[Albion] AEK Post Game Leaving

[Doonhamer7]

Generally hate leaving early but D7jr had a 6.30am flight so we went on 88mins (And we knew there was going to be 10+mins of added time which would be all Brighton attack) So glad we did as the coach we were on wouldn’t go as door wouldn't shut, so be fair to coach stewards they moved us to a bus behind. Then as we drove along the a27 heavens opened - felt so sorry for anyone in a queue.

It doesn’t take anyone with common sense to realise that a proper time and motion study needs to be done on the whole traffic system. The problem I expect that until Barber or his leadership team has to suffer it nothing will change. everything from queuing, bus loading, types of buses, keeping all cars back etc

 

[portlock seagull]

Also a Mill Road user.

I missed 3 minutes of added time, yet got home 75 minutes earlier than you. To me a price well worth paying.

On the field we were unstructured and shit in extra time, no cool heads, it was obvious AEK had won … leaving slightly early was a no brainer. Still got soaked though, as many thousand had beat me to the queue.

Mill Road was a shower of an operation though on Thursday night. Even early users had to wait for ages at Amex for buses to arrive, board and depart. If you left at final whistle you’re probably still queuing after midnight. Home by 1.30am myself.

 

[abc]

It doesn’t take anyone with common sense to realise that a proper time and motion study needs to be done on the whole traffic system. The problem I expect that until Barber or his leadership team has to suffer it nothing will change. everything from queuing, bus loading, types of buses, keeping all cars back etc

100% this.

 

[AnotherArch]

Stayed to the end. Paddled to Wild Park. Stopped at services to get burger. Home in Rotherham for 2.30am.Could have been worse - no temporary roadworks causing single lane on the motorways!

 

[ElectricNaz]

That illustrates the benefit of leaving early.

I didn't get back to Worthing until after 11:30.

Dont get me wrong. I want to stay to the end. But If leaving 6 mins early saves me an hour (or more) of my time, sorry that's what's got to happen I don't like it, but that's the way it is for evening games. Kick offs at 5.30 or before I genuinely don't really care too much. Midweek 7.45/8pm is different. Weekends are different also depending on if I'm staying with mates or going home.

 

[Bozza]

Dont get me wrong. I want to stay to the end. But If leaving 6 mins early saves me an hour (or more) of my time, sorry that's what's got to happen I don't like it, but that's the way it is for evening games. Kick offs at 5.30 or before I genuinely don't really care too much. Midweek 7.45/8pm is different. Weekends are different also depending on if I'm staying with mates or going home.

I totally get it.

We had what felt like a good space in The Bridge car park, three cars from the end of the row and one row from the exit. We were still sitting there, motionless, at 11pm though.

 

[ElectricNaz]

Stayed to the end. Paddled to Wild Park. Stopped at services to get burger. Home in Rotherham for 2.30am.Could have been worse - no temporary roadworks causing single lane on the motorways!

That's surprising but good work getting home by then. Even the M3 had a junction closed on that specific night so had to drive through some random village

 

[Weststander]

Mill Road was a shower of an operation though on Thursday night. Even early users had to wait for ages at Amex for buses to arrive, board and depart. If you left at final whistle you’re probably still queuing after midnight. Home by 1.30am myself.

Agreed. Left after 10 mins of stoppage time, wish I’d left earlier.

 

[AnotherArch]

That's surprising but good work getting home by then. Even the M3 had a junction closed on that specific night so had to drive through some random village

What I did not reveal was the journey down. Crash on M25 meant Mr Google took us on a tour of the back lanes of Chertsey and Egham. Going fine until getting out of a T-junction. Abandoned Justpark and squeezed in Wild Park at 7.40pm. As if by magic a 25 bus appeared! Heard SBS outside, and made it inside to see kick off.

 

[nwgull]

Mill Road was a shower of an operation though on Thursday night. Even early users had to wait for ages at Amex for buses to arrive, board and depart. If you left at final whistle you’re probably still queuing after midnight. Home by 1.30am myself.

It wasn’t quite that bad. I left on final whistle and was back in my car (heater on full blast) for about 11-15. Still a fair wait considering whistle went at about 10-05.

 

[Vicar!]

Sounds marvellous. The only downside I presume was being made to feel like a helpless infant, or a powerless citizen of a police state, rather than just a bloke going to watch a football match on a Saturday afternoon.

I am Schalke fan and enjoyed an unexpectedly chilled morning in the City, but I also travel away with them and policing can be firm. Sadly it needs to be.

 

[ElectricNaz]

What I did not reveal was the journey down. Crash on M25 meant Mr Google took us on a tour of the back lanes of Chertsey and Egham. Going fine until getting out of a T-junction. Abandoned Justpark and squeezed in Wild Park at 7.40pm. As if by magic a 25 bus appeared! Heard SBS outside, and made it inside to see kick off.

That was the same for me, I drove up the M3 and luckily Waze sent me through Guildford ish and across to Hailsham etc... Before joining the A23 saved me about an hour. Never trust drivers at that M25 /M3 exit area, no idea why that's always a dickhead zone

Edit: I like to drive in a circle to avoid doing the same route twice. So usually up the M3 and around that way, and then home via Chichester/Southampton way. Equidistant so keeps it fresh haha. Just in case anyone questions my route home from a earlier post

 

[WATFORD zero]

Agreed. Left after 10 mins of stoppage time, wish I’d left earlier.

I've changed my routine this season. My nephew only comes and parks at mine when good weather and we're planning to spend 1hr+ after the final whistle. I still continue to walk to Mill Road every game on way to the Amex (queued from 6.50 till 7.10 on Thursday).

But if it's an evening game, or wet weather predicted, my nephew drives to Race Hill, and then we come back via Race Hill P&R and he drops me off at home, round the corner from Mill Road P&R. Generally reckon it saves 45 mins coming home. The queue for Race Hill was still there 45 mins after on Thursday, but that's unusual and maybe down to the Woodingdean accident ?

I'm sure that the Mill Road queue used to clear in 40 mins coming home (bendy bus days), but now always seems to be queued for way over an hour after the final whistle.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Generally hate leaving early but D7jr had a 6.30am flight so we went on 88mins (And we knew there was going to be 10+mins of added time which would be all Brighton attack) So glad we did as the coach we were on wouldn’t go as door wouldn't shut, so be fair to coach stewards they moved us to a bus behind. Then as we drove along the a27 heavens opened - felt so sorry for anyone in a queue.

It doesn’t take anyone with common sense to realise that a proper time and motion study needs to be done on the whole traffic system. The problem I expect that until Barber or his leadership team has to suffer it nothing will change. everything from queuing, bus loading, types of buses, keeping all cars back etc

Weren't the club looking to review the existing travel arrangements in time for next season? Think that was why they sent out a travel questionaire earlier in the year. So, expect some level of change. Whether it's for the better remains to be seen tho. Fingers crossed eh?

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I think I’d prefer not to even go than risk missing a turnaround at the end.

The game was on TV, not criticising anyone for leaving early as I couldn’t care less people can leave when they want, just always found the mindset of planning to leave early a strange one, especially when quite often the most dramatic period of a football game is the final 10 minutes.

It’s like paying £50 for a theatre ticket then leaving before the dramatic twist, might as well have just kept the £50 and watched it on TV, at least that’s what I’d prefer to do anyway, imagine we’d turned that around and won 4-3…..

It’s not really like that though is it? Theatres and cinemas tend to be in town centres with numerous options for transport or the ability to sit in a pub or restaurant for a while in comfort.

Most football matches don’t have a dramatic final twist. And even if they do, and even if it goes your way (not guaranteed) you have to weigh up the positive value of that against the negative value of standing round in an impatient crowd, often in grim weather, for the best part of an hour, waiting for transport. Depends on your age as well. As an old man with no friends, I look forward to getting home within 90 minutes of the final whistle so that I can gaze into the fire with a nice glass of red and reflect on the events of the afternoon or evening. In my younger days I didn’t care how late I got home. My solution these days is to pay extra for coach travel. It means I can stay until the end AND avoid the travel issues. In my case it’s worth the money. YMMV.

 

[seagullwedgee]

I left on 93 (of the 103) minutes and got home (between Bedford and Northampton in the sticks) at 1.33am. If I had watched to the end, I know it would have been 2.45am.

 

[Tilehurst Seagull]

I drive down from Reading for every home game, usually dropping into see my 89 year old mother in Dragons Green. Therefore coming from the North/North West it has always made sense to use Mill Road. Since the demise of the bendy buses there appears to have been a material deterioration of the efficiency of the venue with increasingly long and slow queues to and particularly from the Amex. Due to the lack of traffic control at the top of the hill/roundabout it can also take up to 20 to 30 mins just to get out. As an experiment we used the Racecourse on Thursday. We stayed to the end in the Upper West and then went down to the Lower West for 20 minutes or so to catch up with some pals and to wait for the rain and queues to die down. Well, that didn’t work as we still had to queue in the biblical downpour and ‘river’ for 1/2 an hour…despite the extra driving across Brighton to get to the racecourse overall it was just about a better experience. As Mill Road fills up quickly it
also means I don’t have to get down so early to get a space before it fills up. We used to use Mithras House which was much better but now that is no longer an option the club really needs to find another venue to take some pressure off the other two. We got home at 1.20am after dropping our friend off, arriving as wet as several games at Withdean and even the infamous Barnet away…
I’m trying Pycombe on Sunday perhaps this could be an answer if it becomes a regular option.
Either way the club needs to take this seriously as the combination of a completely dysfunctional rail system and increasingly problematic P&Rs will affect attendances. This is particularly true with the increase of midweek and later kick off times…

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I am Schalke fan and enjoyed an unexpectedly chilled morning in the City, but I also travel away with them and policing can be firm. Sadly it needs to be.

If you ever spot me at the Amex in my Schalke woolly hat and Schalke scarf, do say hello. No one seems to notice the S04 insignia.

 

[AstroSloth]

That illustrates the benefit of leaving early.

I didn't get back to Worthing until after 11:30.

Yep I had to get back to Chichester.

Left on the whistle and had to stand in the rain for 45 minutes before getting on a train.

Got the 11:09 to Hove, then a train onwards towards Bognor Regis with the instructions that there would be a rail replacement bus at Barnham.

At around Worthing the conductor announced no onwards travel from Barnham at all.

Got lucky that somebody else was ordering a taxi to Chichester and jumped in with them, got home at 1am.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I think I’d prefer not to even go than risk missing a turnaround at the end.

The game was on TV, not criticising anyone for leaving early as I couldn’t care less people can leave when they want, just always found the mindset of planning to leave early a strange one, especially when quite often the most dramatic period of a football game is the final 10 minutes.

It’s like paying £50 for a theatre ticket then leaving before the dramatic twist, might as well have just kept the £50 and watched it on TV, at least that’s what I’d prefer to do anyway, imagine we’d turned that around and won 4-3…..

People have different circumstances. We went to two home games after recovering from my stroke and planned to leave early as it’s not pleasant being vulnerable and jostled by selfish people when leaving the Amex. Doesn’t generally happen at away grounds because people aren’t in such a rush. Having said that I was almost knocked over by two teenagers at the top of the stairs leaving the away end at Old Trafford last week. Shows there are dickheads everywhere. We are coming down for the Marseille game and I am in two minds about leaving time. Having not been to a home game in two years I would like to savour it but I’m not sure staying to the end would be pleasant.