[Albion] 16th best Premier League stadium?

[dwayne]

We need krispies back.

on a serious note, I agree with a lot of that. The Amex is a great aesthetically looking stadium, but the transport lets it down horrendously.

park and ride getting to the ground is fine although getting up the hill off the a27 can be time consuming and getting back, unless you leave the ground 5 minutes before final whistle, you are stuck in a very long queue that if you miss the first tranche of busses it is sometimes an hour long wait. The Athens game where we all got soaked to the skin and waited for one and a half hours was horrendous and for games where the weather is iffy, I will certainly think twice about going. Being an old git now and paying the reduced rate, if my ticket doesn’t sell, it’s not a huge loss.

I can’t comment on the trains as I have never used them, but when on the very few occasions I have had a uni parking ticket, the queues to get on the trains have been very long and boisterous.

certainly trying to get uni parking these days is impossible unless you know someone who doesn’t need theirs( it takes me just on half an hour to get home when parked at the uni)

btw. When they use coaches for the Mill Hill P&R as they can only load one person a time, give yourself the anticipation that you will take at least twice as long to get back to your car. The busses last home game were excellent( once they came back from the first trips after waiting half an hour) as people pile on quickly and so long as the stewards don’t hold them on village way they are away quickly.

Whatever happened to Krispies ?!?!

 

[Gabbiano]

For us the Amex was hugely symbolic and a rocket up the arse to propel us to our current heights. Finally a permanent home for the club after all the years in exile.

For the rest of the league it's just another new stadium, particularly poorly located too if you're an away fan here for a weekend of partying.

Transport goes without saying but I don't know that there is really that much that can be done given the constraints of the site and the highways around Falmer.

It's aged a little too and needs some TLC in places. Remember the beautiful blue roof, that is now dull grey. But having said that 12th for design is harsh.

Atmosphere on the average game isn't great. All the more frustrating because we can generate it for games like Sheffield Wednesday or Chelsea. Mind you I don't get down to the Amex often nowadays so I'm commenting a little from my ivory tower.

 

[jessiejames]

The transport truly is woeful at the Amex, they could do with some joined up thinking on traffic management which is an utter shambles. An improvement here would change the access to the ground not just for car drivers but also for the many coaches travelling in from all over the region, as well as the park and ride buses which spend so much time in queues when they should be moving. The trains work, but there is no consistency, half empty trains, missing trains, so many reasons to be frustrated by them.

Regarding the atmosphere, maybe the North Stand can do something about joining up and singing from the same hymn book so to speak?

Intrested to know how you would keep the P&R Busses moving.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Not sure why I didn't add the Subutteo stadium to the list of grounds over rated.

The away concourse at the Amex, is far nicer than the grotty holes you end up in at many grounds. Again Journos don't experience this so it doesn't count here.

Also how significant is the size of stands behind the goal in modern football? The view is generally better side on and now that most grounds don't put the away fans directly behind one goal, the end to end atmosphere is not the same. Unless you are Marseille there tends to be a quiet end and a more noisy end.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Intrested to know how you would keep the P&R Busses moving.

One suggestion that was muted, would be moving the Mill Hill P&R busses to pick up and drop off at the entrance to Falmer school by the small railway bridge ….extending out that area to create a larger turning and parking area. this would mean they come off the turning down coldean lane and straight around underneath the underpass. Being relatively closer, and also you don’t have to battle the coaches, cars etc coming along the slip road off the a27 and village way.

ok it’s a longer walk for the fans, but maybe if the busses were more frequent as they wouldn’t have to wait so long ( or travel as far) it would alleviate the issue.

it sounded sensible but I suppose there will be people on here who know why that wasn’t suggested originally.

 

[kevo]

These articles are all subjective. The Amex came 6th overall in another recent survey. To put the London stadium 10th is risible. And the Amex should surely rank higher than 12th for design.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Trying to take the blue and white blinkers off.

The Amex is probably the best stadium I’ve visited in this league for leg room and sight lines except Tottenham. The atmosphere is comfortably mid table. One of the best on one off occasions (Sheff Weds, Chelsea, Athens) but often quiet, reactive and with either side of the north stand having a Willy waving contest instead of backing the team.

It’s let down by the catering and the awful travel, both of which are relegation fodder.

As a home stadium I’d rather have it than any of the now falling down Archibald Leitch stadia with their poor visibility and non existent leg room and concourses. Those stadia do have a lot of “soul” and history though so the ranking of them would be entirely subjective.

 

[Superphil]

Intrested to know how you would keep the P&R Busses moving.

Whilst I am not someone who does traffic management for a job, for a start I'd ensure a clear run for P&R buses and other coaches up the slip road from the A27, with traffic marshals/stewards.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I took a visiting friend to the Chelsea game last season and he is now convinced that the Amex has the best atmosphere of any PL ground he's ever been to! So I guess much depends on individual experience on the day.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I'd imagine that TB and PBOBE will be pretty shaken up by that assessment. Hopefully they'll respond by coming up with a Plan Of Action. Especially as regards transport, an area where they've been noticeably prone to turning a blind eye to the many deficiencies

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Trying to take the blue and white blinkers off.

The Amex is probably the best stadium I’ve visited in this league for leg room and sight lines except Tottenham. The atmosphere is comfortably mid table. One of the best on one off occasions (Sheff Weds, Chelsea, Athens) but often quiet, reactive and with either side of the north stand having a Willy waving contest instead of backing the team.

It’s let down by the catering and the awful travel, both of which are relegation fodder.

As a home stadium I’d rather have it than any of the now falling down Archibald Leitch stadia with their poor visibility and non existent leg room and concourses. Those stadia do have a lot of “soul” and history though so the ranking of them would be entirely subjective.

I'm a big fan of old stadia. Yes, they're uncomfortable but I find them (warning, Pseuds Corner alert) deeply emotional experiences when you can connect with the ghosts of the past.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The author, BTW, is a Norwich fan.

We’re not exactly their favourite club. Jake Humphrey gets rinsed by our fans on Twitter almost every time they have a bad result.

Talking of social media, I’ve also noticed we’re a club who you have to take a binary position on. Often we’ll be a second favourite club with our underdog story and style of football, but some clubs, notably Chelsea and Man U seem to hate us more than Palace do.

 

[Yes Chef]

There's so many sticks to beat Palace with, transport isn't one of them

 

[Bozza]

I took a visiting friend to the Chelsea game last season and he is now convinced that the Amex has the best atmosphere of any PL ground he's ever been to! So I guess much depends on individual experience on the day.

Absolutely.

Discussing this briefly elsewhere, someone passed comment that their experience of the big clubs/big grounds had been very underwhelming. My response to that is fans at those clubs in those stadia just don't get excited when little old Brighton come to town, even now when we've progressed from cannon fodder to a side that can and will beat them.

As visitors, we're never going to experience the best of the likes of Old Trafford and Anfield, which will be entirely different when other "Big 6" clubs play there and on big Champions League nights.

 

[A1X]

Dare one suggest some of these ratings might be intentionally controversial in order to drive "traffic"?

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

I went along to the Bournemouth game (my first since CH was in charge) - stayed to clap the players off, then found the queues for the buses even worse than ever.

Walked back to the race hill at a leisurely pace, & got to the car just as one of the few buses we saw driving down to the stadium returned to drop off fans.

Transport just not good enough after this amount of time imo.

 

[Peacehaven Wild Kids]

Each stadium is ranked in four categories. The Amex ranks as follows:

Atmosphere: 19th. Only Bournemouth is considered worse.
Experience: 8th
Location, which also encompasses transport: 19th. Only Palace is considered worse.
Design: 12th

Right ….erm, ok
Oh.. any one see Coronation Street the other night? That Steven was a sod weren’t he?

 

[Wardy's twin]

Who the F cares what they think. We as fans know the two aspects they need improving are catering (speed of handing each transaction) and transport. The former is easily solved IMO the latter more difficult because of the poor trains . I solved my transport problem by paying a £5 for return trip to my local but I do have a fail safe in using the later P&R buses if I stay for a drink . A more localised issue in WSU is the need to increase the number of toilets and wash basins .

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

You? You’ll need to do better than that.

I meant the paper not you!

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

My totally unscientific scores, in reverse order:

Luton
Bournemouth
Crystal Palace
Burnley
Brentford
Wolves
Fulham
West Ham
Brighton & Hove Albion
Manchester United
Chelsea
Sheffield United
Nottingham Forest
Liverpool
Aston Villa
Arsenal
Manchester City
Newcastle
Tottenham