[Football] SAMI - 10 years on

[Iggle Piggle]

As odd as it sounds, the gambling community were all over us in the early days of Hypia's reign. XG was an early thing and we were outperforming it most games. If memory serves, we were top of the 92 in that regard at one point. Better gamblers than me were doing their bollocks on us. I'm sure it was a factor in Bloom standing by him.

In reality, Hypia was a bad manager when things went against him - which is always the true test - and had a bunch of absolutely wank signings to work with. The later I think is quite important. If we'd have had some decent signings he could have been here 18 months later. The perfect storm did us a favour in the long run.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I also regularly meet Gary Gardner in my local sandwich shop. I often ask him about his time at the Albion*

*Well, we are on "alright mate" nodding terms and I've never spoken to him about it. I might get a selfie to prove it if I can be arsed though.

 

[nsclurker]

The knives were out at the Junior Seagulls Party - he resigned the following morning

Yeah, that as weird an atmosphere as the Millwall game was angry/grim.

Everyone thinking "Bloody hell, he's here" but biting their tounges as it was a day for our kids.

 

[nsclurker]

That was a Friday night game ? Wood scored against us

As always…

 

[nsclurker]

My son's first full season so he's been a STH for 10 years now! His first away was Charlton later that season under Hughton where a Rohan Ince header scraped us a 1-0 win, the players celebrated the goal right in front of us and him and his 8 year old mate heard 3000 Brighton sing 'you can stick that f**ing drum up your arse".

But for Hughton and signing Beram Kayal we'd have gone down. Burke remains the most clueless employee we've ever had under Bloom but Sami has to take some of the blame for sticking with ridiculous tactics in the face of a squad more suited to the Dog and Duck. However, there remains a part of me that remains very jealous that while I saw a great deal of awful third and fourth division he's never seen below Championship. At his age at the end of last season I was doing aways to Gillingham, Aldershot and Chester. He's done Amsterdam, Rome, Old Trafford, Spurs and many more.

The bloke (Brown?) that ordered 15 million replica shirts that the club basically ended up having to give away is up there, I think. He left soon after, too. A lot of lessons learned along the way!

 

[Munkfish]

The bloke (Brown?) that ordered 15 million replica shirts that the club basically ended up having to give away is up there, I think. He left soon after, too. A lot of lessons learned along the way!

Sorry what? What story is that. I love the old Albion.

 

[nsclurker]

It was such a bleak time that people were saying Rohan Ince was a good midfielder. Like being in an abusive relationship and saying "yeah I get all that, but they make a BRILLIANT Apple Crumble".

Our little group would sit there and think we were mad for not seeing what everyone else was going on about. He couldn't control the ball.

Looking at his career he played 12 games next year and then begun the fall down the divisions

Such an odd time.

I'll never forget the absolute BANGER away at Swindon in the cup, when I made my wife and kids come for a night out on our holiday.

However, he always reminded me of Bambi on ice, crossed with a man falling down the stairs and trying not to fall down, whenever he ran.

 

[nsclurker]

Think we missed out on Adam Clayton as well when things started going pear shape, as well as starting the season with Vitaljis Maksimenko as our only fit LB from memory.

Better money touring with Bono, TBF.

 

[nsclurker]

Sorry what? What story is that. I love the old Albion.

I may have exaggerated a touch, but suffice to say that he over ordered a little....

 

[S'hampton Seagull]

Didn't we go to Wolves get a draw but Hyypia was sacked? I went to that game but have very little recollection. There was a banner i recall, Wolves missed a pen?

Yes, I'm one of the people holding it

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Sorry what? What story is that. I love the old Albion.

Ken Brown CEO at Withdean and the first season at the Amex. There were a couple of concourse sales to get rid of the excess stock.

 

[Han Solo]

I'm sure i've seen somehwere in a lovely graph - and still surprised to this day - that the player budget actually went down that season. and i think it was the only year in Bloom era that this was the case. Have you ever worked out why or the rationale for that ? (David Burke ? Expected signings not going through ? Bloom having wobbles ? Not trusting Hyypia ? )

Not that I was around but...

If you look at the earlier transfer windows like 2012/13... quite clearly the intention must have been to go up. Immediately. There's no signing Vicente or Bruno if they were told "gonna stick around here in the Championship for a while".

Kuszczak, Bridge, Bruno, Orlando, Dobbie, Hammond, Crofts, David Lopez, Upson and Ulloa all arriving in 2012/13... thats a Championship club signing 10 experienced players from Premier League and La Liga clubs. None of them with any resale value.

Must have cost a fortune and when they didn't manage to get the cat into the bag, I would imagine Tony pushed the break a bit?

 

[stewart12]

Baldock and Stockdale went on to be good signings but struggled that year. Really the only signing that offered much that season was Teixeira

 

[ROSM]

I was at that Wolves game (Elliott Bennett's dad was sat just in front of me, although Elliott didn't feature in the squad - I think there was a restriction of no more than five loan players being selected and we had five other loanees involved: Joe Bennett, Greg Halford, Darren Bent, Joao Teixeira and Gary Gardner).

Darren Bent gave us an early lead but Bruno got himself a straight red just before the hour mark. Danny Batth scored an equaliser on 88 minutes.

Hyypia offered his resignation on the Monday.

I don't know how true it is but I was told Hyypia had offered his resignation previously but Bloom/Barber/Board turned it down.

 

[ROSM]

Yeah, that as weird an atmosphere as the Millwall game was angry/grim.

Everyone thinking "Bloody hell, he's here" but biting their tounges as it was a day for our kids.

I had lost my dad the summer before the season started and was in a bit of a spiral of bereavement depression. Football wasn't helping! I started to miss games and my wife took our kids to the seagulls party instead. In previous years the boys had queued hours for signatures and I remember poyet joking with my eldest that he had seen him take a penalty earlier and could be show his players how to take one (greer and others were joining in the giggles). In another year Oscar garcia organised his own queuing system.

But apparently with Sami there was little of a queue and my two eldest when Mrs ROSM asked if they wanted his autograph responded along the lines of 'no thanks he won't be here much longer'.

In hindsight I wonder how much an event like that does impact the manager/club's mind

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I don't know how true it is but I was told Hyypia had offered his resignation previously but Bloom/Barber/Board turned it down.

I heard the same thing.

 

[Han Solo]

Reading old Finnish interviews... seems like he thought he was too nice and also implies he was getting stabbed in the back by other staff members "conspiring" against him.

 

[jackalbion]

Reading old Finnish interviews... seems like he thought he was too nice and also implies he was getting stabbed in the back by other staff members "conspiring" against him.

I wouldn't say conspiring against him, BUT, he certainly wasn't helped by David Burke's signings, and it was telling that he was also dispensed of at the exact same time on Christmas Eve.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

We so wanted Rohan Ince to be the answer. Hope over evidence.

When Sami left, I couldn't have been happier.

 

[Ali_rrr]

Ken Brown CEO at Withdean and the first season at the Amex. There were a couple of concourse sales to get rid of the excess stock.

Interesting though, I seem to remember everyone I knew buying a shirt from this season, even before the sale. Both home and away and the special pink one. Very surprised they haven't tried to bring the latter back as it was very popular and still is.