Falmer, or Goldstone?

[james1971]

After reading the above its interesting to find there's nothing to say that if we had stayed at the goldstone it would've been bigger than falmer is going to be. I loved going there every other saturday and cheering on the albion but with the restrictions of withdean i can't go as often as i would like.

I for 1 can't wait to take my boy to falmer.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Falmer stadium - built in the middle of Hove.

 

[cannedheat]

There is no such thing as right to light and there were no houses in Newtown Road but apart from that you're spot on.

Whoops I meant Fonthill Rd.

 

[sir albion]

Im probably one of the few that actually dis-liked the goldstone although when it was rammed in the 70's etc i probably would have liked it.

I thought it was a shite-hole

 

[Fef]

Whoops I meant Fonthill Rd.

When the original Clarke mansion was demolished and the land redeveloped, a covenant was placed on future building which prevented development over a certain height. This affected the East Terrace, the houses in Goldstone Lane and the properties behind them in Fonthill Road, which were built as bungalows to comply with the restriction.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

I loved the goldstone but really don't think it could have cut it with grounds of today. Even if you flattened the site and a complete re-build (for which we would have had to move out,) new regulations and restrictions would have hampered capacity.

Falmer is hardly 'out of town' being less than 10 mins from the centre of Brighton.

Can somebody post up the 'footprint' size of the two sites because i think Falmer is bigger with it's concourse & coach park.

 

[LowKarate]

After reading the above its interesting to find there's nothing to say that if we had stayed at the goldstone it would've been bigger than falmer is going to be. I loved going there every other saturday and cheering on the albion but with the restrictions of withdean i can't go as often as i would like.

I for 1 can't wait to take my boy to falmer.

apart from the view that I offered in my first post, which was:

"We could then have had ourselves a stadium much bigger than Falmer for similar money"

However, I only offer this view with the obvious benefit of hindsight of what Falmer construction and several years at Priestfield / Withdean has cost us. If someone had suggested 15 years ago that for a mere £100m (maybe £50m back then) we could have had a re-vamped Goldstone for the future offering 25k+ seats, then I cannot in all honesty suggest that anyone was ever going to pay for that back then. It's only thanks to Bloom's money now that we are getting a stadium at all.

 

[drew]

When we sold off the Goldstone it was well undervalued. Had those slags not been looking to make a quick buck for themselves they would've kept a hand in the redevelopment. Remember that Chartwell bought it from us for £8mill (f*** knows where that went) QUOTE]

I'm not going to defend Archer et al but the club were massively in debt and that is what probably swallowed up the income.

I think part of the problem was that Hove Council had a barmy rule that no stand could be higher than 50 feet (presumably the West Stand was 50 feet high). That would have made it very hard to get the necessary capacity. I thought there was some scheme at one time to turn the pitch round, buy up the industrial estate in Newtown Road, and redevelop that way. As for my preference, North Stand with its roof, or Withdean getting soaking wet, with jobsworth stewards (I am not affected by them, but the constant battle sure spoils my enjoyment), give me the Goldstone every time, even if Withdean does have better catering and bogs (the North Stand ones were legendary for their awfulness).

Not Hove council but see Fef below who got there before me.

Had we stayed at the Goldstone it would have been brought up to scratch for us, the old Hove council was going and a unified Labour controlled council would I am sure have been more helpfull to us, the big problem was the houses in Newtown Rd and there right to natural light, anyway Falmer is almost here so

And lets not forget pisshead Stanley guilty as the other two.

You are living in cloud cuckoo land. There was no scope for building a decent stadium. Christ, at the bottom of Goldstone Lane you could spit onto the pitch and the back of the mainstand was Newtown road. What makes you think the other businesses there would happily move for the sake of the football club. The back of the southstand was next to the car dealership. The goldstone was hemmed in on all sides and we were always going to leave irrespective of who was going to own the club.

When the original Clarke mansion was demolished and the land redeveloped, a covenant was placed on future building which prevented development over a certain height. This affected the East Terrace, the houses in Goldstone Lane and the properties behind them in Fonthill Road, which were built as bungalows to comply with the restriction.

At least someone seems to know the history of the situation.

The fact of the matter is that we were heavily in debt and owned by a board that didn't care. Dick Knight may well have taken over before the Goldstone was sold but if he had he was not rich enough to fund a development. If it weren't for Bloom, Falmer would not now be happening.

 

[Big Jim]

It used to be a pain parking near the Goldstone, but train access was great.

 

[cannedheat]

You are living in cloud cuckoo land. There was no scope for building a decent stadium. Christ, at the bottom of Goldstone Lane you could spit onto the pitch and the back of the mainstand was Newtown road. What makes you think the other businesses there would happily move for the sake of the football club. The back of the southstand was next to the car dealership. The goldstone was hemmed in on all sides and we were always going to leave irrespective of who was going to own the club.


I said UP TO SCRATCH where did I mention state of the art new stadium, and it was the old Hove council that stopped it being brought UP TO SCRATCH for no other reason than they did not want the club in the town, not because of where it was.

 

[drew]

You are living in cloud cuckoo land. There was no scope for building a decent stadium. Christ, at the bottom of Goldstone Lane you could spit onto the pitch and the back of the mainstand was Newtown road. What makes you think the other businesses there would happily move for the sake of the football club. The back of the southstand was next to the car dealership. The goldstone was hemmed in on all sides and we were always going to leave irrespective of who was going to own the club.


I said UP TO SCRATCH where did I mention state of the art new stadium, and it was the old Hove council that stopped it being brought UP TO SCRATCH for no other reason than they did not want the club in the town, not because of where it was.

What exactly do you mean by 'up to scratch'! The whole place needed knocking down and rebuilding. Exactly how did Hove Council prevent this, other than the restrictive covenant that was not their doing? The club had no funds to repair the place let alone rebuild it. It's pie in the sky to suggest the club could have brought the properties around the site so there is not enough land.

I don't believe Hove Council did much to change legislation relating to stadia bearing in mind the whole place would have to be all seater. Perhaps you would like the club to be playing in a nice compact 10,000 seat stadium like a lot of the lower league clubs have done. I, and I hope the club, aspire to much better things than that.

Unfortunately too many people allow nostalgia to cloud their judgement.