​Playing in a lower division in 1998/99 was, at the time, almost a given for him. Yet after seven matches in the First Division, he reduced the tally by two and signed for Brentford, who had just been relegated to the Third Division. The transfer set a new club record at £750,000—three times the £250,000 they paid Chelsea for Joe Allon in November 1992—and it would stand for 16 years until Moses Odubajo arrived from Leyton Orient in June 2014.
Speaking by phone from Iceland, where he now manages the second-tier side HK Kópavogur, the 51-year-old looks back with a smile at the essential question: why move? “I didn’t have an agent, and, looking back, I realise that was a bit of a risky move,” he admits. The move came about through Ron Noades, who owned Crystal Palace while he was there, and then sold the club as things turned south. He was very friendly with Noades, so he spoke to him and said he’d come to Brentford with the hope of winning the league, and the deal got done.
“The Premier League is the promised land, and it was outstanding there. That’s where you want to be—where you can compete against the best. But I also thought it would be a great opportunity to experience the lower leagues and the infrastructure of English football, so I grabbed it with both hands. I also needed to improve my game. Ray Lewington, whom I still hold in very high regard, had been with me at Palace and moved to Brentford, so that was a big factor too, knowing I would be in good hands to develop. Ron had big plans for the club at the time and went straight into trying to turn it into a bigger outfit. Like any player, you want to play at the highest level, and I joined with high hopes of winning the league and then seeing where it would lead.”
“I didn’t have an agent, and when I think back, that was a bit of a risky move,” he repeats.
Hreiðarsson made his Brentford debut on 26 September 1998 in a 3-0 home victory over Darlington and soon missed only four league games thereafter. He settled in quickly at Griffin Park, much as he had at Selhurst Park, and he found the new ground a natural fit. “It was the home of football, absolutely. At the time, it had a different class.”
What endeared him to supporters was his forward-thinking mindset: he stood out for stepping forward from his defensive role to offer an outlet going forward, a natural tendency that felt intuitive given his earlier experience on the wing and in midfield as a teenager. A strong on-field partnership soon formed with Darren Powell. The two 6ft 3in defenders became a formidable tandem at the back.
“He was an absolute top man and a great defender,” Hreiðarsson recalls. “We looked after each other. I knew he had pace, but he was also powerful in the air. He was a great athlete. We both had decent pace. We could defend effectively with either a high line or a low block.”