Withdean was an age ago.

[catfish]

Even taking into account all the good footballing times we had at Withdean it really does not have one redeeming feature. It was the pits!

 

[¤DãŃn¥ §êãGüLL¤]

Anyone got any recent snaps?

 

[Bobby's Gull]

Fond memories of the place and it was good for sunbathing at the start/end of the season. But a world away from the AMEX! When we moved to the North Stand as couldn't hack getting soaked anymore, the roof had an f'ing hole above where we sat anyway ... ARGH!

 

[Triggaaar]

While we were at Withdean, people always used to ask how I put up with it every week, and I never thought it was too bad. After all, it is essentially just sitting in a seat watching a game of football. But when I think back now, it really was f***ing dog shit wasn't it?

Yes it was. I'm surprised you didn't realise. Although we were watching football, the lack of atmosphere was horrendous, and the fact we couldn't make money there meant we knew we were treading water with no hope of progression. I'm surprised as many of us kept going every week.

 

[NMH]

If I do an article in a local village rag, and it enables me to become a respected journalist by financing me through the struggle to get there, should I pour scorn on the little village-scene rag?

If I walk a winding path through the trees to go and sit by a lake, shall I deride that lumpy path?

If I need to eat from ration tins so I may survive to get to a wonderful banquet, do I have any regrets about eating rations?

Football players start out on clumpy fields with their mates, booting an under-inflated lump, or a plastic balloon.
Later they might get a weed-infested local windblown rectangle surrounded by corrugated sheds and a few of the player's family looking on, as cloggers try giving them a discouraging punch in the ribs or some studs on the shin to stop them running rings round them.
If they get to play in the Championship should they complain about the way they got there?


That's how I see Withdean - a means to an end, one that I just cannot moan about us having.
The alternative was several years sharing, only unless we went out of the league totally (which would have been inevitable)

Wonderful Withdean, we have a lot to be thankful for from that humble borrowed abode.

 

[Return of the Rev]

Miss it?

Going to withdean more now than when the albion played there! (ATHLETICS)

 

[Return of the Rev]

Anyone got any recent snaps?

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

You do realise, of course, that the Amex is really just a soulless concrete bowl... don't you?

What all those critics -always from departing, defeated clubs -fail to realise is that the soul of the Amex comes from its home support. And it's being built, layer by layer, from our accumulating experiences of extraordinary games like Doncaster, Burnley, Liverpool and Leeds.

The ground, is in any case, wonderful. But the soul... is all of us.

 

[Lush]

You do realise, of course, that the Amex is really just a soulless concrete bowl... don't you?

What all those critics -always from departing, defeated clubs -fail to realise is that the soul of the Amex comes from its home support. And it's being built, layer by layer, from our accumulating experiences of extraordinary games like Doncaster, Burnley, Liverpool and Leeds.

The ground, is in any case, wonderful. But the soul... is all of us.

I like this.

 

[The Large One]

In the Summer it was alright but the Winter was just f***ing horrendous. There wasn't a single redeeming feature about the place on a cold November evening.

There was one - going home.

Withdean served us well. Those 12 years in retrospect have gone by in the blink of an eye, whereas while we were there, it felt like the road to Falmer was lined - knee deep - in treacle.

This first season at the Amex has flown by; I still feel like a big kid with a certain flutter and infantile excitement going through me when I know there's a fixture coming up (hey, there's TWO next week). I really hope that feeling lasts for a long time. This summer is going to be VERY long...

 

[itszamora]

I've got a couple of great memories from Withdean, particularly that playoff game with Swindon. But yeah, it was shite when compared to what we have now.

 

[leigull]

If I do an article in a local village rag, and it enables me to become a respected journalist by financing me through the struggle to get there, should I pour scorn on the little village-scene rag?

If I walk a winding path through the trees to go and sit by a lake, shall I deride that lumpy path?

If I need to eat from ration tins so I may survive to get to a wonderful banquet, do I have any regrets about eating rations?

Football players start out on clumpy fields with their mates, booting an under-inflated lump, or a plastic balloon.
Later they might get a weed-infested local windblown rectangle surrounded by corrugated sheds and a few of the player's family looking on, as cloggers try giving them a discouraging punch in the ribs or some studs on the shin to stop them running rings round them.
If they get to play in the Championship should they complain about the way they got there?


That's how I see Withdean - a means to an end, one that I just cannot moan about us having.
The alternative was several years sharing, only unless we went out of the league totally (which would have been inevitable)

Wonderful Withdean, we have a lot to be thankful for from that humble borrowed abode.

Great post. Withdean made us who we are today.

 

[Simster]

Despite Withdean's woeful inadequacies, I do sometimes find myself thinking it ought to be a duty to dislike the place rather than simply accept it in the terms that NMH elequently puts it earlier in this thread. It was a means to an end, and I love the fact that the club punched well above it's weight for much of the time we were there. Two championships, a play-off season, a couple of relegation seasons, a 7th place, a cup win against the wealthiest club in the world, Bobby Zamora - we actually had some exciting times there. I also really enjoyed the NSC sponsored games there - happy, happy days they were. And the 6-0 in the sunshine against Mansfield after 2 years in exile will always be one of the best days (top 10) I will ever have enjoyed as an Albion fan.

It's just that during the 6 or 7 years of absolute nothingy dross, it felt like a duty rather than a pleasure. In the end, the family stand was the only thing that made it tolerable. I hated watching the game from anywhere else. And it always did give the false impression that Albion were a noddy club, which completely belied the level of dormant support. As if to prove the point, we could well be in the top 15 in terms of national average attendances next season, even if we are in the Championship.

So when all is said and done, returning home on the train from the Amex via Brighton with an old school aquaintance last Saturday, we looked out as we went past Withdean and it really appeared to us to be a sick joke.

 

[westy]

I agree with this. While we were at Withdean, people always used to ask how I put up with it every week, and I never thought it was too bad. After all, it is essentially just sitting in a seat watching a game of football. But when I think back now, it really was f***ing dog shit wasn't it?

Absolutely, terrible dump. I love passing it on the train on the way to the Amex because every time I think the same thing, thank god that is over. Love the Amex.

 

[Igor Gurinovich?]

Miss it?

Weirdly.. yes.

 

[Willy Dangle]

You do realise, of course, that the Amex is really just a soulless concrete bowl... don't you?

What all those critics -always from departing, defeated clubs -fail to realise is that the soul of the Amex comes from its home support. And it's being built, layer by layer, from our accumulating experiences of extraordinary games like Doncaster, Burnley, Liverpool and Leeds.

The ground, is in any case, wonderful. But the soul... is all of us.

Well done Mr Philosophical

 

[leigull]

It was a means to an end, and I love the fact that the club punched well above it's weight for much of the time we were there. Two championships, a play-off season, a couple of relegation seasons, a 7th place, a cup win against the wealthiest club in the world, Bobby Zamora - we actually had some exciting times there.

***cough*** 3 Championships ***cough***

 

[NMH]

....So when all is said and done, returning home on the train from the Amex via Brighton with an old school aquaintance last Saturday, we looked out as we went past Withdean and it really appeared to us to be a sick joke.

Still never will be as sick as The Goldstone retail park

I did say to myself, and a couple of friends, that I would never be able to even look upon that until we were in a permanent new home.
Somehow though, I still can't comfortably cenceive gazing at the place even now - a desecrated grave that will never seem in any way worthy of my eyes.

Going back to the Withdean subject - it was a garden of Eden compared with travelling to Gillingham.
I expect Sir Richard Knight will have pangs about it being exclusively 'his place' and nothing thereafter - but if his objective was prime in saving the Albion, picking it up from the dirt it had been thrown in, then he really did achieve that, 'in spades' we could say.

No, I won't harbour any ill feelings for Withdean, not even if it were expected of us to see it in any poor light.
It really was home, we did call it 'fortress', and we did see so many great moments and players.

 

[Don Quixote]

We won three championships there! It was quality.

 

[W.C.]

I still haven't been to the Amex. The last time I was back in England I went up to Falmer to see for myself the beautiful beast that was taking shape that I'd been following over the internet. After that I headed back in to town and then to Withdean for the first home game of last year's championship winning season.

I've been away from Brighton over a decade now and hadn't seen the team in the flesh for years but the minute I stepped foot in Withdean it came back just how shit it was. Luckily the team were playing football like I'd never seen a Brighton team play before, but the venue was still awful.

Can not wait to take a seat at the Amex.