the designs for next season and it will have stripes on the back.”

Chairman Cliff Crown said he hoped to see 10,000 fans inside Griffin Park regularly next season and although that was a tough ask he thought 8,000 was possible.

“If I have one plea to the supporters,” he said. “It is that more come at the start of the season.

“The support at the end of last season was great – we took more than 22,000 to Wembley for the Play-Off Final.”

Uwe added: “We have an intimidating stadium and when more fans come it is even harder for teams to take points from us here.

“It is important to full Griffin Park and make it a fortress.”

Mark Devlin added the game against Shrewsbury Town on October 26 would be a ‘Pay What You Can’ fixture and the Club would have a marketing budget available to attract more families to Griffin Park.

The evening ended with a supporter thanking Uwe for his work and praising Club Owner Matthew Benham for his investment.

Bees Player subscribers can see the best bits from the Fans Forum soon.