Society of Sussex Downsmen - it's war

[Faldo]

Beat me to it LB

 

[London Calling]

Cheers, Tooting.

Paul Millmore is another of those people I've known for years. We used to work together. He is the author of the Ordnance Survey's guide to the South Downs Way, published in the National Trail Guide series. I even worked with him on updating some of the information that has gone into the recently revised edition.

First Tim Cutress, now Paul Millmore. I'm beginning to think that I'm a weak link in this campaign!

mmmmmmmm Lord B could be a mole

Lord B, Are you going to apply for any of those MI5 jobs?

LC. And by the way thanks for all the hard work you're doing.

 

[Superphil]

Does anyone have the paper, it normally gives the name of the writer?

 

[London Calling]

You do hang around with some tree huggers don't you Bracknell?
If you know that Downsman idiot, tell him just how offensive that comment was for all those of us who battled to save the Albion from those bastards.
I used to like the Downs, but I couldn't give a shit now.

Attila, the Downs are a treasure they are not our problem. Its the narrowness of minds that are our problem, especially people who exploit the downs for their own usage, benefits and high profile, undertake their own cultural activities, live in their labourer dwellings but with Middle Class lifestyles and want to preserve their blinkered way of there is no society life.

LC

 

[Storer68]

Come come Atilla, calm down - its only an article.


and if you read it all the way thru, it is actually quite sympathetic to the implications of a No from Pescott ie we're dead

 

[London Calling]

I dont know whether the newspaper gives the author's name. The Telegraph website doesn't.

Here's the story:-

Brighton will hove to if stadium wrongs turn into last rites.

Suppose there was no such thing as Roy Keane. Imagine railway platforms free of drunks in Burberry baseball caps. What if men with IQs below sea-level were no longer paid £2 million a year to spit in public? What if Saturday afternoons were for sailing or pressing wild flowers? Life in a football-free zone sounds rather appealing. It's coming to Brighton any day now.

All it needs is for John Prescott to agree with the Government inspector that there is no case for a new stadium on a greenfield site and Brighton and Hove Albion are done for.

Yeah, yeah, you've heard it all before. Notts County, Oldham, York City, Leeds United - they've all been read the last rites and they're still breathing. Brighton's case, I assure you, is different. It must be for Des Lynam to get all fired up. He told me: "There's nowhere else for Brighton to go. We can't let this club fade away."

Now I'd like you to take a walk through Falmer where Des and 60,000 more Seagulls' petitioners would like to watch football in the future. It's halfway between Brighton and Lewes. Hear the skylarks? Smell the primroses? Never mind, the wind must be in the wrong direction.

You'll notice it's a warm wind rather like the Sirocco. It's been whipped up by Falmer Parish Council, the Society of Sussex Downsmen and a planning inspector who probably turned up for games with a sick note each week. Can you believe these pillars of South Coast society don't think football is the be all and end all?

They should have been at a draughty little athletics stadium called Withdean to witness Albion's 3-0 demolition of Bournemouth on Saturday. There's more atmosphere in a departure lounge at Gatwick and yet Mark McGhee's asylum-seekers found the motivation to keep the club on track for the Division Two play-offs.

Gary Hart, Trevor Benjamin and Leon Knight banged in the goals like an act of defiance while 5,000 shivering fans held up slogans: "Say yes to the stadium!"

"Over our tombs," the nimbies would reply. They've got it into their heads that the proposed site at Falmer is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty just because it says so. I wouldn't take my mother-in-law for a picnic anywhere near the place.

A dirty great dual carriageway called the A27 tends to drown conversation. Whoever designed Brighton University next door either had a good sense of humour or a bad dose of haemorrhoids.

A community football stadium would improve the look of Falmer as well as provide a thousand jobs and give this surprisingly scruffy city something to be proud of. Whatever is decided, somebody's going to build something soon on the ploughed field in question. Would the doubters rather have a Tesco?

I can see that football lovers have bigger blind spots than most. "How can you sympathise with a club which had a perfectly good stadium seven years ago but sold it to Toys R Us?" asks Paul Millmore of the Sussex Downsmen. It's pointless telling him that it was a different regime in those days - that the cowboys have gone now.

It's pointless telling this 2,800-strong charity that the disappearance of Brighton and Hove Albion would undermine the foundations of English League football because they would argue that a stadium at Falmer would consume another chunk of the chalk downlands which have given more pleasure to more people than a simple game of kick and rush.

Back to practicalities. Brighton have spent £5 million they don't have preparing the Falmer project, paying solicitors at the protracted public inquiry and bringing Withdean up to Football League standards. It costs £40,000 a match to rent and steward the athletics track as well as provide a park and ride scheme and yet it only holds 7,000 people.

The club are losing money as each day goes by. If directors stopped writing cheques, no one would get paid. Obviously it cannot go on.

In the likely event of the Deputy Prime Minister turning his thumbs down this week or next and thereby risking the prospects of three Labour MPs in the immediate area, I have an alternative plan. Instead of blowing millions on a pier the citizens didn't really want (or it wouldn't have burned down in the first place) why not build a football stadium half a mile out in the English Channel? It has to be better than Punch and Judy.

Its actually a great positive article for the club and stadium and hopefully will stir up some more supporters and MP.s

 

[Sully's Moustache]

The article in the Telegraph is by Tony Francis. It's at the top of page 5 of the sports section.

 

[Sully's Moustache]

The article is clearly pro- Falmer and anti the attitude of Paul Millmore.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Just to spread a little light on the confusion of perseus.

The Sussex Downs Conservation Board is a public body that spends public money. Its members are appointed by the local authorities in the area and by the Countryside Agency.

Brighton & Hove City Council has three councillors who represent it on the Conservation Board.

The Society of Sussex Downsmen is a member-based organisation that anyone can join. It spends its members' money and has no access to public funds.

Paul Millmore is the paid Director of the Society of Sussex Downsmen. He is also a member of the Sussex Downs Conservation Board, having been appointed to the Board by the Countryside Agency.

 

[attila]

Don't worry, I know the article is pro Falmer, I know the Downs are 'nice' and not all ramblers are idiots, I'm just angry - really angry - with Millmore. What a complete and total lobotomy case.

Ironic, really, that he's named after a football stadium, albeit a misspelt one.

 

[Curious Orange]

That article is rather good actually, reminds me of one the more pessimistic days on NSC, and brings into focus the stark reality that could potentially befall our beloved club. Glad someone's finally had the guts to not perpetuate the myth that the Village Way site is beautiful, got to be a first for the Telegraph as far as the national press goes!

 

[London Calling]

Don't worry, I know the article is pro Falmer, I know the Downs are 'nice' and not all ramblers are idiots, I'm just angry - really angry - with Millmore. What a complete and total lobotomy case.

Ironic, really, that he's named after a football stadium, albeit a misspelt one.

I'VE HEARD OF THE WALKER STADIUM BUT NOT THE


WANKER STADIUM

 

[the full harris]

That article is good and funny. Funny 'cos when the Falmer nimby's read it, they will get all excited to begin with thinking their case is being put forward, only to have their hopes dashed when they get to the second half and their case looks pathetic. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
If they get half as happy as I got angry with the first half of the article and then half as pissed off as I was pleased with it's confusion then I will delight in their frustration!

 

[mona]

Has anybody got a reply from that Millmore pillock yet?

I resent self-righteous organisations like these Downsmen laying down the law about the countryside. Whether they mean to or not they have turned the English village into a ghetto for rich suburbanites.

 

[Inkerman]

If they get half as happy as I got angry with the first half of the article and then half as pissed off as I was pleased with it's confusion then I will delight in their frustration!

You were pleased with it's confusion??

or it's conclusion?

 

[Hunting 784561]

That article is rather good actually, reminds me of one the more pessimistic days on NSC, and brings into focus the stark reality that could potentially befall our beloved club. Glad someone's finally had the guts to not perpetuate the myth that the Village Way site is beautiful, got to be a first for the Telegraph as far as the national press goes!

I hope that (against all odds) Four Chins is a Telegraph reader ....

I didnt like the sound of 'hes probably going to turn it down' though.

 

[Superphil]

Sent my email yesterday morning (see earlier post) , no reply yet, doubt I will get one. If I do I'll let youall know.

 

[zego]

It doesn't seem to very active, judging by their website. The name has a ring to it - the actuality doesn't add up to much, however benign and well-meaning.

Go to the website and click 'Issues' - not much going on there then.

With difficulty I found their Talk page, and the topic Falmer.

www.sussexdownsmen.org.uk/discus/messages/17/19.html?1077572948

A message yesterday, but the previous posting was June!!

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I have to say, the Society of Sussex Downsmen sounds like one of those rather tragic groups who spend their weekends dressed in imitation medieval clothing and fighting pretend battles in fields.
Or a bunch of morris dancers.

I know they're not, but it's a good image to have, us v the morris dancers....

 

[Inkerman]

I know they're not, but it's a good image to have, us v the morris dancers....

I tried morris dancing once ...... but I slipped and injured myself on the wing mirror