"I have never put a bet on for the fun of it," Benham said in a 2013 interview with German sports magazine 11Freunde. "I don't like gambling. But I always liked maths and football."
Benham was drawn back to Brentford FC in 2005 after reading an article in The Independent, in which a fans' group, Bees United, appealed for wealthy supporters to come forward and help buy out the old owner, Ron Noades. At first Benham remained anonymous, donating smaller amounts and taking on some of the club's loans. In 2012 he became the owner, promising to revitalise the club and build a new stadium. Rich owners with big plans are nothing new in football; nor is buying your way to success.
Given his background, however, Benham took a different approach, using mathematical models to gain an edge. He hired Mark Warburton, who had also started out working in the City, to be manager. To their traditional analysis and scouting systems, they added new levels of data, measuring players by different criteria from their competitors, allowing them to find potential that other clubs had overlooked.
In the distant past a team might have looked at how many goals a player scored, how many times they passed the ball, or their speed or stamina. Advances in technology mean clubs today use hundreds of attributes, tangible and intangible, to calculate how effective a player is. Or, even more importantly, how effective they might become. Exact algorithms are closely guarded.
Benham and Warburton's approach paid off almost at once: Brentford, then in the third tier of English football, were quickly promoted: first to the Championship in 2014, then, in 2021, to the Premier League. Benham also fulfilled his pledge of a new stadium; the 17,000-seater Brentford Community Stadium. Along the way he also found the time to repeat the trick in Denmark. He bought FC Midtjylland, a small club, in 2014, and they won the Danish title a year later.
Benham has been completely vindicated. Last week, Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence released a report on the best and worst owners of the Premier League clubs, collating over 10,000 votes. "Brighton, Brentford and Leicester were the three clubs seen by fans of other clubs as the best owners. In Brighton and Brentford's case, it's because you have owners who are fans of the club and have taken them from a low level to the Premier League, without spending much money.
"The average Premier League club might spend PS100 million per year on average. Brentford's average net spend since he took over is -PS5.8 million. In other words, they've made an average profit of PS5.8 million [in transfers] since he took over. If the average wage bill is something like PS200 million a year, Brentford's average wage bill since 2009 is PS21 million. Last season it was under PS100 million, in a division when Manchester City and Chelsea are spending more than PS400 million."