Kevin O’Connor made 501 appearances for Brentford and, since he retired in 2015, has held a variety of roles on their coaching staff. For the past six years, he has been one of Thomas Frank’s trusted assistants.

O’Connor joined Brentford in 1995 and made his debut for them at the age of 17 in February 2000. Back then, they were in the third tier of English football. The now-42-year-old has been with them for every step of their dramatic journey through the divisions to a fourth successive season in the Premier League.

Despite all of the O’Connor’s achievements in west London, including being fourth on their all-time appearances list and having an analysis room at the training ground named in his honour, he will always be associated with one particular moment. The only problem is that it is the final day of the 2012-13 season when Brentford failed to earn promotion to the Championship.

Brentford were hosting second-placed Doncaster Rovers at Griffin Park and needed to win to go up automatically. The game was 0-0 heading into stoppage time when Uwe Rosler’s side won a penalty. O’Connor was the designated taker but Marcello Trotta, a 20-year-old striker on loan from Fulham, picked up the ball and smashed it against the crossbar.

To make matters worse, Doncaster immediately scored on the counter, which sealed the title for them. Richard Lee, who was a member of the squad but missed that game through injury, said in 2022 that “it felt like the end of the world”.

The Athletic spoke to Lee and Trotta for the ninth anniversary of that incident and now, at the launch of Brentford’s Hall of Fame, O’Connor is ready to share his side of the story.

“I understand why Trotta took it,” the former Republic of Ireland Under-21 international says. “He was confident. He was a striker and wanted to score, which I respected. I wanted to take it but I felt like, at the time, I had to either wrestle with him or walk away.

“I was absolutely gutted that we missed it and that I didn’t take it. The feeling afterwards was horrendous. I had to do a (routine) drugs test, so I couldn’t even go back into the changing room. Me and Uwe had a strong conversation in the tunnel. We both kicked the wall and ended up cuddling.”

Just over a decade after missing out on promotion to the Championship, O’Connor’s current focus is now on helping Brentford climb up the Premier League table. He is responsible for drilling the squad on their defensive principles with alongside fellow assistant coach Claus Norgaard, while Frank and Justin Cochrane concentrate on attacking patterns of play. He works closely with set-piece specialist Keith Andrews to analyse the opposition’s schemes and also mentors a group of six players.

“I need to watch games and create individual clips for them,” O’Connor says. “I have conversations with them about football and life to make sure they are OK. You build close relationships so you can understand the players.

“Thomas decides who we look after and he might tweak them. I have had Josh Dasilva for a few seasons. I have Rico (Henry), Yoane (Wissa) and, for the first time, Yehor (Yarmoliuk). Sometimes he keeps us with people because he knows we have strong relationships with them and can get to the bottom of any issues or give them a confidence boost when they need it.”

During the 2022-23 season, O’Connor organised a team bonding session with help from head of athletic performance Chris Haslam. Players and staff competed against each other in axe-throwing, clay-pigeon shooting, archery and go-karting. He also runs sessions at the training ground around culture and one of them was similar to speed-dating.

“I have a secret weapon who I speak to and they come up with ideas with me,” says O’Connor. “The plan was to get everyone in front of each other and say two non-football-related facts about yourself. Then we had a small competition to see who could remember the most. It’s just to get people talking. Thomas absolutely loved it. At one point, he was talking to the cleaner. It’s good fun and I’m just trying to think of ways to keep the staff engaged.”

O’Connor sits in the stands on a matchday flanked by analysts with a device in his ear that enables him to communicate with the bench. It is an idea that former assistant coach Brian Riemer, who is now in charge of Denmark, implemented during the 2020-21 season.

“I was down on the bench not doing too much and probably getting myself into trouble,” O’Connor says. “I’m up there to answer any questions from Claus or Thomas. They get my opinion if things aren’t going well but if they are, I don’t say too much. With set pieces, I can see if the opposition have set up differently and try to find any little tweaks we can do.”

There have been a few changes to Brentford’s coaching staff during Frank’s reign. Riemer left to pursue his own ambitions as a head coach in December 2022 and was replaced by Norgaard, while Cochrane joined from Manchester United in June 2022. Bernardo Cueva was poached by Chelsea in the summer. O’Connor has been ever-present since he was promoted to the first team a couple of months after Frank took over from Dean Smith in 2018.

“When Thomas first joined as an assistant (in 2016), I was really intrigued by him,” O’Connor says. “We had some conversations about football and he thought differently to everybody else. When he asked me to become a first-team coach, I was honoured and it gave me a big boost to my confidence.

“I’ve been learning from him since. He is a fantastic coach and a very good man-manager with the players and staff. He cares about us and you can feel that straight away. In return, we care about him and we look after each other.”

O’Connor, centre, attempts to calm Thomas Frank as he argues with a member of Stoke City’s coaching staff in July 2020 (David Rogers/Getty Images)

It is no surprise that O’Connor’s favourite moment during his time with Brentford is the 2021 Championship play-off final. After losing at Wembley the previous year to local rivals Fulham, they returned and beat Swansea City 2-0, heading back to the top flight after a 74-year absence.

“We did family videos for the players in the hotel the day before the final and from that moment, without saying it out loud, I knew we were going to win,” he says. “You couldn’t have scripted that day any better. We went 2-0 up and when they started to come back into it, they had a man sent off. But I was still nervous until the 94th minute.”

Before O’Connor became Frank’s assistant, he was the B team’s head coach for two years. He led them on tours across Europe and helped to develop Chris Mepham, Mads Bech Sorensen and Marcus Forss. With that experience, does he think about becoming a head coach somewhere else in the future, or will he extend his stay with Brentford into a fourth decade?

“There might come a time where I want to be a head coach and I have to start somewhere,” O’Connor says. “I don’t think my first job will be as head coach of Brentford, especially if we are in the Premier League. I probably wouldn’t want that for them, if I’m honest!

“I’m very happy in the role I’m doing. I love working with people and my day-to-day job. Never say never, but I’m not sure.”

GO DEEPER

What makes Frank special: ‘Secret sauce’, training for stoppage time – and games of Risk

(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)