how was your travel tonight?

[bobby smith]

Why me? But, since you ask, can I ask a question back? Which bus company was running the Mill Road buses?

If I got my pre-match bus spotting right, it wasn't B&H buses. Presumably this was because they have a city bus network to run and were short of vehicles or drivers.

My advice is NEVER to use the Mill Road service. Drive to Mithras House / Cockcroft car park - where there seems to be plenty of parking space and enough (Metrobus) double deckers to satisfy everyone. And it's a much shorter journey to and from the stadium. Better still, pre-match, park at Mithras House / Cockcroft and catch the 25 to the stadium, rather than the P&R bus. It will drop you at the Sussex University entrance and avoid the need to sit on the bus while it crawls over the Falmer flyover to get into the stadium coach park. You just nip through the subway and you can be in your seat 15 minutes earlier. Or have time for a nice pie and a pint.

Leave Mill Road for people who don't know that there is a better alternative.

I asked you Lord because you seem to be the "expert" on here about the travel arrangements
There seemed to be a "Hotspotch" of different bus operators working the Mill Road P&A, it was absolute chaos :-(
I will take your advise and try Mithras next Home game :-(

 

[Lucasdo]

Bike from Peacehaven to Amex and back..40 odd minutes each way

easy

After the train wait last night I am thinking cycling might be the best option from Peacehaven as took over 1hr 45 to get home. Which route did you take to cycle back to peacehaven?

 

[Munchkin]

Pretty straightforward journey to the ground, apart from a few hundred of us waiting for the train to arrive at Brighton platform 8, only to be told the Falmer service was now leaving from platform 6, cue a mad stampede.

Left at the final whistle, an hour to eventually get on the platform, pulled into Brighton to join the connecting train to Worthing, train is packed and they hold supporters back, yet decide to hold the train back from leaving (we waited 25 minutes for the train to leave), then have to get a connecting service from Worthing to get to Angmering, eventually arrive home at 0020. Not impressed on a Tuesday evening.

A few points for me.

-15 Minutes between trains leaving Falmer, why an earth can't they have them on a more regular basis on matchdays ?
- 4 carriage trains is a joke, why an earth can't they add more carriages
- There is going to be huge problems if something isn't done about fan segregation when in ques for Falmer station, a small group of Gills fans last night were looking for trouble, I hate to think what it will be like when the likes of Leeds, Cardiff and Millwall are in town. Even if they hold away supporters back for an hour, there will still be huge ques.
- Over hearing a lot of people last night saying they won't bother with midweek games because of the travel chaos, which is a real shame.

 

[The Oldman]

Another Mithras House user. Home in Seaford by 10.30. However the queues in the bus area after the match need sorting. They were verging on dangerous last night with the different q's all mixed up and people pushing in. Even a motorbike at one point drives straight into a q! Stewards were not in control and were giving contrary instructions. They were panicking.
Agree about signage at the staduim too. Totally inadequate especially for away fans.

 

[Rookie]

Getting to the AMEX from Mill Rd was chaos because of the long queues on the A27 for the slip rd, which is something the club must be concerned about for a mid week game.

Getting back was the usual q for the bus back but if anything was better than Sat just because there seemed to be more buses/coaches waiting at the ground. Still disorganised though and no gaps between the various sites. When the away end is full and its a rival club can see it getting nasty, away fans straight out of their end to join the queue for buses let alone arguments between us lot about queue jumping.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

God help us if we lose a game on a cold, wet night in Winter. Will be carnage.

Hope the club will see this thread (via Insider?) and take it as contructive feedback. It really is evident that things aren't working. Patience will wear thin when the bad weather comes if this isn't sorted out. Great feedback - keep it coming and keep it constructive!

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

I was surprised to see that too, like you say, it's all very well having the Car Park there, but you they seem to let all the buses go first. They need to add a second exit lane to make that work, but I'm guessing they wont make major changes until we are allowed to use that space full time

Holding the cars in the Bennetts Field C/P is deliberate and designed to enable the buses/coaches etc to get away first. This is to minimise the post-match congestion in Village Way etc; it was all indicated in the planning application.
Bennetts Field C/P is not a permanent feature either, the club has approval for three years only, after which the area has to be returned to its original state.

 

[Scoffers]

Very organised on way to the stadium (we arrived minutes after six) but back was diabolical. We got put in 3 different queues and only got on a coach 75 mins after exiting the ground. Disgrace. Hope it sorts out, apparently issue was all the double deckers sat empty wouldn't fit under a bridge so couldn't be used for us, but could for mithras and race course.

Understand are teething problems, first night game and all that, but wouldn't stand for that in January rains!

Use the Race Course or Mithras House - they are both currently underused and will help to de-stress

 

[Gazwag]

God help us if we lose a game on a cold, wet night in Winter. Will be carnage.

Hope the club will see this thread (via Insider?) and take it as contructive feedback. It really is evident that things aren't working. Patience will wear thin when the bad weather comes if this isn't sorted out. Great feedback - keep it coming and keep it constructive!

Not as much carnage as if we get drawn a biggish team in the next round and it goes to extra time and penalties

Although, certainly to Lewes it does seem at least one extra train is put on, tonight for example the Lewes only train at 22:01 isn't running and I noticed when I got off it was heading back to Brighton again

 

[Scoffers]

Holding the cars in the Bennetts Field C/P is deliberate and designed to enable the buses/coaches etc to get away first. This is to minimise the post-match congestion in Village Way etc; it was all indicated in the planning application.
Bennetts Field C/P is not a permanent feature either, the club has approval for three years only, after which the area has to be returned to its original state.

Yes, that is what I was trying to say in my post. The point is that people are paying a premium to park there so my point is they ought to be able to find a better solution than they are currently deploying. We know we only had limited time - although who knows if that will be made permanent - so they are not likely to put in a second road, but it seems to me the routing for the whole area needs to be re-thought out

 

[xenophon]

Dangerously overcrowded train from Hove to Falmer, dangerously overcrowded bus on the way home. It needs sorting as there's a bad accident waiting to happen in there.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

As everyone else, got on a Lewes bound train 1 hour and 15 minutes after the final whistle, most of that in a queue. Wouldn't like to do that on a cold January night. I was next to a couple of nice Gills fans for 20 un-moving minutes in the middle. Would not like to be next to a couple of angry Palace fans for the same length of time. Obviously pissed off by the 3-carriage trains, obv. pissed off by carriages leaving half-empty.

Main question is this - that game could have gone to extra time and penalties, and at some point wthat will happen. How late do these trains run, considering it was virtually 11 by the time I got on a train last night?

 

[steve-c]

the queue for the mill road p + r was very long as already mentioned, when we got to the coach, i heard the steward on his radio telling someone that they will need to put on 10 buses for the next match, so they are monitering the situation and will adapt, but next time i'm at the racecourse as double decker buses were leaving the Amex half empty, lesson learned, me and the grandaughter got back to car about 10:50, back home 12:50 so not too bad.

 

[Daffy Duck]

Wouldn't normally leave before the final whistle, but seriously thinking about it for mid-week games.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

To sum up then, we could have a situation where we have twice as many fans leaving the ground (30,000 v 16,000), with 3000 fans from Millwall or the like, an hour or so later in the evening in freezing-cold wet conditions. Can't wait.

 

[Surrey Seagull]

I had to make a total of 8 train journeys to get to the Amex and back from my place yesterday (5 there, 3 back). Getting to the Amex was no problem at all...apart from having to change at Scumhurst. We caught the Falmer special out of Brighton and that was as smooth as silk. But coming back was an entirely different experience. No special trains were laid on for the fans, which is a huge oversight by the train operators imho. The 1st train out towards Brighton was half empty out of Falmer, the 1st few cars were packed and the last few had plenty of room to spare. Luckilly we managed to board the 2nd train so we could catch the fast train back to London and catch the last available train out of Clapham Junction.
As others have said before, I can see problems arising if the train operators continue this policy when we play larger teams than Gillingham.

 

[Scoffers]

I have sent an email to feedback[MENTION=5978]bhafc[/MENTION].co.uk - I hope they listen and don't just ignore my email !

 

[trueblue]

Return - stayed until the bars shut about 10.20 (by the way, i spoke to a steward and asked him why the bars where all shutting and he said the police had told the club to 'shut the place down asap' i think they were perhaps a bit jumpy because of the riots, but it was a bit daft as loads of people were still milling about enjoying the bars)

I suspect that's rubbish - down to Azure I reckon. They shut the bar in the 1901 club at 10pm. When it was pointed out that the club said the lounge would be open until 11 (which I think everyone assumed meant the facilities would all be available until close to that time), the top man from Azure said "the club has got it wrong".

 

[Willow]

I left early, at 21:30, and walked straight on to the 21:36 and away back to Brighton. Four minutes at the station, then departed for London on the 21:49. Not ideal to miss the end of the game, but hapy to sacrifice that for an easy getaway.

 

[BensGrandad]

The train to the ground was fine no problem whatsoever as I left Goring at 6.00pm had a seat. Jumped on 6.33 to Lewes first stop, had a seat, 6.45 from Lewes to Falmer had a seat no problem. After seeing the crowds at Brighton waiting for Falmer train this proved to be much better still in the ground before 7.00pm so no complaints.

Left immediately after the match finished and as the stewards said keep left for Brighton did so and finished up at the front of the queue for Brighton train but still didn't get on one until 10.15. Couldn't get on the 10.33 to Goring so had to get the 10.44 change at Hove arrived back in Goring 11.20. Not over impressed with the train home so will look P & R possibly Mithras House. The problem appears to be the lack of information and direction at the station one saying one thing and another person saying something different.

Cannot see the council wanting to grant extra seats until the club and railway and bus company can get their act together. To a simpleton like me the answer is to have all available buses waiting outside the ground on the A27 and do a straight non stop Brighton Station.