Publius Ovidius
Well-known member
It would be interesting to see how many people who slag him off on here have actually met the bloke. As I said, when you meet him and get to know him he is a nice guy
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Mike Ward blog in the Indepenent
- Thread starter Brovion
- Start date
Soul Finger
Well-known member
- May 12, 2004
- 2,265
Oh dear.
Does come across as a bit bitter.
Yes, we need to fill the stadium and, of course, everyone is welcome.
"13,500 new fans". Shows how much he knows about our support. There's a huge latent following that 'used to go to the Goldstone' or 'doesn't like Withdean'.
There will be 'new' fans at Falmer, but nowhere near as many as some people think.
If he hadn't been to Highbury for years he obviously wasn't a fan otherwise, er, he would have. It's not that far!
Does come across as a bit bitter.
Yes, we need to fill the stadium and, of course, everyone is welcome.
"13,500 new fans". Shows how much he knows about our support. There's a huge latent following that 'used to go to the Goldstone' or 'doesn't like Withdean'.
There will be 'new' fans at Falmer, but nowhere near as many as some people think.
If he hadn't been to Highbury for years he obviously wasn't a fan otherwise, er, he would have. It's not that far!
Billy the Fish
Technocrat
It was his comments in the programme about the rivalry with north croydon club that got on my tits, but I guess I'm over that now
Buck
Through & Through
I think any club would welcome new supporters regardless of who they are or where they are from. However, there are thousands of Albion fans who are still out there, they have just become armchair supporters off the back of having to suffer Withdean and what has now been an average team for many years.
It is more a case of people wanting to return and watch good football in a quality stadium. It is also about encouraging the 'lost generation' of Albion supporters who never even knew the Goldstone existed, never experienced regular 20,000 plus attendances and the thrill and atmosphere that creates.
I know loads of people who are desperate to take their kids to watch their local club at Falmer.
Providing the football continues to improve, as I'm sure it will, the stadium will be pretty full most of the time.
It is more a case of people wanting to return and watch good football in a quality stadium. It is also about encouraging the 'lost generation' of Albion supporters who never even knew the Goldstone existed, never experienced regular 20,000 plus attendances and the thrill and atmosphere that creates.
I know loads of people who are desperate to take their kids to watch their local club at Falmer.
Providing the football continues to improve, as I'm sure it will, the stadium will be pretty full most of the time.
Tooting Gull
Well-known member
- Jul 5, 2003
- 11,033
Bit bitter, some of the criticism has clearly stung the bloke. I've always thought he was a reasonable writer and critic, but I don't see why he's surprised about it. If you change teams, and do it quietly, just going to matches with your mates, it's not going to attract much attention. If you start writing books and columns about what a big Brighton fan you are, it's bound to draw a few comments from longer-standing fans without that platform, to think otherwise is just naive. You've just got to take it.
I didn't have too much of a problem with his Palace views. I didn't agree with him, Palace will always be a much bigger rival for me than they ever will be for him, but columnists are supposed to stir things up and get people talking, say the unsayable occasionally - however as we know tolerance of another viewpoint is not always the hallmark of this site. We have played Palace so little of late that unless you were going in the late 80s or earlier, there is a whole generation of fans who won't truly get it. But most of them will soon.
I didn't have too much of a problem with his Palace views. I didn't agree with him, Palace will always be a much bigger rival for me than they ever will be for him, but columnists are supposed to stir things up and get people talking, say the unsayable occasionally - however as we know tolerance of another viewpoint is not always the hallmark of this site. We have played Palace so little of late that unless you were going in the late 80s or earlier, there is a whole generation of fans who won't truly get it. But most of them will soon.
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
This.
I know a fair few who were regulars at the Goldstone who refuse point blank to go to the theatre of shit.
How many times have you heard this phrase
"I aint paying to sit in that shithole"..
Whether it is fair or not to punish the club for being homeless is irrelevant. The fact is this: for a long time a lot of Brighton "fans" have followed their team via Soccer Saturday and the back page of the Argus, and, truthfully, a lot of Brighton fans who used to go to The Goldstone, actually supported a "premium" club as well.
I remember after the Hillsborough disaster going to the memorial in the Northstand and seeing a lot of boys who I recognised from homes games wearing the shirts of Liverpool, Man Utd,Spurs or whoever...our support has always been a sort of patchwork of occasional fans and diehard regulars..the former despised by the latter.
I remember when we played Arsenal in the cup (was it 1987? Niall Quinn got the winner) and tickets were only on sale to members..there were suddenly thousands of loyal Albion fans who no-one had ever seen at the Goldstone before...the same when we played Spurs, West Ham and Villa. Can you spot the similarity?
People, by and large, follow their team for entertainment, they want to enjoy a pleasurable afternoon in a nice comfy stadium watching top class opposition so they can look out for themselves on MOTD...they DO NOT want to sit in the pissing rain with no roof eating a grisltle burger and being told to sit down every 2 minutes by a fat bird or a bloke with a funny haircut..and paying top dollar for the privelege.
Mike Ward did'nt do anything particularly bad by deciding to start supporting the Albion, what he did was make the cardinal mistake of admitting that he used to follow the Arsenal (lamely) and then decided to write a very tedious book about his conversion to superfan via mid life crisis.
His problem is that he seems to crave recognition, he has elbowed his way into the very core of the club via "falmer for all" and various journalistic vehicles and has made himself look a bit needy and self serving in the process. We don't need you to represent us Michael.
You are right to say that Brighton will need converts to boost the Falmer attendance...but to suggest that this is something that has not always been a considerable part of our support...even in our Hove days, suggests you must try harder.
I posted some dreadful things about your efforts on the phone in the other day, and retracted the personal stuff almost immediately, but if you can't see why everyone hates your phone in then you really do have some major blinkers on.
anyway, carry on.
Tooting Gull
Well-known member
- Jul 5, 2003
- 11,033
Not something I ever thought I'd read, or I'm sure you imagined you'd ever be writing...
Buck
Through & Through
I had a season ticket at Withdean for about the first 6 years. Started taking my eldest when he was about 8 but some weeks he didn't want to go because of the weather or we'd get soaked by half time and he wanted to go home. The whole 'enjoyable experience' started to become a nightmare.
This year I've got season tickets for me and my two boys, aged 11 and 6. I want them to start becoming familiar with the team before they start going to Falmer.
I can't tell you how excited they are about the new stadium. In fact, it makes me feel like an excited kid every time we pass it to and from games. Once all the kids start going and telling their friends at school about it there will be thousands more around Sussex that want to go. This will hopefully help to increase the younger fan base considerably and help kids realise there is more to football than just the Premiership.
This year I've got season tickets for me and my two boys, aged 11 and 6. I want them to start becoming familiar with the team before they start going to Falmer.
I can't tell you how excited they are about the new stadium. In fact, it makes me feel like an excited kid every time we pass it to and from games. Once all the kids start going and telling their friends at school about it there will be thousands more around Sussex that want to go. This will hopefully help to increase the younger fan base considerably and help kids realise there is more to football than just the Premiership.
Not something I ever thought I'd read, or I'm sure you imagined you'd ever be writing...
Er HELLO HECTOR! YOU'RE A BRIGHTON FAN!
WHAT'S GOING ON DOWN THERE
[/mellor]
Tooting Gull
Well-known member
- Jul 5, 2003
- 11,033
*screams at researcher to bring him a league table so he can see what division we're in...but ready to stall for time*
"So, still talking about 1983 at Fratton Park?"
"So, still talking about 1983 at Fratton Park?"
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
I've never met him but am sure he is a nice guy...any friend of yours Dave and all that..but it does'nt stop me thinking his Albion affiliations are entirely self serving.
Marshy
Well-known member
Any Albion fan is a friend of mine. Newly converted or not.
Lokki 7
WSU
Once again the point goes flying over Mike Ward's head. The vast majority of people don't hate him for his Arsenal supporting past. The dislike of the bloke comes from the fact that despite his lack of club history, writing ability and personality, he has been intent on forcing his banal and out of sync views onto Brighton fans via an array of media constantly for 10 years now. Why does he feel the need to do this? And now he is moaning via The Independent that we are not all falling at his feet in adoration?
I'm very happy to welcome all new supporters, or indeed just curious bums on seats as long as they pay the entrance fee but I do wish Mike Ward would either shut up or f*** off, the tedious, self-important twunt.
I'm very happy to welcome all new supporters, or indeed just curious bums on seats as long as they pay the entrance fee but I do wish Mike Ward would either shut up or f*** off, the tedious, self-important twunt.
bristolseagull
Well-known member
but has a fit daughter
Publius Ovidius
Well-known member
I don't necessarily think they are. As he says. he lives just down the road. To be honest, if he had lived just down the road from Palace or Bournemouth or Cheltenham I am 100% sure he would now be a fan of one of those teams.
I think his media connections just led to him getting involved with the phone in and it went from there. When I was on with Harty you did get to meet other media people and it is quite incestuous.
I've never met him but as TLO says, he's obviously a nice bloke. I have read a few of his comments but always found them very dull. Which is why I'll avoid reading this Independent blog.
However, what I will say is that I believe there are quite a few of us Withdean regulars who have mates who refuse to attend Withdean and will be back for Falmer. I personally have 4 mates who fall in to this category. Whether it's right or wrong just doesn't matter; we need to attract new and old fans.
However, what I will say is that I believe there are quite a few of us Withdean regulars who have mates who refuse to attend Withdean and will be back for Falmer. I personally have 4 mates who fall in to this category. Whether it's right or wrong just doesn't matter; we need to attract new and old fans.
- Aug 8, 2005
- 26,971
I have no issue with the fact that he is an Arsenal fan, sorry ex Arsenal fan (however that works), however when I used to listen to the fans phone in, before I got so bored with him on it, I found everything he said (pretty much) didn't reflect the general fan view. The Palace comments being a classic example of this. I always felt Harty was spot on and represented more than half the support, whereas I doubt Ward even accounts for 1%.
- Aug 8, 2005
- 26,971
To save too many people clicking on the link and increasing his "readership stats" here is the "blog":
Cricket corruption? Oh, believe me, you don’t want to hear what I think . . .
By Mike Ward
Sport
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 at 12:43 pm
"Brighton’s new stadium will have 13,500 more seats. But will new fans be expected to sit in silence?
Strange question, this, sort of, but how long do you need to have been following a sport, or a particular team, before you’re allowed an opinion on it?
A week? A month? A season? A lifetime?
Get it wrong, butt in before your views are considered valid, before you’ve paid your dues or clocked up an acceptable credibility rating, and, boy, do certain people give you a hard time.
The latest cricket corruption allegations? Yes, of course I could offer you my reaction – I could give you bewilderment, frustration, a hint of depression, maybe even a side-order of outrage if you fancy it – but would anyone be remotely interested in reading or hearing what I have to say on the matter? I very much doubt it.
I have, after all, been following cricket for no more than a matter of months. I have no cricketing history, no roots, nothing. I’ve yet to grasp even some of the basic rules. I am an interloper, an outsider, a Johnny Come Lately.
No one gives a monkey’s what I think.
In fact, no, it would be worse than that. Some cricket fans would turn apoplectic, I’m sure, if I dared offer so much as a passing thought on such a sensitive matter.
Sports fans – as I’ve been reminded by a personal football-related experience, more of which in a moment – can be hideously possessive, protective and insular when it comes to outsiders talking about their game or their club.
It’s on a par with other people slating your family; your blood ties allow you free reign to be as mean as you wish about your nearest and dearest, but woe betide a mere friend who offers identical thoughts on these people. Their opinions may well be intended simply as moral support, but that’s not the point. They don’t have the right. How dare they?
So, yes, I shall avoid telling you how disillusioned I am by this current cricket scandal. In fact, disillusionment is probably the worst sentiment I could express. Hardened cricket fans would seize upon that one in an instant – pointing out how patronisingly naïve I’ve been to imagine that cricket was ever whiter than white, how daft to suppose that it could somehow restore my fragile faith in sport as a whole. If I knew even a bit about cricket, they’d be telling me, if I’d bothered researching even a little of its chequered history (which actually I have, so there), then I’d realise such expectation levels were absurd from the very start.
Or, to put it more bluntly, if I seriously believed cricket was going to offer me a squeaky-clean, nicey-nicey alternative to football, then I’m an idiot.
As I say, it’s a football-related experience that’s taught me to be this wary, sporting-opinion-wise. Each week I co-host a football phone-in on my local station, BBC Sussex, which covers my own club, Brighton & Hove Albion. But according to some Brighton supporters I have no right to do this.
And why’s that, you inquire, not unreasonably? Because I used to support Arsenal.
Now, I realise that switching allegiance is considered an unspeakable crime in football circles, but I could hardly be accused of glory-hunting. I swapped teams, way back in 2001, when Arsenal were actually doing rather well, simply because I hadn’t been to Highbury in donkeys’ years (no Tony Adams pun intended). Weary of televised coverage, I just fancied going to regular matches again. And Brighton’s ground happens to be half an hour’s walk from my house.
I’ve been a fully paid-up season-ticket holder there ever since. That’s nearly 10 years – during which I’ve experienced two depressing relegations, two glorious promotions and an awful lot (very awful indeed in many cases) in between. I’ve even converted my daughter.
Not good enough, apparently. Whatever I say, whatever I think, whatever opinions I express on air, or in print, in relation to Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (po-faced types always add the wholly superfluous words “Football Club” to the end of their team’s name, you’ll have noticed, whenever they’re striving to lend gravitas to some soppy remark of theirs) are, in these people’s eyes, null and void. You can’t, it seems, just start supporting a club when it suits you. You don’t have the right.
What amuses me most about this mentality is that Brighton & Hove Albion, who’ve been forced for the past decade to play their home matches at a ropey council-owned athletics track surrounded by temporary seating, are finally building a spectacular new stadium, the result of a campaign that’s lasted nearly 15 years. From a current capacity of just under 9,000, they’ll suddenly be looking to fill up to 22,500 seats.
By my calculations, that means there could be as many as 13,500 brand new Brighton & Hove Albion fans this time next year. Fans who, to all intents and purposes, will have crawled out of the woodwork.
So that’s going to be a giggle, isn’t it?
I take it these newcomers will, according to the die-hards, have no right to offer their opinions, positive or otherwise, by means of singing, yelling, calling the new striker a useless knob or what-have-you. I can hardly wait.
So, anyway, you can now see why I’m so hesitant when it comes to offering my thoughts on the whole cricketing corruption thing. If football is anything to go by, I’m years away, if not decades, from earning that privilege.
In fact, I’m still at the stage, to be honest, where I feel like a fraud just for shouting “good shot” when, say, Kevin Pietersen hits a boundary for England.
Not that he’s ever likely to again, of course, the way that hopeless numpty’s playing right now.
Sorry, hush my mouth."
At least the last line offers some hope.
Cricket corruption? Oh, believe me, you don’t want to hear what I think . . .
By Mike Ward
Sport
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 at 12:43 pm
"Brighton’s new stadium will have 13,500 more seats. But will new fans be expected to sit in silence?
Strange question, this, sort of, but how long do you need to have been following a sport, or a particular team, before you’re allowed an opinion on it?
A week? A month? A season? A lifetime?
Get it wrong, butt in before your views are considered valid, before you’ve paid your dues or clocked up an acceptable credibility rating, and, boy, do certain people give you a hard time.
The latest cricket corruption allegations? Yes, of course I could offer you my reaction – I could give you bewilderment, frustration, a hint of depression, maybe even a side-order of outrage if you fancy it – but would anyone be remotely interested in reading or hearing what I have to say on the matter? I very much doubt it.
I have, after all, been following cricket for no more than a matter of months. I have no cricketing history, no roots, nothing. I’ve yet to grasp even some of the basic rules. I am an interloper, an outsider, a Johnny Come Lately.
No one gives a monkey’s what I think.
In fact, no, it would be worse than that. Some cricket fans would turn apoplectic, I’m sure, if I dared offer so much as a passing thought on such a sensitive matter.
Sports fans – as I’ve been reminded by a personal football-related experience, more of which in a moment – can be hideously possessive, protective and insular when it comes to outsiders talking about their game or their club.
It’s on a par with other people slating your family; your blood ties allow you free reign to be as mean as you wish about your nearest and dearest, but woe betide a mere friend who offers identical thoughts on these people. Their opinions may well be intended simply as moral support, but that’s not the point. They don’t have the right. How dare they?
So, yes, I shall avoid telling you how disillusioned I am by this current cricket scandal. In fact, disillusionment is probably the worst sentiment I could express. Hardened cricket fans would seize upon that one in an instant – pointing out how patronisingly naïve I’ve been to imagine that cricket was ever whiter than white, how daft to suppose that it could somehow restore my fragile faith in sport as a whole. If I knew even a bit about cricket, they’d be telling me, if I’d bothered researching even a little of its chequered history (which actually I have, so there), then I’d realise such expectation levels were absurd from the very start.
Or, to put it more bluntly, if I seriously believed cricket was going to offer me a squeaky-clean, nicey-nicey alternative to football, then I’m an idiot.
As I say, it’s a football-related experience that’s taught me to be this wary, sporting-opinion-wise. Each week I co-host a football phone-in on my local station, BBC Sussex, which covers my own club, Brighton & Hove Albion. But according to some Brighton supporters I have no right to do this.
And why’s that, you inquire, not unreasonably? Because I used to support Arsenal.
Now, I realise that switching allegiance is considered an unspeakable crime in football circles, but I could hardly be accused of glory-hunting. I swapped teams, way back in 2001, when Arsenal were actually doing rather well, simply because I hadn’t been to Highbury in donkeys’ years (no Tony Adams pun intended). Weary of televised coverage, I just fancied going to regular matches again. And Brighton’s ground happens to be half an hour’s walk from my house.
I’ve been a fully paid-up season-ticket holder there ever since. That’s nearly 10 years – during which I’ve experienced two depressing relegations, two glorious promotions and an awful lot (very awful indeed in many cases) in between. I’ve even converted my daughter.
Not good enough, apparently. Whatever I say, whatever I think, whatever opinions I express on air, or in print, in relation to Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (po-faced types always add the wholly superfluous words “Football Club” to the end of their team’s name, you’ll have noticed, whenever they’re striving to lend gravitas to some soppy remark of theirs) are, in these people’s eyes, null and void. You can’t, it seems, just start supporting a club when it suits you. You don’t have the right.
What amuses me most about this mentality is that Brighton & Hove Albion, who’ve been forced for the past decade to play their home matches at a ropey council-owned athletics track surrounded by temporary seating, are finally building a spectacular new stadium, the result of a campaign that’s lasted nearly 15 years. From a current capacity of just under 9,000, they’ll suddenly be looking to fill up to 22,500 seats.
By my calculations, that means there could be as many as 13,500 brand new Brighton & Hove Albion fans this time next year. Fans who, to all intents and purposes, will have crawled out of the woodwork.
So that’s going to be a giggle, isn’t it?
I take it these newcomers will, according to the die-hards, have no right to offer their opinions, positive or otherwise, by means of singing, yelling, calling the new striker a useless knob or what-have-you. I can hardly wait.
So, anyway, you can now see why I’m so hesitant when it comes to offering my thoughts on the whole cricketing corruption thing. If football is anything to go by, I’m years away, if not decades, from earning that privilege.
In fact, I’m still at the stage, to be honest, where I feel like a fraud just for shouting “good shot” when, say, Kevin Pietersen hits a boundary for England.
Not that he’s ever likely to again, of course, the way that hopeless numpty’s playing right now.
Sorry, hush my mouth."
At least the last line offers some hope.