[Albion] If we'd have lost at Hereford...

[Peacehaven Wild Kids]

Thing is, we’ll never know.

A bit like, what if Smith DID score?

 

[Brovion]

Luton Town took 5 seasons.They'd been in the top flight not long before.

Luton are an interesting case. We don't think of them as a 'big' club but from 1937 until 2001 they'd only spent five seasons outside the top two divisions. They reached the FA Cup final and won the League Cup (and were runners-up) so they're not exactly Accrington Stanley or Newport County.

Being a relatively 'big' club, certainly historically results-wise bigger than us, their rise isn't so remarkable as to an extent they're simply returning to their historical 'rightful place' (unlike us with our many many seasons in the third tier). And of course they never lost their ground.

If Man City's slump had continued in 1998 and they'd ended up in the Conference I'm sure they'd have bounced back as well. Little old Brighton, almost permanent 3rd tier residents, going from non-league to European football ...... no chance.

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

I went to see Bury play on Saturday, as you will know have been in a similar predicament to us. Now playing in step 9 after reforming- same level as Newhaven. Think we would have followed a similar route albeit at a different ground . I was talking to a Bury fan who must have been in his 80s. Said to me he is very unlikely to see Bury back in the league in his lifetime . A sobering thought

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The Conference made it absolutely clear throughout the 96/97 season that under no circumstances whatsoever would BHAFC be allowed to play in it during the 97/98 season without a "home ground".

And maybe they would have stuck to that. It would have been a huge shout though. We'd have been a one team fiscal stimulus for most of the other sides in the league.

We'll never know anyway

 

[Whitley Bayster]

We wouldn't have been admitted as we had no ground, there is no reckoning.
As it was, we had to survive a vote by the league clubs to stay in the league. We survived by 47-17.

Football: Saved Brighton to share New Den

A vote of club chairmen yesterday saved Brighton from being expelled from the Football League - and the club then celebrated by confirming plans to ground share with Millwall.

www.independent.co.uk

Who were the 17 absolute snakes? I hope they are all in the conference or lower now

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

Who were the 17 absolute snakes? I hope they are all in the conference or lower now

Oldham was definitely one

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Luckily Doncaster were even worse. IIRC the worst bottom division points tally in football league history, to this day. Their owner literally hired park football players for £50 a week.

When we played them up there that season they had a fat bloke in goal… it turned out he was the ‘keeper from the owners local pub team.

I remember going to a town center hotel bar after the game on the way back to the station….a number of their players were already in there, in club track suits, drinking. This must have been around 30 mins after the final whistle. From pitch to pub in 30 mins is quite impressive.

 

[Whitley Bayster]

Oldham was definitely one

Well thats one with a dose of karma!

 

[Eeyore]

Who were the 17 absolute snakes? I hope they are all in the conference or lower now

Why didn't we go to Millwall ? It would have been a better option.

 

[Peacehaven Wild Kids]

Oldham was definitely one

The other 16 were Palace

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Oldham was definitely one

Leyton Orient was another

 

[Weststander]

It’d have been incredibly hard to get a foot back in Brighton or Hove.

The club had opponents with power off the pitch who couldn’t stand football and were snobbish about football supporters. For example unelected CEO’s of BHCC, plus councillors. Some were duplicitous.

League status meant so much, helping the case to get Withdean, the case for Falmer.

TB wasn’t yet seriously wealthy in his own right, his real interest with money was years away.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

HKFC does.

I didn't suggest you were lying. I understand that was the Conference's stance at the time. That doesn't mean it couldn't have been worked out, I'm sure it could have been had we been relegated.

A bit like the "It is absolutely impossible for the Albion to ever have a stadium anywhere other than Falmer ever ever ever" stance.

We wouldn't have had a home ground of our own, would we have found it easy to find somewhere to a) play, and b) be able to generate enough income to break even, (we were in a predicament that let the clubs we approached to ground share dictate how much they charged us, and could exploit that need with high rental costs).

We would have likely been losing money, with little or no assets to secure loans against, how do you build a squad to try to gain promotion back into the football league whilst fighting for a new home ground back in Brighton?

How many other clubs relegated from the football league had just lost their ground and managed to rebound back to the league, or did they all still have it whereas our situation would have been fairly unique?

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Took Doncaster 5 seasons to get back up, and then they won the League 2 title the first year back. They were in a worse state than we were when they went down.

Were they newly homeless too? with no clue where they would be playing their matches the following season?

 

[Guy Fawkes]

And maybe they would have stuck to that. It would have been a huge shout though. We'd have been a one team fiscal stimulus for most of the other sides in the league.

We'll never know anyway

Would we?
We (the fans) had a reputation for protest and disruption (pitch invasions, protest marches, game called off (York) after a pitch invasion and the crossbar was snapped (which happened to be described iirc as a riot, with running battles between fans and riot police) and so on.... so would they really have view us as a good addition to their league, as someone other clubs in that league would have been keen to play against as they thought it would bring fans flocking to matches for the chance to watch us? or as a risk that their ground could be damaged, their games disrupted or called off adding to their costs?

We were, at that stage, nothing like the club or the team that had been in the FA cup final in 83 or in the top flight for a few seasons prior to it.
We were a smaller club that had had a few seasons in the top flight before dropping back down the leagues to around the level where we had spent most of our history playing at. Would clubs like Swindon? Barnsley? or Bradford City (which had spent time playing top flight / premier league football) be seen as a big draw if they suddenly fell into non-league football, many seasons after they last played at that top level?

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Where do you think the Albion would be now?

I think this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think we would be in pretty much the same position we are currently in.

After we were relegated we were playing in front of 1-2000 people at Priestfield- would that have really been any lower had we been in the Conference? Would the running costs have been any higher, and was there a big difference in revenue from being in the 4th Division to the Conference? Our squad was Conference level and we were paying Conference wages, so would it have changed that much?

Then the return to Brighton would have galvanised a lot of excitement and interest, and I think we would have still been getting those crowds at Withdean, and I think we would still have been able to attract the likes of Micky Adams. By the time we were back at Withdean we had one of the biggest budgets in the division, if I remember correctly. Getting out of the Conference with a budget like that would have been relatively straightforward. Assuming promotion from the Conference in the first season at Withdean, we'd have gone into the 2nd season there in the 4th tier. The team that got up from the Conference regularly went straight up from the 4th tier in those days, which takes us to the 3rd season at Withdean in the 3rd tier, and bang on track with what actually happened.

There would still have been Dick Knight, and still have been Tony Bloom, and I think we would still be somewhere around where we are today.

The alternative scenario has us going bust in the Conference. But I'm not sure why we would have, and if we had the fans would 100% have created a Phoenix team, presumably with Knight and eventually Bloom on board. It took Wimbledon 9 years to get back in the League, and I assume we would have done it in similar. Even that scenario only has us back in tier 4 in 2006, rather than tier 3 where we actually were. Even if we had gone bust, I still think we'd currently be in Hughton relegation battle years.

Thoughts?

In response to the original question posed, i'd have expected us to have been wound up and gone out of business.

There may well have been a phoenix club, but we would have faced a lot of problems even with that (finding a place to play, finding a squad / manager, would fans of the original club start to follow the new club or give up on football / find a different league team to follow instead. (eg. would Tony Bloom (and his family) still have held the same sort of interest and desire to be involved in running it as they have with the Albion? and to the extent that Tony would be prepared to invest the same vast sums in to deliver what we have now?), and so on....

And there is no guarantee that a phoenix club would have survived, let alone succeed to the same level we have actually managed (after all it did take a few failed attempts to create a club in the area before BHA finally succeeded)

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Reading through this thread, all I can say is 'thank you' to Stevie Gritt, Robbie R and the rest of that team....

 

[Giraffe]

One season in the Conference would have hardened our resolve. With the experience done we would have been better for it and shot up the league. Almost certain we would have done the Premier league and Champions League double for the last 5 seasons. Damn you Robbie Reinelt.

 

[philgull25]

Love the question and many others like it. As has been said, we will never know, but there’s now harm in speculating!

The way I see it is there are quite a few ‘what ifs’ after that moment too from throughout the Dick Knight years-

What if it had taken longer to get approval to play at Withdean?
What if we’d not signed Bobby Zamora?
What if the original approval for Falmer hadn’t been overturned because of the error in the report?
What if Russel Slade hadn’t inspired that great escape from relegation?

The consistent thing throughout the original question and those I have added above is Dick Knight, without whom our club’s history would be very different.

He is the ultimate Albion legend. Amen.

 

[Berty23]

Hereford in 1997 were a bit smaller than us as a club and obviously not got as much history. They dropped out of the league and have never been back. They now play in the same league as a team I have loads of mates playing for. There is no guarantee we would have bounced back and I suspect we would have ended up going bust completely like they did.

We will never know though.