So there I was, 16 years old and the fixtures have just been released, games such as Darlington away, Wycombe away, Brentford away and the real biggun away to Orient will be my future for the next 9 months, dreams of Pompey or Palace in the cup were also possible, what more could you want....it was going to be a hell of a season and I'd go anywhere to watch us. High points of fun away travel knowing we were going to watch div 3 comedy football with tea bars and £2 burgers, terracing and affordable entrances, we were the 'BIG' fish in the smallest of ponds, outsinging and out partying our opponants and on very rare occasions out playing them, these were the days where football was fun, grounds were old, tatty and the experience was hardly smooth and slick, Brighton were shit and I loved every minute of it but as with anything in life, I dreamed like so many others for more, I dreamed of once having a ground as beautiful as what was then the 'Alfred Mcalpine stadium', I cant say I ever thought it would happen............
13 years and the dream has been realized and if I'm honest, I loved it for about 6 months but now the club that I loved, the club that I would have walked 70 miles to watch instead of jumping on a double decker bus to go to, the club which I wanted so so so badly to succeed is just that to me now, a club, a business, a modern day money making machine that gets large numbers through the door, but somewhere within that change over, somewhere in all the quick success and 20,000+ new or returning fans that have emerged, something has dramatically changed and the 'Amex effect' isn't what I dreamed, isn't what I for-saw for my special club and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be part of it. Lets be realistic, it needed to change...I'm fully aware of that, I'm certainly not one of those who wanted us to always be the big fish in the lower leagues but it appears to me, the higher up you go, the more plastic it becomes, the more expensive it becomes and the more theatre like it becomes and that isn't the game or experience that I grew up loving, I had my fix of what the higher level was like from other fans on the trains coming back from the games and also on MOTD if I could get back from Darlington in time!
The most hilarious thing is, we lord it over teams like Palace with their run down ground with wooden seats, a drum and a tacky old school feel about it, but theres something 50x more real about that experience than the same dreary songs being belted out by the amex faithfull as they run up the exit stairs on 80 minutes and head for their train after adding nothing to the day and escaping without being noticed. I know we're very lucky, we have a wonderful chairman who has invested heavily into a wonderful arena to watch football and I may sound it but im most certainly not ungrateful in the slightest, it's just not working out for me personally and I was as avid as they come. Maybe its an age thing or maybe it's modern day football at the higher level in all seater staduims but as I've said, this isn't the great club & game it once was.
I met a pompey fan the other day, I said to him "Bet your gutted about another relegation" "No he replied, why would I be, I get to visit grounds I've never been to, take thousends away and take over small shit hole towns and basically get back to the game I fell in love with" I walked away thinking, my god he's so right.
It's all well and good moaning about the club/ground/expiereince but what can be done, what would make this more appealing, as I cant be alone in this feeling?
For me, terracing would bring a bit of banter back, bring fans closer together and make it more of a laugh to go to football, somewhere along this journey I've stopped laughing at the albion home games, I don't really look forward to them, that usually still thankfully occurs at away games which haven't lost the full edge and the future for me will proberly be just away games as home games just don't do it for me.
Slate me, ban me or ignore me, it's my view but I'll always follow the albion as they once were everything to me, maybe it's healthy that they just aren't what they used to be.
13 years and the dream has been realized and if I'm honest, I loved it for about 6 months but now the club that I loved, the club that I would have walked 70 miles to watch instead of jumping on a double decker bus to go to, the club which I wanted so so so badly to succeed is just that to me now, a club, a business, a modern day money making machine that gets large numbers through the door, but somewhere within that change over, somewhere in all the quick success and 20,000+ new or returning fans that have emerged, something has dramatically changed and the 'Amex effect' isn't what I dreamed, isn't what I for-saw for my special club and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be part of it. Lets be realistic, it needed to change...I'm fully aware of that, I'm certainly not one of those who wanted us to always be the big fish in the lower leagues but it appears to me, the higher up you go, the more plastic it becomes, the more expensive it becomes and the more theatre like it becomes and that isn't the game or experience that I grew up loving, I had my fix of what the higher level was like from other fans on the trains coming back from the games and also on MOTD if I could get back from Darlington in time!
The most hilarious thing is, we lord it over teams like Palace with their run down ground with wooden seats, a drum and a tacky old school feel about it, but theres something 50x more real about that experience than the same dreary songs being belted out by the amex faithfull as they run up the exit stairs on 80 minutes and head for their train after adding nothing to the day and escaping without being noticed. I know we're very lucky, we have a wonderful chairman who has invested heavily into a wonderful arena to watch football and I may sound it but im most certainly not ungrateful in the slightest, it's just not working out for me personally and I was as avid as they come. Maybe its an age thing or maybe it's modern day football at the higher level in all seater staduims but as I've said, this isn't the great club & game it once was.
I met a pompey fan the other day, I said to him "Bet your gutted about another relegation" "No he replied, why would I be, I get to visit grounds I've never been to, take thousends away and take over small shit hole towns and basically get back to the game I fell in love with" I walked away thinking, my god he's so right.
It's all well and good moaning about the club/ground/expiereince but what can be done, what would make this more appealing, as I cant be alone in this feeling?
For me, terracing would bring a bit of banter back, bring fans closer together and make it more of a laugh to go to football, somewhere along this journey I've stopped laughing at the albion home games, I don't really look forward to them, that usually still thankfully occurs at away games which haven't lost the full edge and the future for me will proberly be just away games as home games just don't do it for me.
Slate me, ban me or ignore me, it's my view but I'll always follow the albion as they once were everything to me, maybe it's healthy that they just aren't what they used to be.