Mike Bambers lack of Wiki entry

[Nottseagull]

Steward 433 has just pointed out that Mike Bamber has no Wikipaedia page, despite bringing Clough & Talyor to the GG and guiding the club to the FA Cop Final. How about letting NSC members compile one? I propose members submit their "obituaries", then I'll organise a vote on which one to have included.

 

[steward 433]

Notts try sending a PM to the history man.

Tim Carder is probably best placed to give the most complete entry.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

I've started one - don't have much info about him. anyone can add to this.

 

[Icy Gull]

There seem to be two schools of thought re Mike Bamber from Albion fans and subsequent directors from what I remember.

1) He was the man who gave Brighton it's finest days and teams

2)He was the man who gave Brighton it's finest days and teams but by giving players like Foster 10 year contacts at top wages laid the foundations for the rapid descent into financial chaos after relegation from Division 1

Personally, from a selfish pint of view and taking into account that we survived, just, I am willing to accept that the 2nd pof may be correct but it was worth it to have experienced 7 or 8 years of GLORY. If you weren't old enough to have experienced it I can understand people being pissed off at what followed his tenure.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

I loved every minute of it and hindsight is a wonderful thing. He gave the club the best years of it's history. And there will be more to come.

 

[trueblue]

Mike Bamber is a legend. Even if it went wrong later, he showed the club what can be achieved with ambition and investment. Let's face it, there aren't many clubs of our size that HAVEN'T had financial trouble. It's inherent in a system which over-rewards top players.

 

[Brovion]

Mike Bamber is a legend. Even if it went wrong later, he showed the club what can be achieved with ambition and investment. Let's face it, there aren't many clubs of our size that HAVEN'T had financial trouble. It's inherent in a system which over-rewards top players.

Absolutely. He made mistakes, of course he did, but he was one of the first of the 'young' breed of chairmen. Brian Clough said he'd have never have come to Brighton if it hadn't been for Bamber who he reckoned was streets ahead of any other chairman of the time. No Bamber, no Glory Years, we'd have gone on being a middle-of-the-road 3rd division club. However the roles played by Harry Bloom and Keith Wickenden shouldn't be underestimated; in retrospect the wheels started to fall off when they died.

I can't believe people didn't know he was dead and I can't believe he was only 57 when he died. That's only six years older than me! When he was chairman I always thought he was ancient!

 

[Icy Gull]

I saw something on here or some related site yesterday which made me realise just how far we have to go when Falmer is eventually built, apparently the average crowd at the Goldstone over the many years we were there was over 10,500. When you consider that most of those years were spent in the bottom two divisions it shows just how far we have fallen back in terms of crowd figures whilst at Gillingham and Withdean.

 

[The History Man]

There is a list of chairmen in the book "Albion A-Z: A Who's Who of Brighton & Hove Albion FC", on page 333. You can copy that.

As for info on Mike Bamber for a Wikipedia entry, when I can find the time perhaps to come up with something authoritative. If you can't wait that long, Mike died on or around 11th July 1988 so I dare say there was an obituary in the Argus with plenty of information. There were also big articles on Bamber on 29th December 1972 and 20th March 1975. Look at old copies in Brighton Local History Centre.

For information, the average crowd at the Goldstone in all the Football League and Southern League matches was 11,046. For all Football League matches 11,918. For all post-war Football League matches 13,259.

For all Football League matches before Mike Bamber was chairman or co-chairman 11,675. For all matches while Mike Bamber was chairman or co-chairman 17,365. For all Football League matches after Mike Bamber was chairman or co-chairman 8,111.