Two up two down next season as well……
At the risk of taking the thread off-track, I was thinking about attendances the other day and wondered why is was deemed so important to announce it? Do they do it in other sports? Cricket? Basketball? THE DARTS?Just shy of 3000. We appear to be one of the only clubs to routinely declare attendance. We get pretty good crowds - but our fanbase has ‘previous’ in having to travel to home games
Plus time for the women to clean up after the men.
www.brightonandhovealbion.com
Maybe not for the men but important womans game attendances are shown. It is good to see if with all the publicity and finance given to it if this is reflected in increased attendances.
Don't know about the UK, but in Australia the attendance figures for cricket are always announced. Usually via the big screen within the stadium later on in the match. It's been a long time since I saw any matches, but I believe other major sports in Australia also announce attendance figures routinely.
Think the group games will be quite challenging as well.
Denmark (13) might be an even game, but I'd still expect England to beat China (14) and thrash Haiti (53) and top the group.
Not one, but TWO keepers…Last season was very disappointing especially as the season before we'd finished in the top half of the table. A lot of players had left, and we didn't replace enough and had to use development squad players a fair bit to bulk out the squad. Couple that with changes behind the scenes with the womens team organisation, and the disruption of three permanent head coaches (with two spells as interim head coach by Amy Merricks) you can understand how the season was a bit of a disaster and we were lucky that we weren't relegated.
The new head coach (Phillips) who joined at the end of last season is well thought of, but we will have to see how the results go with the reinvigorated squad. Having let a few players go (inc at least a couple I thought we should keep), we have recruited better this summer bringing in 9 players including several who played in the recent Womens World Cup. The transfer window ends tomorrow and I would expect at least one more player in - hopefully a goalkeeper as that is the one position at the moment that we could do with someone who could come in as our number 1. I've also been a bit surprised that Robinson hasn't left - I've got my fingers and everything else crossed that she is still a Brighton player on Friday!
Looking ahead to the new season, if the team gels then we have a chance of doing better than last season and I'd be happy if we were even just sitting around mid table and another cup run would be a bonus. Arsenal and Chelsea are still the teams to beat, with Aston Villa also having recruited well last season and over the summer. Both Man City and Man Utd could well challenge them, but City haven't done much in the transfer window (yet) and were a bit shaky at times last year, and Man Utd seem to have some problems behind the scenes. Just getting draws against those teams will be an achievement, and I can't see us challenging for the title this year but you never know in sport!
Frustratingly the first home game of the season is the same afternoon at the Mens game against Liverpool with the womens kicking off at 12pm at Crawley, and the mens at 2pm at the Amex. Think that will really affect the crowd for the Womens game which is such a shame. I'm trying to work out if I can still get to both...
