At 3pm last Saturday, when I should have been taking my place on the Ealing Road terrace, I was instead stuck at a bowling alley in deepest, dankest Oxford.

“What in the name of Jehovah were you doing there, Will?”, I hear you cry and it would be a fair question.

As it happens I was on a stag-do. Yes, that's right. I was forced to miss a Brentford game because the best man, one of my good friends I might add, thought an industrial estate in Oxford, full of screaming kids and half-drunk Oxford United fans, was a suitable place for a bunch of twenty-something lads to spend a Saturday afternoon.

This was a scenario as depressing as a mini-break in Kabul, but then the unthinkable happened - it got worse.

As I hurled heavy ball after heavy ball down into the bowling alley's gutters, I also had to contend with the disembodied head of Jeff Stelling, floating on a shaky TV screen above me, relaying the terrible news that Bristol Rovers and their debutant striker Chris Dickson were running riot at Griffin Park. Following a game from a distance is always a frustrating experience. If your team are winning you wish you were there to celebrate and if things are going badly the illogical thought that if you were in attendance it would all be so different never fails to creep in.

Annoyingly this is an experience I will have to repeat twice more over the coming week as, due to simple twists of fate, I'm unable to make it to Brentford's next two games against Yeovil Town and Southend United respectively.

Hopefully these matches will see the Bees get back on track. If the blow of the loss to Charlton Athletic was cushioned by the fact that we were beaten by a team who are sure to be pushing all the way for the automatic promotion come the end of the season, losing to Bristol Rovers is much more of a reality check.

While I might take issue with Andy Scott over one or two of his selections and tactical decisions so far this season, in particular the holding back of our most creative midfielder Marcus Bean, if we were going to pick a Dad's Army catchphrases to sum up our situation I'd definitely go for “Don't panic” over “We're doomed.”

Where we stand after our upcoming run of seemingly winnable games against Yeovil, Southend and then my return fixture against Swindon Town will tell us much about what kind of season we are set to have.