Lloyd Owusu admits he is truly humbled at the prospect of being inducted into Brentford's Hall of Fame tonight.
Owusu , who bagged 76 goals over two spells with the Bees, will be introduced to the crowd at half time of the Championship clash against Burnley, before having his picture added alongside other past luminaries in the Braemar Road gallery.
But the striker revealed to GetWestLondon that he didn't expect to have anything near the impact he did when he was signed from non-league Slough Town in 1998.
He said: “I didn't expect to feature much at all when I signed. I'd been on trial at Walsall when Brentford came in for me, and it really appealed as I already knew guys like Marcus Bent and Derek Bryan.
“There were players like Darren Freeman and Kevin Rapley already there, and I was little old Lloyd Owusu from Slough. I only expected to play a bit part, but guys like Martin Rowlands and Darren Powell were also coming from non-league clubs.
“I remember before the first game of the season, Ray Lewington read the team out, with all three of us non-leaguers starting, and Warren Aspinall, bless him, sat there shaking his head, thinking the gaffer had gone mad. But we won 3-0 and the rest is history.
“I was the only player to play all 56 games in that title-winning side, which was just unreal. It was Roy of the Rovers stuff, I didn't expect to play many games at all.”
Owusu would go on to play for the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Reading and Yeovil before finishing his career in Australia, where he is now a football coach.
Tonight's game will be the first Brentford match he has watched in about five years, in which time the club has become unrecognisable from the one he once played for.
He added: “Brentford will always be my family club and always the first result I look for, so it's great to see how much they have grown in stature. Fair play to the owner, he has put his money where his mouth is.
“I'm looking forward to coming back, and I was gobsmacked when I was told I was being put in the Hall of Fame. It was not expected at all and I am truly humbled.”
