Beach Hut
Brighton Bhuna Boy
HT and an ill-judged thread, seems it would happen in Germany
HT, regardless of our differing political views always had a lot of time for you, please read my thoughts from another DB thread.
"Even at the risk of getting flamed, some personal thoughts that have come out over the course of today.
Like thousands of other Albion fans for nearly 20 years I've almost looked forward to the day of DB's passing, but when it actually happened I found myself Really feeling nothing.
It might have had something to do with losing my own mother in the last couple of months, but for all his many faults and personality disorders, Bellotti was a parent himself.
He was the front man for Archer and Stanley, whatever he got paid for it, was it really worth it?
After July 1995 he endured all kinds of abuse, both verbally and in print a 'favourite' emanating from his then wife, the 'lovely Jo' and the allegations about her and a Liverpool striker.
He had to have his calls and post monitored, was brought to games under strict security, we had to talk an over zealous Gulls Eye reader from targeting Bellotti Junior outside his school and my own personal favourite was the Steve Foster incident when Fozzie sat in his office and said to him.
"David you are either the most switched on bloke to ever be at the Albion or you are the biggest **** this club has ever seen, and from where I'm sitting you don't look that intelligent"
He had to move away from Sussex and as a result became estranged from his son, which something as a parent I would find very hard to comprehend.
And perhaps worse of all he had that life sentence of always having to look over his shoulder, all over the world, because the Albion support gets everywhere, and there would always be that chance be it in a bar, hotel lobby, airport, restaurant in fact anywhere, that he would bump into one of us and get the verbal abuse he so richly deserved.
But 20 years on, we've lost too many good people, Robert Eaton, Roy Chuter, Sarah Watts, my mum and countless others that today I truly cannot celebrate a death, even his.
History will ultimately be the judge."
So HT do we really need this thread?
So, Thatcher's death moved you the most?
Come on, it's Friday. Or do you want pictures of dogs in fancy dress?
You are comparing a lady who will go down in history as one of our greatest ever prime ministers and put the Great back in Britain to a nothing failed MP who tried to help ruin and lose our club. No comparison.
You are comparing a lady who will go down in history as one of our greatest ever prime ministers and put the Great back in Britain to a nothing failed MP who tried to help ruin and lose our club. No comparison.
Give it a rest,very childish.
Excellent post, I always thought him a stooge, used by Stanley and Archer to deflect the shite that should have been theirs.
Not everyone will agree with your assessment of Mrs T.
Give it a rest,very childish.
I met Belotti a couple of times, once when he was my local MP. Difficult to judge his character from that, I think he was a victim of history, without Gow's death he would never have become an MP in my view.
People forget that at the beginning of his tenure he created an illusion that would have put Siegfried and Roy to shame.
Even before coming Chief Exec he'd come up to the church on a matchday with Mrs B, buy a Gulls Eye and have a chat.
Then one of his first tasks as CEO in late 1993 was sacking Barry Lloyd arguably at that time rightly or wrongly one of the most unpopular managers the club has ever had and replacing him a footballing household name, Liam Brady.
He and Brady later received a standing ovation at the Gulls Eye Dinner at the Dudley Hotel in May 1994.
He appeared to have won the majority of fans over fairly early.
He then allowed GE to sponsor games in 94-95, the likes of Samrah, Baine, Chuter et al drinking and eating in the same room as Stanley, Bellotti and the younger Mrs B.
Smart move, get the fan-base on board, even the revolutionary and reactionary ones, very clever, until after July 1995 when the smoke, mirrors and skulduggery became apparent.
But again to re-iterate we're all better people for not celebrating his demise.
Ironically, and HT probably knew this when he started the thread, there's an argument to say that Bellotti's by election win was the beginning of the end for Maggie as Prime minister.
Surely great Primeministers deliver greatness to the nation that could not be said of Mrs Thatcher. She took apart a nation, destroyed the political consensus we have never recovered. In football terms she ending standing at games (kind of), stopped community funding of local clubs, sold off school sports fields. Bellotti in league with Archer nearly destroyed our club, and much as that is important to me personally he did not harm such a wide audience. I pick Thatcher.You are comparing a lady who will go down in history as one of our greatest ever prime ministers and put the Great back in Britain to a nothing failed MP who tried to help ruin and lose our club. No comparison.