Fake Fans Bore Off. This is like a new beginning...

[eastlondonseagull]

Its time for all the fake fans down south to start supporting the local team proper! sick of hearing about people who support Brighton AND man u, liverpool, chelsea, arsenal, spurs etc.

No idea how a southerner can support man u or liverpool anyway.

New stadium, New crest, New era. This is your chance to drop that team you support from your arm chair, get yourself a season ticket at the AMEX, give the club some money in doing so and get behind the Albion from now on!

Come on the Seagulls!

One club, and one club only for me, dig54

Great signature, btw

 

[Taybha]

 

[portlock seagull]

I was kind of brought up to support both Chelsea and Brighton, started going to both when about 7, having a pair of football mad parents, including a dad that had been going to watch Chelsea since the 1950's but living in Sussex.

I started out watching more Brighton games but then slid over to Chelsea when we were away at Gillingham as I spent a lot of time in London anyway. However I have rapidly lost interest in Chelsea over the last few years, I had a season ticket there (while still catching Brighton games where possible) up until the summer Abramovic took over and that coincided with me going away to uni and since then the club has changed so much I hardly recognise it anymore.

So it's been a bit of a rollercoaster between the two but Brighton have taken over more and more over the past few years to the extent that I would now say that while I have a lingering softspot for Chelsea, I only support one team, Brighton.

Least we know where at least one fan was "when we were shit"! Conveniently following Chelsea's glorious rise...until they go off the boil and hey presto you're conveniently back just in time to follow our glorious rise...!!

I just don't get fans like this. Thick and thin I say. Welcome back but can't blame some people for taking the mick can you?!

 

[Publius Ovidius]

what really gets me, and it shouldn't I Know , is when you at an away game, Orient for example and the people behind you spend 90% of teh game f***ing about on their mobiles and telling everyone in a 500mile radius WHAT THE PREMIERSHIP scores are.....who give a flying!!!

I turned round and politely asked this gentleman why he felt it necessary to tell everyone that such and such team were 1-0 up and some foreignor "was having a blinder" and his answer was he thought people would be interested....didn't spot the sarcasm from me and therefore kept on doing it.

 

[DanielT]

Just to throw a counter-argument into the mix: Working on the 'local team only' reasoning, where is the boundary around Brighton that stops you being allowed to be a "proper" supporter?

Lewes have their local team, Hassocks do too. Can they not support Brighton too? How local do you need to be?

 

[Brovion]

Just to throw a counter-argument into the mix: Working on the 'local team only' reasoning, where is the boundary around Brighton that stops you being allowed to be a "proper" supporter?

Lewes have their local team, Hassocks do too. Can they not support Brighton too? How local do you need to be?

Exactly. If you're going to put forward the argument that 'people should support their local team and not a big club' then no one from places like Worthing, Eastbourne, Lewes, etc should support Brighton. If you're going to qualify it and say "Ok, you should support your local LEAGUE club" then that leads me back to my original question - if/when Crawley becomes a league club should the people of north Sussex abandon Brighton and support their local league team instead?

The answer is that it doesn't break some immutable law of nature to support two teams, usually a 'big' team and a little one. And this isn't a new phenomena; when I was growing up in Lancing back in the 1960s-70s everybody supported Brighton and a first division side as well. Well, everybody except me, Initially I supported Chelsea and Palace! Fair play to all those who've only got and only ever had one team but that doesn't make you 'better' fans and doesn't mean everybody else has to think like you.

 

[PFJ]

Just to throw a counter-argument into the mix: Working on the 'local team only' reasoning, where is the boundary around Brighton that stops you being allowed to be a "proper" supporter?

Lewes have their local team, Hassocks do too. Can they not support Brighton too? How local do you need to be?

I think it only applies to professional teams , otherwise I would have been a life long Hollingbury Hawks fan.

 

[Dr. Notthenineo'clocknews]

I think it only applies to professional teams , otherwise I would have been a life long Hollingbury Hawks fan.

Get stuffed, Coombe Rovers rule OK!

 

[gnjd_85]

Least we know where at least one fan was "when we were shit"! Conveniently following Chelsea's glorious rise...until they go off the boil and hey presto you're conveniently back just in time to follow our glorious rise...!!

I just don't get fans like this. Thick and thin I say. Welcome back but can't blame some people for taking the mick can you?!

To give me some credit, that's pretty much the opposite of what happened.

I was raised watching and following both, went towards Chelsea (in terms of games gone to, i never stopped supporting Albion as well) as i was half in london half in Brighton while we were in Gillingham, it was geographically far more local.

And then far from 'conveniently following' Chelsea's glorious rise, i in fact was following them in the days of such superstars as Nigel Spackman and Robert Fleck, and then eventually fell out of love with them in the Abramovic days when Chelsea suddenly started winning everything, rather than the other way round.

I still live away from Brighton but travel down for as many Withdean games as I can and haven't been to Chelsea in years, I was there at the first match at the Withdean and hopefully will be there at the last.



Just trying to make the point that it isn't always as black and white as it might seem.

Might seem thin skinned of me but it grates a little bit for someone to think of me as a glory supporter when as a 13 year old I was travelling several hours on my own to go watch us get hammered at 'home' by Darlington, just one game that sticks in my memory.

 

[CAPTAIN GREALISH]

people always ask me who are my second team? what a bloody stupid question

 

[Janbha]

My 1st team will always be Chester City ive adopted Brighton and Hove Albion through circumstances , i would of thought that the club would need everybody they could to get the Amex full on matchdays , wouldnt bother me if the person sat next to me supports another club as long as he/she had paid for the privilage of the seat they occupy, It will take time to win back the Brighton exiles that left the fold to watch top flight clubs,the main thing is to fill the stadium week in week out is it not ? you will not do this by alienating the casual supporter.

 

[Fef]

Good grief, such exclusivist bilge. The question to ask a fan is "do you support/worship/love/ Brighton and Hove Albion, and intend to do so until you take your last breath?". If the answer is "Yes" then that's good enough for me.

I'm also a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. Does this make me any less of a Brighton fan? Or any less of a football fan? No. Personally, I have never felt the need to support more than one footie team, but this is my conviction and doesn't necessarily mean it is right.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Some of our fans of a higher profile have adopted Brighton later on in their lives.

I do find it strange that someone does feel the need to support AN Other team along with Brighton (generally a Premiership side) - I guess it gives you more chance at having something to cheer about. Is that how it works?

 

[PFJ]

I suppose I am lucky that I was born in Brighton and still live within the current boundries , unless Adur Borough Council sneakily move their borders two streets the East. But I was always of the opinion that your team picks you , you don't pick your team .
In other words my local team , is my birthright .

I know there are people born in Brighton here whose family originate from other parts of the UK. I know an Albion/MUFC fan whose dad is from Manchester and is a die hard Manc. Got no problem with that . But to the Arsenal fan whose only justification is they were 8th when he first picked them and now they are 4th . Whoopee Doo. Oh and by the way , they have never been relegated from the top division , and they play great football. And while you're at it do you pick your favourite International team as well ??
Maybe that's what I don't get . Maybe people pick a team because of the football they play.

Certainly up until this season that was never a prerequisite to be an Albion fan . It was so much more that .

 

[gnjd_85]

Some of our fans of a higher profile have adopted Brighton later on in their lives.

I do find it strange that someone does feel the need to support AN Other team along with Brighton (generally a Premiership side) - I guess it gives you more chance at having something to cheer about. Is that how it works?

With me personally I kind of feel it was more of a childhood thing with Chelsea, from being taken there as a small kid a football club has a habit of seeping into you. My dad was pretty bi-partisan and just loved his football so it wasn't like he drilled one thing or another into me, we were just having family days out and enjoying good football.

As i've got older I realise i only have one true love and that's Brighton, but when I see Chelsea on tv i get a bit of childhood nostalgia and while I don't really care much whether they win the league or not etc, I can't help but cheer when they score. With Brighton its rather more of an obsession.

Make any sense?

 

[PFJ]

By the way , the useage of the phrase fake fan can only be seen as generic and maybe a bit innappropriate . I know of at least two Albion home and awayers who have been up and down this fair land of ours watching the Albion for best part of 30 years . They unfathomably to me still have mini debates about their second teams with other second teamers.

The thing is if the Albion ever played their second teams their interest in that match would be 100% for the Albion .

 

[Sussex Nomad]

I've never had an allegiance to switch, I have always supported Brighton and Chelsea since I remember first watching football. Indeed my first game at the Goldstone was against Chelsea in an FA cup tie back in I believe the 71/72 season. That day as a 7 year old I had my Chelsea scarf on as I had already seem them a couple of times at the Bridge. However from then on in and whenever there was occassionally a Brighton v Chelsea game I want(ed) Brighton to win every time. That hasn't changed to this day. I have supported them pretty much equally for about 40 years now. My favourite era as a football supporter was the very frequent visits to the Goldstone between around 75-80 when I made the pilgramage well in excess of 80 times as a young teenager. In that time I didn't go to the Bridge at all. And I feel absolutely no shame in supporting both clubs, I was born in London and I lived in West Sussex and love(d) living in both locations. I don't stay awake at night wondering how I can be such a lightweight supporter, because it is only in the eyes of 'supremist supporters' that I don't actually have to answer to if I choose not to.

 

[PFJ]

Just away from the dual team thing , I do find it hilarious listening to colleagues at work getting really excited because they will going home to watch their adopted team on the telly. No getting wet or suffering the back door trots after a dodgy Withdean pie for them .

 

[Herne Hill Seagull]

I think if you love the game, as well as a club, it's inevitable that you should be interested in what else is going on. I don't see how you can support the Albion but not give a damn about the state of the game generally, and that would lead most people to an interest in, if not an active support of, the goings on at other clubs. If all you care about is Brighton, why would we have supported York, or Wrexham, or Doncaster, or Hull, or Mansfield, or Chester in their struggles? And why should we have been able to call upon the support of other fans during our darkest days? So I don't really have a problem with people wanting to know what's going on in the Premiership or anywhere else, particularly if it's Brighton they're turning up to support, Brighton they're putting money into.

 

[Brovion]

With me personally I kind of feel it was more of a childhood thing with Chelsea, from being taken there as a small kid a football club has a habit of seeping into you. My dad was pretty bi-partisan and just loved his football so it wasn't like he drilled one thing or another into me, we were just having family days out and enjoying good football.

As i've got older I realise i only have one true love and that's Brighton, but when I see Chelsea on tv i get a bit of childhood nostalgia and while I don't really care much whether they win the league or not etc, I can't help but cheer when they score. With Brighton its rather more of an obsession.

Make any sense?

Makes sense to me and as a boyhood Chelsea fan I have an element of sympathy with you. Like all right-thinking, decent human beings I obviously hate Chelsea with a passion now and I feel zero affinity with the club, but if I see pictures of Osgood, Cooke, Harris (Ron or Alan), Hudson, Kirkup, Bonnetti, Baldwin, Boyle, Hollins, Tambling, Houseman, Webb, Hutchinson et all in that iconic plain blue strip I do come over all nostalgic.