Your Albion mojo: when was it at the peak and when at the lowest

[Medwayseagull]

Highest - late 60's through to 83 - good number of away games and season ticket holder

Lowest - 1990 - 2000 moved away from the area, gave up season ticket and rarely attended a game. I only live a few miles from Priestfield and even in those dark days I only went to a few home games.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Two highs..1) 77-83...2) Gus era to date...both felt similar...that we were on an upward climb to the top....two similar managers....both driving midfielders in their playing days...both hugely confident and ambitious managers..both determined to perform at the highest level.
One huge low...just the slow and inevitable decline through the 90's..when it seemed as if our very existence was being squeezed out of us...standing on the pitch at the Goldstone for the final time, picturing Wardy and Spider ripping teams apart and not knowing if the following game was the last game of league football that I would see Brighton play.

 

[Arthur]

Highest for me is quite bizarre really as it's late nineties to mid naughties. Was going pretty much every week. Football was awful compared to what it is now but it was a giggle and with us Yo-Yo-ing up and down the leagues I got to tick off allot of the grounds in the football league.

Lowest was at the end of that period. McGhee had us playing dire football, it seemed to rain every Saturday we were at home and I'd been near enough every ground so didn't even have that excuse to drag myself to a game. Binned off my season ticket assuming I'd just do away games but it became very easy not to bother at all. Also coinsided with other local teams doing well (Crowborough, Lewes, Eastbourne) so spent most Saturdays watching one of them or on the odd occasion going to Arsenal.

 

[Ninja Elephant]

Highest point is the last 2 seasons, the Gus Poyet era in general really. We've moved into our amazing new home, we're playing really well on the pitch, we walked League 1 last season and we're in the top half of the Championship and signing some quality players. We're being spoilt at the moment, and they're not done yet!

Lowest point was unquestionably the McGhee years. I'll always regret not going to the play-off semi-finals, I just didn't like the team. I didn't like the manager, I didn't like the style of football and I didn't bother going. I was questioning the point in supporting the club, I was still going to the occaisonal game but not many. When McGhee left, I had met someone new and was properly into football again and didn't miss a Withdean match for 3 years.

 

[doogen83]

Lowest - Half Time at Hereford
Highest - Full Time at Hereford

Now on a constant high

This 100%

 

[PHCgull]

good question

Mojo highwater mark - 1979. He shot, he scored... makes me want to poke grazed knees through my ripped school trousers and play an hour-long game against junior 1 in the playground with a tennis ball...I absolutely LOVED the albion at this time in a way i have never felt for anything since...

Mojo Nadir - either the second half of the first season at Gillingham when i really thought we would be non-league / non-existent within 12 months, or in the bad days of Mickey Adams' second spell at the club. Almost...almost didnt renew . That was only a few years ago, how far we have travelled since...

 

[Seagull kimchi]

Highest.....the whole of the 87/88 season. I was 15, had a season ticket, went to loads of away matches, and we seemed to win every week. Good team as well.

Lowest.....losing the Goldstone, I loved our ground.

Ohh that's uncanny. I too was 15 and went to almost every game that season home and away. Bloody brilliant times to be a young crazy Albion fan. Must'ave bumped into you a lot on the road. (Are you Krispies?)

 

[JBizzle]

Highest - Two periods really, going to the Goldstone with my Mum, Dad and Brother up until about 1997 when it became too expensive for 4 season tickets (+ Gillingham), followed by the Gus Years. Rarely have I ever felt so optimistic except... For individual moments: Virgo's equaliser vs. Swindon, 6-0 vs. Mansfield on the Withdean league debut and Buckley's second vs. Donny.

Lowest - Micky II. I was so excited by his return and it was just horrid. For the first time in my life, supporting the Albion became a chore. Culminating in, for me, one of the worst performances of a Brighton side: watching Walsall have two sent off and THEN going down 1-0. Micky just came across like the shrunken, tactically clueless and stuck in the 90's older brother of Mk I Micky.

 

[Mackenzie]

Ohh that's uncanny. I too was 15 and went to almost every game that season home and away. Bloody brilliant times to be a young crazy Albion fan. Must'ave bumped into you a lot on the road. (Are you Krispies?)

No I'm not Krispies, although I used to stand just in front of him in the NS.....noisy bugger .

 

[Drumstick]

Highest 03/04 season, Was at school still but went to every game I could with my brothers and dad. Swindon home and away especially.

Lowest 08/09 I was living in Cambridge working full time including Saturdays and just couldn't get to games think I did about 2 in a whole season including Walsal away on the train and ended up in a taxi round Brum until 5am trying to find a room when a grumpy brummy let us stay the night for a small fortune. Think we lost as well.

Silverlining to that was going to a few games at the abbey and chatting to the Cambridge fans on their terrace.

 

[Seagull kimchi]

No I'm not Krispies, although I used to stand just in front of him in the NS.....noisy bugger .

Mmmm. So I probably hugged you or jumped on your back a few times when we scored! Strangers in the night. They were glorious days on the terraces when anything went.

 

[Ali_rrr]

Highest: Poyet era
Lowest: Mickey's seocnd era.

 

[Mackenzie]

Mmmm. So I probably hugged you or jumped on your back a few times when we scored! Strangers in the night. They were glorious days on the terraces when anything went.

Amazing.....the best......score a goal and you'd find yourself right down the front

I think our generation was lucky really, a bit too young for the Mullery team, but we had some fun at the Goldstone before all the crap that followed with Archer and his pals. It was exciting times for a 15 year old, and I think anyone who went regularly then (at our age) couldn't fail to be hooked for life.

 

[Seagull kimchi]

Amazing.....the best......score a goal and you'd find yourself right down the front

I think our generation was lucky really, a bit too young for the Mullery team, but we had some fun at the Goldstone before all the crap that followed with Archer and his pals. It was exciting times for a 15 year old, and I think anyone who went regularly then (at our age) couldn't fail to be hooked for life.

So true. When Bremner flew in that header to win promotion last game of the season - was crazy scenes. If you fell over in the NS you better have a few mates to grab you before you got trampled. I hate to say it, but if I have kids I'd have to tell them that they've missed out on the golden age of being a football fan. 100 years and it's somehow now become all about big business and H+S regs.

 

[Storer 68]

Highest - Would be 21 March 1983

Lowest - december 1996 - just lost to Darlington 12 points adrift at the botttom of Division 4. No manager, no team, soon not to have a ground and if things didn't change pdq, soon to have no club. oh and Archer and Bellotti not looking like they would ever leave......................

 

[severnside gull]

mid 60's to mid 70's I barely missed a game home and away and now, although I can't get to as many games I live and breathe the Albion.


sadly in the 80's and 90's I was so busy with other stuff I lost a lot of focus (and lacked a certain amount of ready cash) and rarely caught more than half a dozen games a season, mostly away from home as I had long since left Brighton.

 

[Man of Harveys]

Good thread this; tricky question to answer.

I loved the whole period from about 1978-9 to about 1989. Not only were they great times for the club - that game beating Liverpool stands out - but it was a great laugh to go from being a little kid who mooched around down the front of the southwest terrace to going in the north stand with mates from school, bouncing around when we scored etc.

But for me, I think it's the early days at Withdean - the Cullip/Zamora era. No matter if we conceded in the 94th minute against Torquay, that whole time was magical for the simple surprise that we still had a club at all, something that would have seemed unreal 3-4 years earlier. Some brilliant away trips to places like York and Carlisle, those titles: all good.

Low: when I was at university. Not that we were crap - I went to the play-off final in 1991 (where actually we were crap) - but there was just too much other stuff going on.

 

[Simster]

Ohh that's uncanny. I too was 15 and went to almost every game that season home and away. Bloody brilliant times to be a young crazy Albion fan. Must'ave bumped into you a lot on the road. (Are you Krispies?)

I was 16/17 that season and that was me at the height of Albion mojo. Went all over the place with Albion, and most homes.

Also loved the first, second and third seasons back at Withdean. Last season was great but I hardly went really. This season, my son is massively involved and absolutely loves coming with me. He's not fussed about doing Liverpool away though so we're not going, which is fine as it's on that there tellybox.

Low: when I was at university. Not that we were crap - I went to the play-off final in 1991 (where actually we were crap) - but there was just too much other stuff going on.

This. Exactly this.

 

[Seagull73]

Amazing.....the best......score a goal and you'd find yourself right down the front

I think our generation was lucky really, a bit too young for the Mullery team, but we had some fun at the Goldstone before all the crap that followed with Archer and his pals. It was exciting times for a 15 year old, and I think anyone who went regularly then (at our age) couldn't fail to be hooked for life.

I was 15 that year too, and I have to say that those I think were the best times I had watching the Albion at the Goldstone. Had my little spot, right at the back of the North Stand, just to the left of the goal as you look at the pitch.

Beating Northampton 3-0 on a Friday night in April in front of 14,500 (doesn't sound that much now does it) - after playing unbelievably well, and got us on the run to promotion, will live with me forever.

Low point - I actually stopped watching them between 1996 - 2000. I'm almost ashamed to say it now - I actually stopped watching once McGhee had taken charge as well because I was fed-up of the totally shit football that was being served up under him.

 

[Chucky20]

Bearing in mind I'm 21 mine are a tad more recent!

Highest: Arriving at the AMEX for the first time against Eastbourne Borough and not stopping smiling for the whole day. Ground was no where near full, and it was an albion reserve team, but having been introduced to the Albion at Withdean, I'm glad I stuck it out because every week I appreciate what we have when people are moaning about pies or queing for the bus.

Lowest: Micky Part 2.. Its the only time I have ever seen my Dad genuinely give up on The Albion in our 12 years of going to games together, he really thought we were down. Week after week in the pouring rain in the south stand, performances were awful and the team was sliding back to the third tier where I had seen them come from in my first season as a supporter. Truly were the worst for me having to have to convince my dad we could stay up. Glad I was proved right and its set us up for where we are now.

I am so glad my old man made me a Brighton fan when all my friends at school were united, chelsea or any other team instead of the Albion.

Its worthwhile now.