Mythbusting - Goldstone style

[Norman Potting]

Early or late season you'd get sunstroke on the East Terrace

Conversely that was my favourite place to watch a game if rain wasn't expected, just had to remember a baseball cap or shades for the low winter sun setting over the SW corner.

Parking. Always aimed for Nevill Avenue, depending on how busy it was a judge of how many would attend. If it was really busy you sometimes had to park Holmes Avenue by the Church. We used to have a competition to see who would park nearest to Nevill Road during the course of a season. In the years of sad decline I always seemed to get a space in Woodland Drive or one of the other roads at the back of Hove Park for a stroll through the park. Latterly my shifts meant that I sometimes wouldn't get there until around 14:30 but don't ever recall having a problem even then.

I would like to acknowledge the generous help given by Google Earth in helping identify the road names.

 

[Icy Gull]

This. The Amex is comfortably LOUDER on average.

Not in comparison to the two seasons leading to promotion from the 3rd division and the two years in the 2nd. The crowd was very loud in those years as we were virtually unbeatable at home and won most of them. Started to go about quiet once we reached the 1st division apart from when we won against top teams.

 

[Gregory2Smith1]

sheff wed (night game promo)
gasheads (promo)
Norwich (cup)
Ipswich & Derby (cup)
any scum game since '61
Walsall 7-0
pompey 4 zip & 2-1 (2 goals n the last 2 mins)
west ham (South stand '78)
and the list goes on

The Goldstone Ground

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

12.4(b) The West stand was full of miserable gits.

Correct. It was a mural with a taped miserable gits soundtrack.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The surges in the North stand were awesome, can't remember anyone getting seriously hurt.....health and safety

You couldn't surge very far on account of the barriers. Obviously.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Maybe yes, but at least in the North Stand we recycled about 30 different songs/chants,.... these days at the Amex its just three.

Really?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Not in comparison to the two seasons leading to promotion from the 3rd division and the two years in the 2nd. The crowd was very loud in those years as we were virtually unbeatable at home and won most of them. Started to go about quiet once we reached the 1st division apart from when we won against top teams.

Come on, it wasnt. At most there were a couple of chants which made their way around the ground in a game but this was about it.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

This. The Amex is comfortably LOUDER on average.

I agree with this.

 

[Icy Gull]

Come on, it wasnt. At most there were a couple of chants which made their way around the ground in a game but this was about it.

Not a chance, there were way more chants in those days and the atmosphere was electric in many games as Wardy, Mellor, Sully, Cattlin, Lawrenson etc etc were driven on by Nobby Horton. A couple of chants? Were you actually there?..

 

[Cheshire Cat]

1) We did not park easily next to the ground.

ii) We did not leave and have a simple jam free journey home.

c) You did not get a seat on the train.

5) If you ate a pie you're not reading this because it would have killed you!!

4) Yes we watched some great games, but we watched far more cack.

d) For most of the cack, we were over charged.

Anymore?


It was great, it's now part of my/our DNA, I wouldn't change those memories for anything.
That ground has gone someway to making us what we are today.

That doesn't mean I want to go back, compared with what we have now.
And more importantly want we have now shouldn't be compared to our rose tinted memories.

It was a slum. but it was OUR slum.

 

[Gregory2Smith1]

This. The Amex is comfortably LOUDER on average.

the PA system is

actual singing,no

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Not a chance, there were way more chants in those days and the atmosphere was electric in many games as Wardy, Mellor, Sully, Cattlin, Lawrenson etc etc were driven on by Nobby Horton. A couple of chants? Were you actually there?..

I started going regularly (season ticket holder) in 1977 and stood in the west. Whilst the north was loud few chants made their way around the ground and it was generally just the seagulls chant. By "around the ground" I mean non-north stands joining in with the singing. There was certainly a buzz in those days but electric is pushing it IMHO. Just an observation.

 

[timseagull]

Smoking on the terraces. Superkings were my fag of choice. No idea what they cost, nor the entrance or the train. Day out for a tenner? Happy days.

 

[Stat Brother]

Not a chance, there were way more chants in those days and the atmosphere was electric in many games as Wardy, Mellor, Sully, Cattlin, Lawrenson etc etc were driven on by Nobby Horton. A couple of chants? Were you actually there?..

That's kind of the rose tints this thread is debunking.

The Goldstone was more than just 5ish seasons.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

There was certainly a buzz in those days but electric is pushing it IMHO. Just an observation.

Quite. You never analysed it at the time, there was no need to do so, it was the Goldstone and it was going to be there forever. It was just what you did, hard-wired in your brain, go to football on a Saturday, it was no big deal. Certainly never felt electric, just felt like being in the home end of any football crowd anywhere to be honest.

 

[Gregory2Smith1]

That's kind of the rose tints this thread is debunking.

The Goldstone was more than just 5ish seasons.

the history of Brighton &Hove Albion was made at the Goldstone

the Amex has alot to live up to,let's hope it does

 

[Stat Brother]

the history of Brighton &Hove Albion was made at the Goldstone

the Amex has alot to live up to,let's hope it does

Yep, it certainly was and I would never trade in a single memory.

But if the Amex is always held up against a mythical ground that didn't actually exist, what chance does it have.
It's no wonder the moaning mini's are anti most things that the 21st century Albion is, they are clinging onto a dream that was only a reality for a comparative nano second, in the clubs history.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

I remember the uproar when the club raised the admission by a whole FIFTY PERCENT when we were promoted to the old First Division in 1979.

Entrance to The North Stand went up from £1.00 to £1.50!

Barber ou.....I mean Bamber out!!

 

[Icy Gull]

That's kind of the rose tints this thread is debunking.

The Goldstone was more than just 5ish seasons.

After we fell out of the top division the Goldstone was a grim depressing place most of the time as was the football and the club was run into the ground, possibly because of the money spent in the push for the top. Pretty pointless as there is no definitve way to prove or disprove it but those five years you talk about have only recently been challenged on the field, I loved the atmosphere and in my head it was as loud if not louder than the Amex most match days back then. Having good memories doesn't automatically make them "rose tinted"

Would I swap it for the Amex and what we have now? Of course not but there is no reason to big the Amex up by deriding the Goldstone IMO, not that it needs it as one of the finest stadiums in the world. You would have been a bit mental to have even dreamt that about the Goldstone.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

I grew up on the terraces of The Goldstone. Started in the South Stand, then after a couple of seasons, my friends and I plucked up enough courage to go in the North Stand. Looking back at the programme cover, entrance was 35p for an under 16 and 10p for the programme itself.

My abiding memory was climbing the steps of the North Stand for a night game and coming out and seeing the pitch SO Green. The smell of cigarettes, the awful toilets, the surges in the North Stand. Norwich in the FA Cup stands out, together with Ipswich in the League Cup.

We certainly sang a wider variety of songs including You'll never walk alone, Knees up mother Brown, Molly Malone etc.

Whilst I miss it, I'm glad I experienced it. My son never went, and has only videos to see it by. He is very jealous.