Losing the love for the Albion

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Losing the love is all part of the ups and downs of being an Albion fan, or a fan of any club for that matter.

Why did we sit in rain at Withdean and pay for the pleasure? We'll it was miserable, but then along came back to back championships. It was bloody awful and you said to yourself that next year you might not buy a season ticket, but then Zamora started belting them in for fun.

It was crap at Withdean, sat watching a play off semi final against Swindon the minutes ticking down, what was the .... VIRGO!!!!

The glory of Cardiff and Leon *****'s winning penalty, fanatastic, but then back to Withdean and a season getting hammered week in week out; what was the point, bloody awful.

Then along comes some bloke called Gus and things start to look rosy at Withdean and maybe, just maybe, we'll see him take us to the promised land.

The Amex arrives and Brighton are on fire ....

The next season and it gets even better ....

Then poo, play offs, Fulham, Oatway, suspensions, we lose Bridge, probably Upson ....

and then the fixtures come out and the dream starts all over again .... we all fall out of love but we don't decide to cheat on our true love

 

[banjo]

I watch us play our home games at Gillingham and didn't lose the love so I sure ant gonna lose it now.

 

[Mackenzie]

Agree with OP - but rather than "losing the love for the Albion" it should read losing the love for football in general.

Money is absolutely destroying the game and it seems rather than the FFP fixing it - it's going to mean football clubs are going to squeeze even MORE money from the fans, turning this experience into even MORE of a plastic ,commercial one - losing touch of what's really important & enjoyable about football even more

People hate hearing this, but we should really aspire to be like Germany - Cheap tickets, terracing in modern stadia, great atmospheres, great football, plenty of home grown players -etc

+ Cheap beer. The Germans have got it just about right, a very well organised nation.

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Drop the ST, go to 4-5 home games and 10-15 away instead. Much better atmosphere and day out.

 

[Diego Napier]

Agree with OP - but rather than "losing the love for the Albion" it should read losing the love for football in general.

Money is absolutely destroying the game and it seems rather than the FFP fixing it - it's going to mean football clubs are going to squeeze even MORE money from the fans, turning this experience into even MORE of a plastic ,commercial one - losing touch of what's really important & enjoyable about football even more

People hate hearing this, but we should really aspire to be like Germany - Cheap tickets, terracing in modern stadia, great atmospheres, great football, plenty of home grown players -etc

Do you see any link between this and the upsurge in violence that now accompanies many Bundesliga fixtures?

 

[Vegas Seagull]

Dull, Self obsessed, pompous claptrap

 

[RowleyBirkinQ.C(deceased)]

Honest post and fair play. But i honestly can't fathom how you'd fall out of love with the Albion. Just look at our stadium, take the tour like I did last weekend and see behind the scenes. I was honestly agog and had to pinch myself that this is my club. Sod Gus, these are amazing times at OUR club

 

[Bold Seagull]

Football has changed. But you can still get some of the old-school thrills in non-league. Lewes, Eastbourne Borough, Hastings and probably many of the others are pleasant places to be at 3pm ona Saturday, in my experience.

Lewes has one of the best behind the goal terraces in non-league football. Steep, loads of room, right next to the club house bar. I must admit I always enjoy going to the Dripping Pan. Well worth a visit if people haven't before.

 

[wardy wonder land]

Dull, Self obsessed, pompous claptrap

This


give yourself til Xmas with nothing to do with the albion, take the stickers out of your car, put all hats tops scarfs in the loft, turn the telly over on the results time

then see how you feel...........................

 

[Timbo]

Agree with every word the OP said but as someone else pointed out, it's more a case of falling out of love with football rather than the Albion.

Manchester City have just spent about £30m on a player I've never heard of. Seriously, what's the point of trying to go up? Money? It's not like any of us will see any of it.

The year we finished 2nd bottom to Doncaster I went to every game, home and away, and loved very one of them. Nowadays it's all a bit sterile.

 

[spoonie]

+ Cheap beer. The Germans have got it just about right, a very well organised nation.

beer was never that cheap at the German games i have attended

 

[hybrid_x]

a few things killing football at the moment.

1) all seater stadiums.
2) one can't just turn up with some mates and have a laugh - lots of ticket preperation required.
3) the business aspect takes cubs further away from the fans.

i dont really want to watch football with tons of leg room in an armchair, next to people who are there for a family day out and a flask of tea.

but, we keep getting told this is all necessary.

 

[tinycowboy]

Unfortunately, it's in just about everyone's nature to be either (a) nostalgic about a past which may or may not have been as fun as we remember, (b) not to like change, and/or (c) to want something different when we get used to what we have. If you feel like stopping coming to the matches and supporting the Albion, it's not a problem - as others have said, you might find that spark again with a lower league local club. Alternatively, I feel sure that some get a perverse pleasure from hating the new reality. Football is an intense form of entertainment that can take over our lives - if you want to let it go, it'd probably be a good idea to find something else to plug the gap that would be left.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Went to Chester away back in the "glory days", new ground, opposition rock bottom of the league, what could go wrong ?

1 No Signposts for a stadium open 3 months, on the edge of a busy shopping town meant we missed kick off, despite arriving in the vicinity with ample time to spare.
2 Turnstiles were shut and we needed police assistance to get in the ground.
3 What meaningful action there was in the game occurred in the 15 minutes we were still faffing around outside.
4 We were losing and indeed lost 2-0.
5 The ground was a tiny concrete characterless crap hole.

Last season, Cardiff, Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds, Nottingham Forest - amazing away trips to major sporting cities with great stadiums and each time I came away thinking, that was great, but our place is better.

 

[Knotty]

My personal feelings are opposite to the OP's but you have to respect his point of view.

I find it sad if he and others feel that way, as my love of the Albion wouldn't change whether we were in the Champions League final or relegated to the Sussex County League.

But that doesn't make me right and him wrong or vice versa ...just different.

 

[marshy68]

So there I was, 16 years old and the fixtures have just been released, games such as Darlington away, Wycombe away, Brentford away and the real biggun away to Orient will be my future for the next 9 months, dreams of Pompey or Palace in the cup were also possible, what more could you want....it was going to be a hell of a season and I'd go anywhere to watch us. High points of fun away travel knowing we were going to watch div 3 comedy football with tea bars and £2 burgers, terracing and affordable entrances, we were the 'BIG' fish in the smallest of ponds, outsinging and out partying our opponants and on very rare occasions out playing them, these were the days where football was fun, grounds were old, tatty and the experience was hardly smooth and slick, Brighton were shit and I loved every minute of it but as with anything in life, I dreamed like so many others for more, I dreamed of once having a ground as beautiful as what was then the 'Alfred Mcalpine stadium', I cant say I ever thought it would happen............

13 years and the dream has been realized and if I'm honest, I loved it for about 6 months but now the club that I loved, the club that I would have walked 70 miles to watch instead of jumping on a double decker bus to go to, the club which I wanted so so so badly to succeed is just that to me now, a club, a business, a modern day money making machine that gets large numbers through the door, but somewhere within that change over, somewhere in all the quick success and 20,000+ new or returning fans that have emerged, something has dramatically changed and the 'Amex effect' isn't what I dreamed, isn't what I for-saw for my special club and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be part of it. Lets be realistic, it needed to change...I'm fully aware of that, I'm certainly not one of those who wanted us to always be the big fish in the lower leagues but it appears to me, the higher up you go, the more plastic it becomes, the more expensive it becomes and the more theatre like it becomes and that isn't the game or experience that I grew up loving, I had my fix of what the higher level was like from other fans on the trains coming back from the games and also on MOTD if I could get back from Darlington in time!

The most hilarious thing is, we lord it over teams like Palace with their run down ground with wooden seats, a drum and a tacky old school feel about it, but theres something 50x more real about that experience than the same dreary songs being belted out by the amex faithfull as they run up the exit stairs on 80 minutes and head for their train after adding nothing to the day and escaping without being noticed. I know we're very lucky, we have a wonderful chairman who has invested heavily into a wonderful arena to watch football and I may sound it but im most certainly not ungrateful in the slightest, it's just not working out for me personally and I was as avid as they come. Maybe its an age thing or maybe it's modern day football at the higher level in all seater staduims but as I've said, this isn't the great club & game it once was.

I met a pompey fan the other day, I said to him "Bet your gutted about another relegation" "No he replied, why would I be, I get to visit grounds I've never been to, take thousends away and take over small shit hole towns and basically get back to the game I fell in love with" I walked away thinking, my god he's so right.

It's all well and good moaning about the club/ground/expiereince but what can be done, what would make this more appealing, as I cant be alone in this feeling?

For me, terracing would bring a bit of banter back, bring fans closer together and make it more of a laugh to go to football, somewhere along this journey I've stopped laughing at the albion home games, I don't really look forward to them, that usually still thankfully occurs at away games which haven't lost the full edge and the future for me will proberly be just away games as home games just don't do it for me.

Slate me, ban me or ignore me, it's my view but I'll always follow the albion as they once were everything to me, maybe it's healthy that they just aren't what they used to be.

Having watched Albion since 1976, went to Gillingham and ST holder at Withdean i couldnt disagree with you more. I loved the club though all that and am not going to stop loving it now. Go to Crawley, pompey or Orient

 

[BBassic]

People hate hearing this, but we should really aspire to be like Germany - Cheap tickets, terracing in modern stadia, great atmospheres, great football, plenty of home grown players -etc

You are absolutely right but this will never happen because the FA is spineless and corrupt and run by men who's interest is in keeping the rich clubs rich.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Well said Marshy. Modern football is what it is, and I happen to feel that although the club is (thankfully) morphing into a Premier League-quality outfit the Albion still listen to the fans, take on board their feelings and are "keeping it real". Barber's interview with Walt Jabasco yesterday confirmed all of this.

 

[Brighton Breezy]

I sympathise with much of what the original post says.

But, I think it as much a case of falling out of love with football in general as Brighton & Hove Albion specifically.

For fellow fans to be just saying "Bugger off and support Crawley" and "good riddance" is missing the point. I imagine the original poster was one of the long-term fans who helped rally to save this club we all love. Perhaps deserves a little more respect.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Why? There's already a small league club in Sussex that can cater to his needs, or Brighton City if he requires a more "real" experience.

It feels a bit shit after Palace, Poogate and Poyet but that's just temporary, and real fans can see beyond that.