Goldstone Ground v AMEX

[martyn20]

Does anyone know how many cars use the car parks on a match day?

 

[ewe2]

Sorry ,I have been watching Brighton for over 50 years,and if anyone thinks that the Goldstone ,( and there were plenty of redevelopment schemes over the years ) can come close to the Amex,well i just cannot understand ,the thinking.

 

[mooey]

You can t really think about it the goldstone was a different era standing up terrace s ect i would nt have wanted it to be redeveloped i love the amex but going to football now is not a patch on what it was then i feel sorry for the kids today

 

[BUTTERBALL]

Loved the Goldstone, but very run down in the latter stages of it's life.

 

[Weststander]

Would have always said the Goldstone, until I watched the colossal Amex west stand rising up during the construction. Transport's the worst thing, making any game a minimal 3 and half hour trip out just to travel from a few miles. But love the Amex.

 

[Elvis]

Goldstone Lane encroached the East Stand. The only thing they could have possibly done was move the stadium to the west so that it sat on Newtown Road and part of of the Sackville Road Trading Estate.

This is the Goldstone with Amex overlay, though a rectangle stadium would have had to be designed instead of an oval one;

View attachment 54804

I like to see the residents of Goldstone lane trying to watch the match for free. Would take one hell of a ladder.

 

[cheshunt seagull]

I voted Goldstone out of pure self-interest. My mother's house is in the Old Shoreham Rd, 5 minutes away.

 

[BrianWade4]

I miss standing on a terrace and the Goldstone is where I grew up
But
The AMEX will take our club to a new level
So, the latter

 

[Motogull]

Really good thread and read.

Its a tough choice. The Amex is state of the art and is a wonderful facility. I will always have great affection for all those who made it happen. That said, the ends did not justify the means. If one day I were to be walking through a graveyard and I were to spot the grave of one of the three shithouses that were responsible for all the turmoil while need to use the bog, I'd struggle big time not to do anything offensive.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

rather than turning up at a couple of points at the Amex ,TRAIN STATION , COACH PARK, everyone JUST TURNED UP FROM ALL DIRECTIONS AT THE GOLDSTONE felt more spontaneous and less clinical than what you've got at FALMER, YEAH IT'S A NICE GROUND BUT THAT'S AS FAR AS IT GOES
regards
DR

 

[Weststander]

I can remember Leeds having 22 - 50 seater coaches down here one year and my brother said Man U had 58 one another occasion.

Thing is the Goldstone was 4 acres? the Amex 8 and most modern stadium require 12 acres,so now as was the case pre 1997,Brighton must be congratulated on making the most of such uncompromising site.

As for the cars,on street parking,the co-op and greyhound stadium car parks,Brighton,Hove,Aldrington and fishersgate,southwick railway stations...to name a few.

Walking? easy

Finally geographically,the Goldstone was more or less dead centre of the whole Brighton conurbation.

ManUre - 58 coaches from their Essex heartland. Sounds like an exaggeration for their small away section.

 

[Prince Monolulu]

Yeah because it is as easy to park around the Goldstone now as it was in the 70s!
I have said it before but it is worth reminding people: try finding parking spaces around the Goldstone and compare the number of them to even the 90s and there is nowhere near as many. 30k at that site would cause much much more congestion and queuing compared the 70s!

Yup, now you could pretend you were just popping into Burger King for a quick Whopper and sneakily park up for the match

 

[symyjym]

Yeah because it is as easy to park around the Goldstone now as it was in the 70s!
I have said it before but it is worth reminding people: try finding parking spaces around the Goldstone and compare the number of them to even the 90s and there is nowhere near as many. 30k at that site would cause much much more congestion and queuing compared the 70s!

I think you missed the point about the Goldstone location. It was so central that the massive majority of fans walked there and didn't need to use their cars.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

you could choose where you wanted to go rather than being told where you could go
regards
DR

 

[severnside gull]

The Goldstone was a rank smelling shithole in the 60's. If it had been redeveloped in the 80's or 90's it would need replacing well before now. I loved the atmosphere but that was pre-Hillsboro & Heysel and would never have been sustained.

DR has his rose coloured specs on to match his dress - he's forgetting the fencing and the cages that made starting behind the south goal and moving to the north when we turned round a dim & distant memory.

 

[symyjym]

Of course there would be less cars. But lots of people would still drive these days I fear. Anyway by bus and train the time difference from the centre of town is similar (within 5ish mins) of each other. I just don't think the traffic around the Goldstone today if a game was there would be comparable to how it used to be. There is so much more non-football traffic now.

I am not really saying that I wished a new stadium to have been built at the Goldstone, it is more down to being stuck in the Bridge car park for 50 mins (almost the same length of time to drive to Heathrow) after the game that really frustrates me. On comparing the getting to and from the stadium experience, for me the Goldstone Ground was perfect as I lived near the Grenadier area or the Hove location. If I now lived in Moulsecoomb I would consider the Amex location perfect.

 

[drew]

I think you missed the point about the Goldstone location. It was so central that the massive majority of fans walked there and didn't need to use their cars.

I think you will find that there were an awful lot of people that did drive. Goldstone Crescent, Hove Park Rd and all the side roads were full. Admittedly driving back to Burgess Hill would be easier now with the A27 and A23. Then it was all queuing to get through the single file bridge at the bottom of Mill Hill and then the traffic lights at Patcham instead of the roundabout and then again lights at Pycombe!!! The time spent wasted queuing at lights. At least there was Sports Report.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I think you will find that there were an awful lot of people that did drive. Goldstone Crescent, Hove Park Rd and all the side roads were full. Admittedly driving back to Burgess Hill would be easier now with the A27 and A23. Then it was all queuing to get through the single file bridge at the bottom of Mill Hill and then the traffic lights at Patcham instead of the roundabout and then again lights at Pycombe!!! The time spent wasted queuing at lights. At least there was Sports Report.

I always drove/was driven as a kid and even as an adult, rarely took the train. Most people I knew did too.

 

[symyjym]

I think you will find that there were an awful lot of people that did drive. Goldstone Crescent, Hove Park Rd and all the side roads were full. Admittedly driving back to Burgess Hill would be easier now with the A27 and A23. Then it was all queuing to get through the single file bridge at the bottom of Mill Hill and then the traffic lights at Patcham instead of the roundabout and then again lights at Pycombe!!! The time spent wasted queuing at lights. At least there was Sports Report.

I agree that cars squeezed up onto every spare curb space from Hove Park to Hangleton even then. I was just one of the many others who walked there and it suited me.

Easy to forget the lights at the top of Snakey Hill, Patcham and Pycombe, and what is was like before the bypass, the widening and rerouting the A23.

 

[Brownstuff]

There is no buzz going to out of town stadiums.
All the best grounds are set in in the hive of busy residential areas.
A re-developed Goldstone all day for me although I know the limited capacity would be the major problem.