Question for you oldies...

[Kenhead]

Are you sure? So, the option of Stanford Bridge or the Emirates to see the worlds finest football players is offered to a youngster, and the alternative is Withdean or the Dripping Pan. Are you really suggesting that the youngster would consider Division 3 or the Conference more "PROPER"? Get real Richie, anyone who has not chosen a team to support would rather go to see the Premiership, complete with all its awfulness, than sit in the rain with 5000 others watching Herford or Grays Athletic.

But Richie didn't say about having a choice between one or other just how teenagers could really enjoy the non-league experience.

Myself and my other half took her young brother who's 14 to the Dripping Pan on Saturday, hes a Liverpool fan. I have taken him once to Withdean for a JPT game and he didn't really seem to enjoy it as much as Lewes on Saturday.
I did mention in passing that Brazil and Italy are playing at the Emirates and he said he would love to go to that but i reckon if asked if he wanted to watch Lewes again when i'm not at Albion game then he would want to go...

Suppose it did help that there was abit of an atmosphere which the ref helped with hes poor decisions. Also a terrace aswell.

 

[Al Bion]

My dad took me to my first games in the early 70's but I didn't start going regularly until 76/77 when I was 11. Stood on the East Terrace at first and then moved to the South Stand terrace. I started going to away games too and loved the atmosphere and camaraderie.

Around the time we got promoted to the First Division my dad got a new job that entailed him working on Saturday's so I started going on my own so I stood in the North Stand, I think this is what really hooked me, the atmosphere was great every game (of course it coincided with the team doing well on the pitch too which I suppose must have helped). I also went on the Seagulls Specials to every away game and soon made friends with other regulars, it then became a bit of a habit.

I didn't miss a home game for over 10 seasons and only missed a handful of away games in that time too but the club was now in decline, Archer and Bellotti had their claws in and it became so depressing, the fans were treated so bad, it's hard for fans that weren't around then to understand just how bad things were.

I got the chance to move up north so decided to take it, it was actually quite nice to get away from the never-ending stress that it was to support the Albion then although I still got to a lot of games. Since moving up north, I've met up with other Albion fans and it's fun again to travel to away games and be able to enjoy the day out even though the football isn't so good right now.

My son is part of the lost generation, he's now 12 and was born just a couple of months before we lost the Goldstone so has never known us play at a proper ground. Regretably (for me) he supports his hometown side Crewe Alex but he's come to a few Albion games with me and I think he might be turning into an Albion fan. I was so proud when a few months ago he asked for his first Albion shirt and I took him to Withdean for a match.

Once the love of the Albion is in your blood, you'll never lose it. Brighton till I die!

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

Once the love of the Albion is in your blood, you'll never lose it. Brighton till I die!

amen brother

 

[Nottseagull]

...... watched United win 4-1, but found myself cheering on the Albion. I have no idea how or why this transformation happened, but ever since then it has been the Albion for me.

The only analogy I can give it that it's like wanting a really fit bird all your life, getting your chance to do it and find her beautiful yet unfulfilling, and then realising the girl next door is the one you really love and have far more in common with.

Still living in Manchester 28 years later, with United arguably the biggest and City the richest clubs in the world, I still am more excited about the Piss Pot trophy at Shrewsbury and the replay against the Monkey Hangers than anything the Prem, Champions League and everything that goes with it.

What a wonderful post!
1st quoted para: I think this has something to do with the Goldstone factor; a quirky yet inviting ground, every Albion fan's home from home. I'm sure many of the players felt that way too.
2nd : Perhaps the part of your post I can most relate to!
3rd : I think those fans who have only enjoyed top flight football simply don't realise what they are missing. They can never enjoy a real giant-killing.

Also, did you live anywhere near the Chelmsford Pass-By?

 

[Nottseagull]

My Dad first took me along in 1958, when the Albion were pushing for promotion... from Div 3 South. Exhilarating stuff for a ten year old, although I didn't have a beer-crate to stand on, so the view was sometimes restricted. I saw some amazing things as a child: that 6-0 Watford promotion game, when Adrian Thorne banged in five... the ground so packed that small kids were passed over the heads of the crowd to sit in front of the advertising boards. And what would Elf'n'Safety make of that, let alone Child Protection? (Back then of course, paedophilia hadn't been invented, so that kind of thing was all perfectly innocuous). And there was the ever-present smell of pipe smoke, wafting across from the nobs in the West Stand, where the young Dick Knight used to sit. I was far too common to be allowed in there, although one day a kindly neighbour took me along to sit with him among the Gods. It felt like being smuggled in to Buckingham Palace, but I knew my proper place was the North Stand, alongside my Dad.

Looking back, there's still a sense of wonderment, enormous pride and gratitude. To think I took my place among the biggest ever Goldstone crowds (over 36,000 for Fulham, 25,000 average in 1976/77), saw the greatest players we ever had (Wardy in his absolute, dazzling prime, Mark Lawrenson, regally commanding, surging through the midfield). To think I witnessed the two very greatest games in the club's history: Newcastle 1979, Wembley 1983. That well of amazing memories, and the inevitable link with my Dad, cements the unbreakable bond that I shall always feel to our home town club.

Then you look at the ridiculous bitching and whingeing that goes on here; you stare in disbelief at the spite, the bile and the vitriol expended by NSC 'supporters' over what, in the grand scheme of things is totally trivial, transient fluff. Older fans at least have the chance to reach then for the sense of proportion that comes from experiencing decades of the occasional ups and the far more frequent downs of watching the Albion.

Maybe it's unfair to be so dismissive of today's ever-increasing crop of impossibly demanding, short-memoried moaners - and certainly of the younger ones. There's no doubt that older fans are astonishingly privileged to have seen the very best of times. But when all you've got for Albion memories is the experience of being regularly drenched at a horrible, soulless, freezing Withdean, of paying eye-watering prices to watch players who are paid far too much and who give far too little, it's easy to see how the perspective of younger fans can become so grotesquely distorted.

It's easy for people like me to plead for patience and tolerance; all we can realistically hope for is that results and performances won't be so unacceptably dire as to be terminally damaging, and that we can quickly build a rejuvenated and rapidly expanded fanbase at Falmer.

Absolutely excellent - there are some top-notch posts on this thread.

 

[footychick]

I didn't support Brighton until I was 16, I got into football in the 1990 World Cup and started supporting Brighton because my brother did, I went to games with him.

 

[Superphil]

But Richie didn't say about having a choice between one or other just how teenagers could really enjoy the non-league experience.

Myself and my other half took her young brother who's 14 to the Dripping Pan on Saturday, hes a Liverpool fan. I have taken him once to Withdean for a JPT game and he didn't really seem to enjoy it as much as Lewes on Saturday.
I did mention in passing that Brazil and Italy are playing at the Emirates and he said he would love to go to that but i reckon if asked if he wanted to watch Lewes again when i'm not at Albion game then he would want to go...

Suppose it did help that there was abit of an atmosphere which the ref helped with hes poor decisions. Also a terrace aswell.

I know what you are getting at, but Richie wrote;

"I actually think for youngsters (well, teenagers really) after a PROPER football experience you have to go a long way to beat the lower leagues / non league."

I disputed that sentiment, for a youngster I would imagine the option of "Proper" football at Chelsea or Arsenal (with some of the greatest players in the World) over Lewes or Crawley (with Sam Rents and Danny Cullip), the Premiership would win every time. The conjecture that a "Proper" football experience is a couple of hundred people huddled on a spartan terrace occasionally clapping a sliding tackle is hardly likely to get a teenagers pulse racing, however, Drogba, Deco, Fabregas and Adeybayor in a stadium full to the rafters would be more of an attraction and is more likely to beat the experience of non league.

But hey ho, there are kids who go to watch non league, perhaps out of choice, more likely cos Dad took them, or that they occasionally get to go and watch a Premier match, but for the rest of the season they are content to watch their local side.

So long as they don't start watching rugby, or heaven forbid cricket, over the beautiful game, that's alright by me.

 

[Knotty]

At six years old, I watched the 1957 Cup Final with my Dad on our newly-acquired telly. I only vaguely knew what football was all about then.

Man U were playing Villa and my Dad didn't care who won until United's keeper went off with a facial injury. With no subs in those days, United became the underdogs and Dad then wanted them to win. I did the same and supported United ever since.

HOWEVER, the match really got me into football and a little while later I learnt all about the leagues and the fact that there was a Sussex team. (I lived in Chichester so Portsmouth were the nearest but, for some reason, I felt that my local team were Brighton).

So, from 1958 onwards the Albion were my team and, although I carried on supporting United, on the few occasions when the two have met, United might have been Timbuktu United for all I cared - the Albion are in my blood.

I didn't go to the Goldstone until 1968 but was a regular from then and, in the 70s, I was lucky to be living and working in Leicester so most away games were closer than home ones. Hardly missed a game home or away in those days.

Have lived in Canterbury since he late 70s and been a STH since then. Was again lucky (?) when we had to play at Gillingham as the Priestfield is only 25 minutes away. I was still delighted when we got back to Brighton, though!

50 years of supporting the Albion and despite many more bad times than good, I wouldn't have missed any of it. The Albion has been a great passion in my life and that, fortunately has been understood by girlfriends/wife/partner and, more importantly, mates who support other teams.

Most of the lads in my local support Prem teams but none of them has ever given me any stick about supporting the Albion. They respect what it means to me and my commitment to the club. Many of them have been to games with me and added their support. Almost every time I go in the pub someone asks about Falmer and they are genuinely pleased that it is going to happen.

My son never stood a chance to support anyone else - he was christened with an Albion scarf round his neck!

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

Greta stories.

Al Bion, didn't realise you were thet young! Remember you always on the Seagull Specials.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

Great stories.

Al Bion, didn't realise you were thet young! Remember you always on the Seagull Specials.