“I remember celebrating the header from Mads Bech Sørensen’s long throw against Arsenal in our first Premier League match and it felt like Rob was sitting next to me,” says the Brentford director Nity Raj.

It is more than six years since Rob Rowan died but his memory lives on in west London. Rowan had been tipped for a long and successful career in football after becoming Brentford’s technical director at the age of 28. He had been promoted to that role after almost four years at the club, mostly as the head of football operations, but nine months later, in November 2018, the former Celtic scout had a fatal cardiomyopathy episode – similar to a heart attack.

Rowan’s death at such a tender age stunned Brentford and their community, with the owner, Matthew Benham, and his staff committing to build a lasting legacy to the man who did so much to help build their foundations.

After a fundraising campaign led by Rowan’s wife, Suzanne, that raised more than £60,000, the Heart of West London scheme was born in 2021. In partnership with the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals Charity, Resuscitation Council UK and several other local organisations, it aims to increase awareness of cardiac health issues and ensure everyone has the skills to save a life.

“We came at this from a place of shock,” says Raj. “I was at QPR away on a Saturday in 2018 and I saw Rob, as normal, we chatted about the game. And then we left and you expect to see everybody on a Monday, and especially someone who was only 28 years old. So I just wouldn’t, and couldn’t, have imagined getting the call on the Monday morning saying Rob had died. If he had support earlier and more of the right support, maybe his outcomes might have been different.”

Anyone who watched Brentford’s stirring comeback from 2-0 down to draw with Manchester City last week will have noticed the QR code in the middle of Brentford’s shirts that encouraged viewers and supporters to access the “Restart a Heart” video. It was the third season in a row that Brentford have dedicated a home fixture to the campaign, the club having screened the hearts of 364 people aged between 14 and 35 as a result, with 24 being referred for further testing.

“When Rob died, it was like, suddenly: ‘OK, well, this has really been brought home to us,’” says Raj. “This can affect young people, and you won’t know it’s coming, so to have that information, to have a better understanding of heart health and the risks for a small portion of people who might have no symptoms, who might have no knowledge of the need to manage their health in a different way, was important.”

He adds: “CPR is the most important thing anyone will ever know. We had a fan collapse in one of the lounges a couple of years ago and he had somebody giving him CPR within a minute and an ICD [defibrillator] within two. He said he felt well enough to come to the game the following week but his wife wouldn’t let him come for another week. That was a real and visceral reminder of why this is important: somebody gets to come back for another game rather than never being able to see their family again.”

The head coach, Thomas Frank, was promoted from assistant to replace Dean Smith a few weeks before Rowan died and had worked closely with Rowan in setting up the B side after the closure of the academy in response to restrictions imposed by the Premier League’s elite player performance plan. None of the current players were at the club but several have shown an interest in finding out more about the initiative.

Last week Yoane Wissa, who surpassed Ivan Toney as Brentford’s record Premier League goalscorer with the first against City, and his wife, Kahina, accompanied Raj on a tour to see Royal Brompton’s groundbreaking research, including the live screening of a heart.

“He was genuinely interested to see how everything works,” says Raj. “It’s really nice to explain to the players why we are doing this for our friend. Thomas was very close to Rob and is always very supportive. The trajectory of his career had been stellar – technical director by the age of 28 is pretty impressive by anyone’s measure. But to do it in a club like ours where we were really progressing quickly at the time and to have had this idea that you could really do something different with the B team, we have reaped a lot of those benefits. That has been one of the key elements that got us to this level.”

Sørensen – whose throw-in for Christian Nørgaard’s goal against Arsenal sealed one of the club’s most famous moments after promotion via the playoffs –was one of the success stories of the B team, although Premier League rules meant that Brentford were forced to reopen their academy in 2022 and it was upgraded to category two status in June. The club are building a state-of-the-art academy base next to the Rob Rowan performance centre that houses the first team and development teams and are having to find a way to compete in a crowded market.

“If we were going to do it, then we wanted to do it really well and have the most progressive and caring academy in the world,” Raj says. “Our academy director, Steve Torpey, has done a brilliant job of creating something different. It feels like a continuation of Rob’s story.”