Tom Adeyemi said Brentford are one step away from making 2012/13 a season to remember.
Brentford face Yeovil Town in the League One Play-Off final on Sunday with the winner taking a place in The Championship, a level The Bees have not been at since 1993.
The Bees have already seen one chance for promotion slip by with a 1-0 defeat to Doncaster Rovers on the last day of the regular season.
Tom said that day and the experience of facing Chelsea twice in the FA Cup Fourth Round this season can help the side cope with the big occasion and cap off a great season.
“We will definitely enjoy it more if we get the right result but these sorts of occasions are something that we all live for and it’s something that I am really proud to have been able to achieve for Brentford,” said Tom.
“One more step and it will be a very special season.
“We are all so excited about it and I wish the game was tomorrow but we will have to wait and prepare properly and we will all be ready.
“One thing we have been through is that we have already had a one-off game against Doncaster which decided if we could get promotion.
“We know the sort of nerves and feelings we will be getting we will now be able to take that experience and use it as a positive and take it in to the weekend.
“Having played at Stamford Bridge we have played at big stadiums with big crowds but obviously that is a bit different as the crowd was a home crowd for them.
“Now playing in front of however many thousands of Brentford fans will be an amazing experience for us and hopefully they will be able to drive us on.
“Personally I have found it to be the best time in my career because it is the first time I have been really fighting for something.
“As a team, as a club, as the fans we have all been pulling together to try and achieve something.
“We came so close to doing it a couple of weeks back and we are now just grateful that we have a second chance to do it at the weekend.”
Brentford reached the League One Play-Off Final with a penalty shoot-out win over Swindon Town in the Semi-Final Second Leg at Griffin Park.
Having led 4-3 on aggregate Swindon Town equalised in the final minute of injury time to force extra time and eventually penalties.
Tom, who was substituted with 20 minutes of the game remaining, said that it was much harder to watch the game from the bench rather than be involved on the pitch.
“It is definitely a lot more nerve-wracking on the side-lines, I know what the fans are going through now,” said Tom.
“You don’t get those nerves when you are playing because you are concentrating on your own game but once you sit on the side-lines it is horrible.
“You are kicking every ball and going through it all.
“It was an amazing feeling when we won.
“What we went through over the 120 minutes in the end was unbelievable – being in a position where we thought we had the game wrapped up to being pegged back and then ultimately getting taken to a penalty shoot-out – it was a real rollercoaster of a game and we were all so delighted we were able to do it.”
Following on from the Swindon tie, the squad took a training break to Wales given the 13 day gap between the Semi-Final Second Leg and the Final.
Tom said it was good for the squad to get away and re-charge the batteries given the length of the season and the drama of the recent games.
With a longer break than normal between games the midfielder, on loan from Norwich City, said it was important that the squad didn’t start the build-up too early and tried to prepare for Sunday’s game as normally as possible.
“We have gone about preparing in the right way” said Tom.
“The first week since the Swindon game we didn’t really talk about it too much.
“We have tried to give ourselves that week build-up that we would normally have between a Saturday to Saturday game so this week should be similar to a normal week and we are going to prepare that way.
“It was good to have some time away after the Swindon tie.
“Physically it is very demanding to have to play a game on a Saturday and then on a Monday.
“Mentally, especially with how the game went, it is quite draining.
“It was good to get a few days to take stock of what we had done and now we start the preparation for next weekend.
“We were still keeping ourselves ticking over during those times but it is nice to have that time to switch your mind off and relax more because it is non-stop from the pre-season to the end of the season which is a fairly long time to be in training and preparing for games.
“At the end of the day that’s our job that’s what we get paid for we can’t have any complaints.”
Brentford’s two previous encounters with Yeovil this season have seen The Glovers come away with the win on both occasions.
A 3-1 victory at Griffin Park in August was followed up by a 3-0 home win at Huish Park in February.
However, Tom said that the results in the previous games this season will have little bearing on Sunday’s one-off final.
“When you look at the two games against Yeovil, certainly for the away game as I wasn’t here for the home one, on the day it didn’t feel like a deserved 3-0 defeat,” said Tom.
“We had a lot of chances in the first half and if we could have taken one of those it could have been very different.
“Psychologically we aren’t going to be thinking that they are a better team because they have beaten us twice.
“We finished third in the league and we are up there for a reason so there is no reason why we can’t do the job.”
Bees Player subscribers can see a full video interview with Tom Adeyemi here.