Rival Premier League club director opens up on lifelong love for Newcastle United

The Director of Football at Brentford FC has opened up about his lifelong love of Newcastle United, despite championing the West London club from high up in the board.

Phil Giles is part of Brentford's head-turning Premier League project with the club set to secure a third consecutive season of top-flight football after yet another impressive campaign.

Giles delved into how the club is run when speaking on the High Performance Podcast with Jake Humphrey and detailed how the side managed continuous improvement despite selling star players to Premier League clubs when battling in the Championship.

Towards the end of the podcast, the Director of Football was asked how his love for football started and he admitted it all first blossomed when a youngster living in the North East.

Giles said: "I grew up in Newcastle and you can't not love football. I used to go to the games way back when in the 80s.

"Newcastle became good and when Newcastle became good I applied for university at Newcastle so I could keep my season ticket. I was really born to it."

Despite his love for football and Newcastle United, Giles admitted he hadn't considered a career in the sport at that point and it was only when Brentford came knocking that he made the move into football.

He added: "When I left Newcastle I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to do something I was interested in so ended up working in the sports betting industry.

"The idea that I would actually work in football, that just came to luck and randomness.

"I was going to a meeting in my previous job, which was with the same owner as Brentford. On the tube platform, I ran into someone I work with who is a lawyer getting the tube to the same meeting.

"He was a director at Brentford and we got talking about Brentford and eventually he starts saying the problems they faced and I said had he thought about this and that.

"One thing led to the other and he advised Matthew [Benham, Brentford owner] that maybe I should be part of those solutions. If I hadn't bumped into him on that platform on that tube station, I'd have never tried to work in football."