Just in case...

[Tooting Gull]

...anyone would STILL rather go and watch Charlton from Sussex, the Valley Express remains available to pick up at the following times and places. Phil Parkinson post-match interviews will be shown on the big screen for your entertainment, in lieu of anything you will see on the pitch.

Sussex

Battle - Battle Abbey (12.10pm for 3pm/4.55pm for 7.45pm)

Bexhill - Town Hall Square (11.25am/4.10pm)

Brighton - Sainsbury's, Benfield Valley (11.50am/4.35pm)

Crawley - Pease Pottage Service Station (12.20pm/5.05pm)

Hastings - Harold Place (west side) (11.45am/4.30pm)

Lancing - Leisure Centre (11.35am/4.20pm)

Ore - Millers Arms (11.55am/4.40pm)

Worthing - Lyons Farm Retail Park (11:30am/4.15pm)

 

[Skills]

LOL

 

[WATFORD zero]

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

...anyone would STILL rather go and watch Charlton from Sussex, the Valley Express remains available to pick up at the following times and places. Phil Parkinson post-match interviews will be shown on the big screen for your entertainment, in lieu of anything you will see on the pitch.

Sussex

Battle - Battle Abbey (12.10pm for 3pm/4.55pm for 7.45pm)

Bexhill - Town Hall Square (11.25am/4.10pm)

Brighton - Sainsbury's, Benfield Valley (11.50am/4.35pm)

Crawley - Pease Pottage Service Station (12.20pm/5.05pm)

Hastings - Harold Place (west side) (11.45am/4.30pm)

Lancing - Leisure Centre (11.35am/4.20pm)

Ore - Millers Arms (11.55am/4.40pm)

Worthing - Lyons Farm Retail Park (11:30am/4.15pm)

Putting Saturday's result aside for a second, are there really many from Lancing/Brighton/Hastings/Worthing that use this service?

Are they 'died in the wool' Charlton fans who have moved to Sussex over the years, or are they fans who jumped on the 'Charlton are in the Premier League so I'll go and watch them' fans?

Surely with Falmer on the horizon we can nick some of this lot back?

 

[Steve Foster]

The coach is only in service, as we can pack them onto it outside the Valley to come to the theatre of trees.

 

[User removed 4]

Putting Saturday's result aside for a second, are there really many from Lancing/Brighton/Hastings/Worthing that use this service?

Are they 'died in the wool' Charlton fans who have moved to Sussex over the years, or are they fans who jumped on the 'Charlton are in the Premier League so I'll go and watch them' fans?

Surely with Falmer on the horizon we can nick some of this lot back?

Do you really want them back if they're that fickle ?

 

[Giraffe]

...anyone would STILL rather go and watch Charlton from Sussex, the Valley Express remains available to pick up at the following times and places. Phil Parkinson post-match interviews will be shown on the big screen for your entertainment, in lieu of anything you will see on the pitch.

Sussex

Battle - Battle Abbey (12.10pm for 3pm/4.55pm for 7.45pm)

Bexhill - Town Hall Square (11.25am/4.10pm)

Brighton - Sainsbury's, Benfield Valley (11.50am/4.35pm)

Crawley - Pease Pottage Service Station (12.20pm/5.05pm)

Hastings - Harold Place (west side) (11.45am/4.30pm)

Lancing - Leisure Centre (11.35am/4.20pm)

Ore - Millers Arms (11.55am/4.40pm)

Worthing - Lyons Farm Retail Park (11:30am/4.15pm)

 

[8ace]

Do they guarantee FOUR goals every game?

 

[Mr Everyone]

How long will it be before we repeat this with the Falmer Express travelling the length and breadth of the SouthEast?

 

[Brighton Breezy]

I didn't think they were allowed to run those coaches from inside Brighton itself.

 

[BRIGHT ON Q]

Didn't this get Scally's goat as well?.I seem to remember them running coaches from Kent as well.I think a few will be heading along the A27 instead very soon.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Let's hope they employ our coach driver in the future, Mr F. Spencer. At least one coach won't male it much further than Pease Pottage.

 

[Simster]

Do you really want them back if they're that fickle ?

We have 22,500 seats to fill, maybe more in years to come. I don't think Albion can be too choosy as to who sits in some of those seats.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Must admit, it's been a bugbear of mine for a long time. I think it's disgraceful, and also hypocritical, because when West Ham tried to get travel concessions to Upton Park from the Greenwich area, Charlton went nuts about it saying it was their patch. And Brighton is two counties away.

Once we have a 22,500-seat stadium to fill, I think the Albion should via the Football League get this stopped. It's not that I don't like Charlton, I do, and they've supported us, but they're out of the Premier League, we're on the up, and this scheme is a total piss-take.

 

[Return of the Rev]

Do you really want them back if they're that fickle ?

gonna need 16,000 more fickle fans to fill falmer

 

[Was not Was]

Must admit, it's been a bugbear of mine for a long time. I think it's disgraceful, and also hypocritical, because when West Ham tried to get travel concessions to Upton Park from the Greenwich area, Charlton went nuts about it saying it was their patch. And Brighton is two counties away.

Once we have a 22,500-seat stadium to fill, I think the Albion should via the Football League get this stopped. It's not that I don't like Charlton, I do, and they've supported us, but they're out of the Premier League, we're on the up, and this scheme is a total piss-take.

Yes, it is. But no-one is forced to go.

I'd prefer to compete head-to-head, and celebrate the day when CAFC stop running coaches from Sussex because it's uneconomical. :albion1:

 

[fataddick]

Phil Parkinson post-match interviews will be shown on the big screen for your entertainment, in lieu of anything you will see on the pitch.

Sadly the big screen is kaput. We can't afford to switch it on any more, and (even more entertainingly) can't afford to have it taken away either. So it just sits there blankly, like a dead man's telly

 

[fataddick]

Surely every club runs minibuses or coaches from various parts of the country to home games? Usually this is under the auspices of supporters club branches. I know our Brighton & West Sussex branch has run minibuses for as long as I can remember. They guy from Worthing who ran it and drove them was our stadium announcer during the Premier League years until he got sacked for calling palace "Palarse". The club only started running coaches themselves (under the 'Valley Express' banner) after our main supporters club self-destructed in an accrominious frenzy of in-fighting several years ago (we still no longer have a central supporters club to this day, with the club having to take on many of the traditional supporters club roles).

Which came first, the fans or the coaches? The fans. The club decided where to run coaches from based on the season ticket database of where people lived and where we had active supporters club branches prior to the self-destruct. Despite people thinking of Charlton as a South East London club, our main catchment area has always been North Kent (people in Greenwich tend to support Arsenal, the twats) stretching as far as the Sussex border. East Grinstead is as much Charlton as it is Brighton or Palace. So we're not dipping far beyond that main catchment area boundary running coaches from the Sussex coast.

I find it odd that people like Paul Scally are so up in arms about this when it's something that every club does, the only difference being they usually have supporters club branches organising it rather than the club itself. I say if you can't beat them join them. Stop whining and start running coaches from Ashford, Maidstone etc to Falmer.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Do you really want them back if they're that fickle ?

There are many misguided people in the world, I believe they will all see the light eventually. So they will be welcome.

 

[Tooting Gull]

I find it odd that people like Paul Scally are so up in arms about this when it's something that every club does, the only difference being they usually have supporters club branches organising it rather than the club itself. I say if you can't beat them join them. Stop whining and start running coaches from Ashford, Maidstone etc to Falmer.

It's clear you misunderstand the issue, and that is strange because it's pretty simple. You're in London. Not Sussex.

Of course clubs have buses, and so they should, from appropriate areas. Look at Norwich, they are the only club in a large county and have dozens of buses for home games from Yarmouth etc.

I think we will start to have more buses from all over East and West Sussex, it's our good luck that we are the only League club (currently) in Sussex. Personally I'd run them from Crawley for now, but if they got promoted and asked us to stop, you'd have to take that request seriously as they want to build a fan base for themselves.