Seafront Parade

[levski seagull]

i must admit when i eventually crawled out of bed at 11 a.m to the sight of more rain i did think twice but when the buses got down to madeira drive i thought it went really well.the speches dick and magoo made were very good and they seemed genuinley pleased with the turnout...i thought guy butters was one of the council workmen until he got up onto the top deck with the trophy,its good to see the lads in their 'normal' clobber!

 

[Kent Seagull]

I would have thought it pretty obvious that a parade so long after the play off final would result in a poor turnout. IMHO t

 

[Kent Seagull]

I would have thought it pretty obvious that a parade so long after the play off final would result in a poor turnout. IMHO the parade needed to be within a week of the final, probably would have go thousands more out.

 

[Inkerman]

I would have thought it pretty obvious that a parade so long after the play off final would result in a poor turnout. IMHO t

You can say that again! .....

Oh, you did

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

courtesy of several tubs of vaseline I finally shoe-horned my beloved Rover

That's just SICK! I've a good mind to report you to the RSPCA

 

[JSD Albion]

I would have been there, but it was pointed out to me in no uncertain terms that it would be an inappropriate way to mark our wedding anniversary. No 1 son and his mates had to represent me today.

 

[Albionite83]

Excuse me while I have a sense of humour failure over Knight's "joke" about the extra value of season tickets due to the golf. I thought a lot of his speech was pretty cringe-worthy.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Excuse me while I have a sense of humour failure over Knight's "joke" about the extra value of season tickets due to the golf. I thought a lot of his speech was pretty cringe-worthy.

the bottled joke was a classic. whatever he says i will applaud him! he saved us and is a legend

 

[the full harris]

Excuse me while I have a sense of humour failure over Knight's "joke" about the extra value of season tickets due to the golf. I thought a lot of his speech was pretty cringe-worthy.

I cringe pretty much 100% of the time whenever i hear dick knight speak, be at occasions like this, on the tv, on the radio, whenever. He comes across as someone who likes the sound of his own voice possibly a bit too much.

However, I still respect him and if we get Falmer he can have the freedom of the city as far as i am concerned.

 

[Soton Seagull]

I've done my celebrating, back in May (and most of June). To be honest I could not be arsed to drive back in pre-season (and when I had plenty of stuff to do here) to go to a bus trip far too long after the event. I understand why there was a dely, but if they had done the bus tour on the bank holiday monday, half the city would have been there.

I'll quite happily follow the Albion all over the country, but today just seemed fairly pointless from my point of view.

I hope all that went had a cracking time though.

 

[fataddick]

Living on Marine Parade I get a load of parades/demos etc passing by my window and I'd say today's was on a par with the bigger political rallies (eg the ambulance drivers strike demo of a few years back or the biggest of the Iraq War demos). Just under a thousand on the parade (glad to see Juice FM agreed with my estimate) with maybe a few hundred more at the start and end points. I'd have expected more people really, but in retrospect it doesn't seem that bad a turn out, given (a) the weather, (b) the time-lag, (c) the lack of publicity - the parade was hardly mentioned even on NSC! - and most importantly (d) the nature of winning a Play-Off Final.
I went to the end of an open-top bus parade at Woolwich Town Hall after Charlton won the '98 Div One Play-Off Final (ours held about seven days rather than seven weeks after the event) and there were at best 800 people there. My theory is that a play-off final win is such a big event - particular for a club with a small home ground capacity - that every fan of the club will be there on the day to see it (eg five times the average Withdean home gate were in the Brighton end at Cardiff) and the celebration happens there and then.
This is unlike a championship win which happens over a number of games with few people seeing every single minute of the season. In the case of a championship parade it's a way for everyone that has caught even only a part of that season (the less-attendance-heavy and more estranged fans) plus interested locals caught up in the success etc, to turn up and pay homage to the team. But that's exactly what the day in Cardiff itself was. It *WAS* the victory parade. Hence the lack of enthusiasm for today's event. Everyone was there in May.
On the plus side, it was surprising how many of those who came for the parade must have been based out of town and come down for the day, Sitting in Wetherspoons on West Street (for which I make no excuses) around 6pm I'd say at least one in five of the people walking past (in the beach-to-station direction) were wearing Albion tops or play-off shirts - many with flags etc. Several of the people sitting at tables around me were heard to mutter "I didn't know Albion were at home today."

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

It just seemed pointless, there good if they win the league as not many people would get to see trophy etc at the game.
But everyone who could and who wanted to see the team and clap and cheer them for there season went to cardiff.

It just seems we had it as we did in the years before and was seen as the thing to do.

We will prob have one if we stay up-

 

[sully]

I thought today was good, and was another event to get the kids along to. I even almost got two Brentford / Spurs supporting mates of my kids to come, but it clashed with a tournament they were playing in.

My lad's had a full-on footy weekend, having watched the recording of the play-off final yesterday morning, we had a kick-around in the park before going to Crawley. We then had the parade this morning and another viewing of the play-off final for the benefit of his sister, followed by another kick about outside my flat. He's well and truly a signed up football fanatic now - at 7 years old.

I even decided that, despite the rain, I'd wear shorts and T-shirt to the parade, and was rewarded by sunshine as the buses arrived.

 

[fataddick]

The random strangeness of victory parades...

When Charlton won the Division One championship in 2000 they didn't hold a victory parade of any kind. Bradford City finished 17th in the Premiership that season and held an open-top bus parade in front of 50,000 fans. Go figure...

 

[Brovion]

Well we didn't go. Not because we had other prior arrangements or because we didn't know it was on but more because it's a bit like celebrating Christmas in September - if it couldn't have been celebrated at the time what was the point? Cardiff was great, but it was last season.

I know this makes us 'bad fans', but there was also another reason, The club were basically celebrating the fact we weren't good enough to win the third tier of English football or even finish runners-up. Was that really worthy of an open-top bus tour? We did go to the two previous CHAMPIONSHIP parades, and I also went to the 1983 Cup Final and 1979 promotion parades, but this was a bit much.

However fair play to you if you did go, especially those who hadn't been to a Parade before. I'm genuinely glad you enjoyed it, however having experienced the real thing my heart wasn't in it. I walked the dogs and went to B and Q.

 

[Superphil]

Well f*** me, I had a most enjoyable time on Sunday, and I thought the turn out was quite respectable.

I wish we hadn't got promoted.

 

[Easy 10]

The club were basically celebrating the fact we weren't good enough to win the third tier of English football or even finish runners-up. Was that really worthy of an open-top bus tour ?

Funny, I thought we'd actually won promotion somewhere in amongst all that as well.

Look, it really doesn't matter. Those that went seemed to have had a good time, those that didn't bother then fair enough - its not like you have to justify yourselves. No-one is any more or any less "loyal" depending on whether they went along or not. Its not that big a deal.

 

[Brovion]

Funny, I thought we'd actually won promotion somewhere in amongst all that as well.

True, however the other times when we went up as runners-up or worse we didn't make a big song-and-dance about it - 1979 being the exception.

Look, it really doesn't matter. Those that went seemed to have had a good time, those that didn't bother then fair enough - its not like you have to justify yourselves. No-one is any more or any less "loyal" depending on whether they went along or not. Its not that big a deal. [/B]

Totally agree, however there has been a tendency among some other contributors to this thread (no names, no pack drill but he knows sod all about horses) to imply that non-attendees were some how 'disloyal'. As I said, I'm really glad the people who went enjoyed it. I also haven't been to any pre-season friendlies, but again if you like those type of things then, great. No sarcasm is intended or hopefully implied.

 

[chips and gravy]

Disappointing turnout. I'm afraid I didn't go since getting out of the house before about 1pm seems impossible with a baby. However, I'm not sure I would have done. I know the team did good but I think it was a poor show that the Council didn't afford the cricket club an open top bus ride when they won the County Championship and yet the Seagulls get one for finishing fourth in their league.

 

[Mr Blobby]

The pictures on the Official Wedsite show the numbers much better. This picture shows peopel walking in with the buses to join those of us already waiting!

Very had to tell numbers but we estimated about 5,000.


Why are people always so negative! If people moan and didnt go then whats the point! Those of us that went had a good day out!

I bet Bristol City, Swindon or Hartlepool would give quite a lot to actually be able to hold a promotion parade!

Roll on West Ham, Sunderland, Leeds, Ipswich, Wolves, Leicester rather than Oldham, Torquay, Hartlepool!

Mr Blobby