Digweeds Trousers
New member
After yesterdays performance - which I did happen to attend - I am not sure where my head is with the people who (absolutely have the right to) voice their opinion at certain elements within the club.
This is not about who is the best fan, who has been to the most games, who was at gillingham blah blah blah. It is about the very term we refer to our ourselves - 'supporters'.
Currently having attended a few home games, and several away games and reading what is posted on here - it seems that simple facts are being brushed to one side and ignored.
I have been watching the Albion since 1980 - that simply is the basis as to the relevant opinion I have as to what is happening at the club. In a previous job (not the one with the brush with HR!) have been involved in a number of deals that my previous company have worked on with DK's range of companies - through that I have met and talked to a number of people that have realsonably relevant opinions as to the intention, objectives and aim behind the current funders at the club.
I remember going to Plymouth in about 92, and watching raphael meade snatching a late equaliser - there were around 150 Albion fans at that game. I remember in 91 beating Barnsley 1-0 at the Goldstone in possible the dullest game I can remember - in front of less than 5200 fans. In fact the largest gate in that Play -Off final year in the league was just over 10,000 on a Wednesday night when we got utterly stuffed 4-0 by Wednesday.
The point I am trying to make?? This county, since the relegation from the Top Flight in 1983 has NOT been a hot bed of football - it is a provincial club with potential that has rarely enticed the population of Sussex and the fringes round it to come and watch our beloved team week in week out.
There is potential - huge catchment area (although London very close), one of the wealthiest populations in the country - which provides other interests not afforded by the majority of other population.
The simple fact is that without the funding, the backing of DK and co we have no club. Argue what you like but this is a business, and with no offices, no cash-flow and no future you have no business.
I honestly believe that we have forgotten how close we came to disappearing altogether. In fact I remember the 97 season, Hereford et al, that a number of the regulars were preparing themselves for the founding of a Phoenix club - that we expected to start again in provincial, semi-professional football.
Here we are, 11 years later, having played some great football, in a level we could hardly believe we were playing, and getting promotions and some great days out.
Things have moved on but expectation is dangerous bedfellow - now I hear some poeple saying that Dick Knight is in the same category as Archer - that is just appalling to hear.
On a business note, no-one would have invested in this club to keep it afloat at a time when we had Gillingham to look forward, Withdean as a highlight and now the promise of Falmer becoming reality.
I talk of relevant opinion - if there is anyone on here with a CV that shows they have taken a broke football club, played home games 80 miles away, got back to the city of it's birth and then built a modern stadium in the most heavily portected countryside outside the national parks in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and delivered all this in 5-7 years - I stand corrected.
Like it or loath it the facts as I seem them are this - we are lucky to have a wind-swept dump to go to every week. We are lucky to see any players wearing the blue and white stripes - and we are even luckier to have a future to hope for.
I personally will thank DK and his board for the rest of my days - that any children I have will have a club to go to, that we have a club to call our own and dream of what could be in years to come.
You want them to spend money they don't have on p[layers at 5k per week to get us up - well let's see the business sense behind that - what are you going to do when we finish 18th in the Championship? Reality is that we will still be at Withdean, no cash-flow coming in from seats that don't exist.
It's just maths - you fork out more money than you are able to bring in and you go bust. That has been the case for 11 f***ing years - and we are still here fighting. Who the hell do you think is responsible for that? Us? Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but no - it's not us - we help but we are not responsible. It is down the people who have bank-rolled a club that has had to face the toughest time in it's 100 year + history without any real chance of thanks.
And those who now want to hang those people out to dry should think long and hard.
because if by our actions we drive out the very people who have kept us alive then I would be disgusted to call myself a fan.
Democracy - the voice of the people - is all very well. But when the only voice heard is the voice of the idiot then we are all in trouble.
Please - keep the faith, keep 'supporting' and remember - there was a time when all of what we have today would have sounded like the pipe dream and ramblings of..........a lunatic.
This is not about who is the best fan, who has been to the most games, who was at gillingham blah blah blah. It is about the very term we refer to our ourselves - 'supporters'.
Currently having attended a few home games, and several away games and reading what is posted on here - it seems that simple facts are being brushed to one side and ignored.
I have been watching the Albion since 1980 - that simply is the basis as to the relevant opinion I have as to what is happening at the club. In a previous job (not the one with the brush with HR!) have been involved in a number of deals that my previous company have worked on with DK's range of companies - through that I have met and talked to a number of people that have realsonably relevant opinions as to the intention, objectives and aim behind the current funders at the club.
I remember going to Plymouth in about 92, and watching raphael meade snatching a late equaliser - there were around 150 Albion fans at that game. I remember in 91 beating Barnsley 1-0 at the Goldstone in possible the dullest game I can remember - in front of less than 5200 fans. In fact the largest gate in that Play -Off final year in the league was just over 10,000 on a Wednesday night when we got utterly stuffed 4-0 by Wednesday.
The point I am trying to make?? This county, since the relegation from the Top Flight in 1983 has NOT been a hot bed of football - it is a provincial club with potential that has rarely enticed the population of Sussex and the fringes round it to come and watch our beloved team week in week out.
There is potential - huge catchment area (although London very close), one of the wealthiest populations in the country - which provides other interests not afforded by the majority of other population.
The simple fact is that without the funding, the backing of DK and co we have no club. Argue what you like but this is a business, and with no offices, no cash-flow and no future you have no business.
I honestly believe that we have forgotten how close we came to disappearing altogether. In fact I remember the 97 season, Hereford et al, that a number of the regulars were preparing themselves for the founding of a Phoenix club - that we expected to start again in provincial, semi-professional football.
Here we are, 11 years later, having played some great football, in a level we could hardly believe we were playing, and getting promotions and some great days out.
Things have moved on but expectation is dangerous bedfellow - now I hear some poeple saying that Dick Knight is in the same category as Archer - that is just appalling to hear.
On a business note, no-one would have invested in this club to keep it afloat at a time when we had Gillingham to look forward, Withdean as a highlight and now the promise of Falmer becoming reality.
I talk of relevant opinion - if there is anyone on here with a CV that shows they have taken a broke football club, played home games 80 miles away, got back to the city of it's birth and then built a modern stadium in the most heavily portected countryside outside the national parks in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and delivered all this in 5-7 years - I stand corrected.
Like it or loath it the facts as I seem them are this - we are lucky to have a wind-swept dump to go to every week. We are lucky to see any players wearing the blue and white stripes - and we are even luckier to have a future to hope for.
I personally will thank DK and his board for the rest of my days - that any children I have will have a club to go to, that we have a club to call our own and dream of what could be in years to come.
You want them to spend money they don't have on p[layers at 5k per week to get us up - well let's see the business sense behind that - what are you going to do when we finish 18th in the Championship? Reality is that we will still be at Withdean, no cash-flow coming in from seats that don't exist.
It's just maths - you fork out more money than you are able to bring in and you go bust. That has been the case for 11 f***ing years - and we are still here fighting. Who the hell do you think is responsible for that? Us? Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but no - it's not us - we help but we are not responsible. It is down the people who have bank-rolled a club that has had to face the toughest time in it's 100 year + history without any real chance of thanks.
And those who now want to hang those people out to dry should think long and hard.
because if by our actions we drive out the very people who have kept us alive then I would be disgusted to call myself a fan.
Democracy - the voice of the people - is all very well. But when the only voice heard is the voice of the idiot then we are all in trouble.
Please - keep the faith, keep 'supporting' and remember - there was a time when all of what we have today would have sounded like the pipe dream and ramblings of..........a lunatic.
the fans who pay £25 a game year after year to sit in a sess pit,time to move on pal and show some ambition as this past crap just keeps rolling on
