[Albion] The Mike Bailey Principle

[Icy Gull]

You may be right - I don't know; I was living in Scotland at the time and my only sources of information on the Albion were newspapers (Scottish editions!) and the radio, plus the occasional visit to the Goldstone when I came south to visit my parents in Sussex - no internet back then, either!
From afar, and with minimal information, I was delighted that a 'name' like the great Liverpool player Jimmy Melia was coming to manage little ole' Brighton to greater heights (and Cup Finals!) And yes, I felt the same way when that other former Liverpool great, Sami Hyypia, arrived.......

You must have been ecstatic when former Albion legend and big Liverpool legend Jimmy Case got the job then

 

[GT49er]

You must have been ecstatic when former Albion legend and big Liverpool legend Jimmy Case got the job then

Forgot about him - but no, strangely, I didn't feel the same sense of excitement when he was appointed. By my previous logic I suppose I should have done, but I didn't. No idea why not.

 

[Nixonator]

Result always. Winning is the entertainment value for me, I want to turn teams over not play an attacking game and lose. For me, there would literally be zero recompense coming away with nothing on a Saturday by "playing well".

The ideal obviously being to play an expansive game and win, but we are a few billion shy in transfer fees of accomplishing that any time soon in this division.

 

[Perry Milkins]

Same ethos as the Mullery appointment, wasn't it? - recently retired big name successful player from a big successful club.

Nope. He had been retired as a player for many, many a season. I am fairly sure he was a scout for the club.

 

[Hiney]

Attendances had a much bigger affect on the club's finances than they do today, so the ability of the team to get people through the turnstiles was more of an issue for Mike Bamber.

Home attendances under Mike Bailey:

1981/82
1/9/81 v Swansea City 1-2 19,885
5/9/81 v Middlesbrough 2-0 13,386
19/9/81 v Coventry City 2-2 15,262
3/10/81 v Manchester City 4-1 18,284
17/10/81 v Liverpool 3-3 26,320
31/10/81 v Stoke City 0-0 17,862
7/11/81 v Birmingham City 1-1 18,392
21/11/81 v Notts County 2-2 13,854
5/12/81 v Sunderland 2-1 14,251
28/12/81 v Aston Villa 0-1 24,287
16/1/82 v West Ham United 22,620
6/2/82 v Everton 3-1 16,148
20/2/82 v Nottingham Forest 0-1 17,175
27/2/82 v West Bromwich Albion 2-2 14,553
2/3/82 v Leeds United 1-0 12,857
9/3/82 v Tottenham Hotspur 1-3 27,090
3/4/82 v Southampton 1-1 20,977
10/4/82 v Arsenal 2-1 27,019
24/4/82 v Manchester United 0-1 20,755
4/5/82 v Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-0 10,429
8/5/82 v Ipswich Town 0-1 17,786
1982/83
28/8/82 v Ipswich Town 1-1 13,641
7/9/82 v Arsenal 1-0 13,507
11/9/82 v Sunderland 3-2 10,264
25/9/82 v Birmingham City 1-0 9,845
9/10/82 v Swansea City 1-1 11,050
23/10/82 v West Ham United 3-1 20,490
6/11/82 v Manchester United 1-0 18,398
27/11/82 v Notts County 0-2 10,008

Sacked on 6/12/82

 

[LamieRobertson]

The Mike Bailey Principle

This is a very interesting debate and worthy of a standalone thread.

I am old enough to remember when MB was in charge and was at Southampton (Alan Ball, Kevin Keegan and Mick Channon no less) when we sucked up all their effort and scored two great goals to win 2-0. I think we went up to 5th in the league.

At the time there was rancour and displeasure on the terraces around me about the ‘entertainment’ value and attendances did start to dip. It seemed to me that it was the older brigade who were not happy. MB was handed his cards and the rest is history via Melia, the Cup Final etc, etc.

Personally I was angered by it all as I want to follow success at my football club primarily and if it was entertaining that was the icing on the cake. To me (and I respect this) others will have their own views and want to watch their local team and want entertainment before the result. All well and good under Archie Macaulay et al.

My view is that being a fan of a club drives more deeply into the human psyche and the reward and feel good factor comes from a triumph over the adversary no matter how it was achieved. This leaves plenty of room for the ‘phew’ we were lucky exchanges without denting the feeling of euphoria.

So is Chris entering into the realms of the ‘Mike Bailey Principle?

What say you my brethren?

Edited

 

[GT49er]

Nope. He had been retired as a player for many, many a season. I am fairly sure he was a scout for the club.

Hmmm....yes, you're right. Ten years retired (just looked it up). Longer than I thought.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Attendances had a much bigger affect on the club's finances than they do today, so the ability of the team to get people through the turnstiles was more of an issue for Mike Bamber.

Home attendances under Mike Bailey:

1981/82
1/9/81 v Swansea City 1-2 19,885
5/9/81 v Middlesbrough 2-0 13,386
19/9/81 v Coventry City 2-2 15,262
3/10/81 v Manchester City 4-1 18,284
17/10/81 v Liverpool 3-3 26,320
31/10/81 v Stoke City 0-0 17,862
7/11/81 v Birmingham City 1-1 18,392
21/11/81 v Notts County 2-2 13,854
5/12/81 v Sunderland 2-1 14,251
28/12/81 v Aston Villa 0-1 24,287
16/1/82 v West Ham United 22,620
6/2/82 v Everton 3-1 16,148
20/2/82 v Nottingham Forest 0-1 17,175
27/2/82 v West Bromwich Albion 2-2 14,553
2/3/82 v Leeds United 1-0 12,857
9/3/82 v Tottenham Hotspur 1-3 27,090
3/4/82 v Southampton 1-1 20,977
10/4/82 v Arsenal 2-1 27,019
24/4/82 v Manchester United 0-1 20,755
4/5/82 v Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-0 10,429
8/5/82 v Ipswich Town 0-1 17,786
1982/83
28/8/82 v Ipswich Town 1-1 13,641
7/9/82 v Arsenal 1-0 13,507
11/9/82 v Sunderland 3-2 10,264
25/9/82 v Birmingham City 1-0 9,845
9/10/82 v Swansea City 1-1 11,050
23/10/82 v West Ham United 3-1 20,490
6/11/82 v Manchester United 1-0 18,398
27/11/82 v Notts County 0-2 10,008

Sacked on 6/12/82

A .lot of fluctuation there, people mainly turning out to see the top teams it seems. 12k for Leeds (who got relegated) followed a week later by 27k for Spurs; 10k for relegated Wolves followed by 17k for second place Ipswich.

But the drop-off from 81-82 to 82-83 is stark, can it really be just because of Bailey's management style? 27k for Arsenal in April followed by 13k for Arsenal in September. Thats bizarre.

 

[Gritt23]

I would hope that what Bailey was lacking, and Hughton has, is a promotion under his belt.

We'll never know, but I always thought that if Mullery had been in charge playing the Bailey-way, with the results and performances that came with it, people would have been far more accepting of it, and understanding that this manager who has brought us loads of unforgettable success is merely assessing the best way to deal with the next stage of our development. Mike Bailey coming in fresh, he had no prior success and therefore relationship with the fans to fall back on.

I'm still amazed, was at the time, and am now, at how we looked at the Bailey era. It showed to me, at a young age, that even Brighton, do not have a level in the Leagues that is beyond people moaning. Is there a level at which we could reach, where no-one would moan? You'd think that Leicester fans during the title winning season weren't moaning, but I can't, hand on heart, say that I could rule out the possibility that there were some fans unhappy at how deep they were sitting, with a gameplan of rarely having the ball, and beating teams on the break.

I think we should always accept the truth, that you can't please all the people all of the time. Some will always moan, we were playing teams off the park at Withers under Gus, and I would have people around me leap out of their seat and berate a sideways pass with "you can never score passing it sideways" even though we may have been 3-0 up playing that way already. You'll never get all the fans on your side, and sadly some people will find a way to moan, even about Hughton, but it was wrong to have criticised Bailey, and certainly a mistake to move him on, and I'm even more supportive of Hughton.

Could we be more attacking? Yeah, of course we could.
Could we get after teams more often? Yeah, we could.
Do we all think we have tactics that could be employed which are better than those currently being used? Yeah, we really are that deluded.

Personally, I can't believe that anyone is moaning when we are sat 11th in the Premier League, except when I dust off my memories of Bailey, and the realisation, that you'll never please all of the fans..

 

[drew]

Result always. Winning is the entertainment value for me, I want to turn teams over not play an attacking game and lose. For me, there would literally be zero recompense coming away with nothing on a Saturday by "playing well".

The ideal obviously being to play an expansive game and win, but we are a few billion shy in transfer fees of accomplishing that any time soon in this division.

It's not an either or situation. You make it sound like that if you play expansive football you will always lose. If the boot was on the other foot and we had dominated Wolves like they did to us then I suspect you would be feeling the same as their fans.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Why I watch football is primary entertainment and excitement first, that's why I fell in love with the game.

Winning is important but watching a game when there is no ambition to have a go is plain wrong in my book if I wanted to watch low entertainment I would watch cricket.

But just think of watching a match for entertainment.

When we had Vicente for example i would have paid double the money.

I know a lot of premier fans will put up with negative football just for the win. I would agree with it if I was a player but as a spectator I like entertainment, even if it does mean we yo yo.

It's worth the gamble IMO.

Maybe for some but we had some entertaining matches over the years getting draws, i remember coming out thinking, ok we got a draw but we had peppered their goal.
Of course results are important but how many wins can you get away with that are just hard to watch.
I wouldn't want us getting the old Arsenal tag of 'boring, boring Brighton.' just because we want to hang in there for the big time.

Fortunately for the club many fans seem to put up with it nowadays.

Aren't you boycotting the club any more?

 

[Perry Milkins]

Ok, let's see how we approach the game at Cardiff.

Let's respect that they are in this division on merit and will no be a pushover.

But.....


Have they quality all over the pitch which can hurt us?

Can we impose our game on them?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I think we should always accept the truth, that you can't please all the people all of the time.

My favourite was the match under Peter Taylor at Withdean where we won the championship (was it Swindon) and a substitution was met by a volley of abuse from this chap behind the dugouts in the centre of the South Stand - at full voice. I certainly accepted that truth then. His contribution was greeted with laughter and scorn and he sat down rather red-faced as I assumed he realised he looked rather preposterous.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Have they quality all over the pitch which can hurt us?

We can lose against anyone in this division - definitely away from home. We have got where we are based on a cautious approach - why would we change that for Cardiff ?

Great thread by the way.

 

[Eric Youngs Contact Lense]

Ok, let's see how we approach the game at Cardiff.

Let's respect that they are in this division on merit and will no be a pushover.

But.....


Have they quality all over the pitch which can hurt us?

Can we impose our game on them?

But you already know that we will approach the game in the same way. Whether our execution of the approach is good will depend on how players play on the day and how Cardiff play. We set up the same way at West Ham last year, as we did at West Brom and got very different results. They were both poor sides, struggling for form. We will impose ourselves if we can, but when you know a side will come at you, you will try and make sure that you don't get give anything away early and go from there. We could get beaten at Cardiff, quite easily.. but it will have nothing to do with how CH approaches the game, rather how well we play on the day. What we have shown this year is that we can play relatively poorly and still get points. I will take that at both Everton and Cardiff..

 

[The Large One]

Attendances had a much bigger affect on the club's finances than they do today, so the ability of the team to get people through the turnstiles was more of an issue for Mike Bamber.

Home attendances under Mike Bailey:.
.
.
.
.
6/11/82 v Manchester United 1-0 18,398
27/11/82 v Notts County 0-2 10,008

Sacked on 6/12/82

That Manchester United one was quite telling. True, Man U weren't the force they became 15 years later, but they were still a big club PLUS Peter Ward was back playing for us. But under 19,000 is risible.

For me, it was part of a bigger malaise in society, leading to falling attendances everywhere. Even Chelsea (albeit a mid-table second division club at the time) were only getting 8,000.

These falling attendances, combined with Bamber's reckless lashing out of the Monopoly money when we were on the up, combined to create a nightmare scenario for him when the wheels came off. Bailey, who was the first manager Bamber sacked for 10 years, was a victim of that. It also was the start of the problems we were to have over the next 30 years.

 

[BigGully]

Mike Bailey was building - and it was a work in progress - a team which would have probably been more successful if those who demanded to be 'entertained' hadn't held sway.

Hughton is also building, as a work in progress, a team for improved results and performances, and more success. In both cases, both managers had to deal with what they had - Bailey inherited a team being torn apart and slowly re-built bit by bit; Hughton's team is his own, and being improved incrementally. Both are/were pragmatists.

However, for me, there are two main differences. Firstly, Hughton is not happy with the way the team is playing at the moment, and knows he can get a lot more out of them; Bailey was largely working at capacity, albeit building his 'success' on making sure the defence worked well in the first place - but this was hardly at the cost of sacrificing the forwards.

But the second, more crucial, point of whether the club decides to become trigger-happy is that the Amex currently has full houses, every home match. Bailey, on the other hand, was more a hostage to fortune of declining attendances which Mike Bamber saw as being down to Bailey's style of play (though they were falling all over England at the time), making his position far more precarious. For examples of that, listen to Don Shanks' take on it on the Roar from a couple of weeks ago. https://audioboom.com/posts/7043921...sts-don-shanks-jared-evans-and-russell-guiver

I enjoyed that, thank you for posting, I was nearly a friend of 'Shanksy' back in the day, my best mate was a young pro at the time and I found myself occasionally in the company of the first team squad which was an eye opener and remember Don Shanks very well.

There were many characters in the club at the time and Shanksy was up there with any of them, if I recall correctly he never moved down from his bolthole in London so he wasn't necessarily top boy of the players social usually in too much of a hurry to get back up there, but his love of gambling and easy manner made him a popular player within the squad, he always seemed relaxed, smartly dressed but always slightly dishevelled with a unique charm that somehow prised away ex Miss World Mary Stavin from George Best, I even got an introductory peck on the cheek from her at a players Christmas party at The Albion Hotel .......

One time I was waiting on my mate to finish training at Portslade Sports Centre, it was a Saturday morning and the players were a mishmash of young pro's and out of favour first teamers, as the warm up finished in drove this 'Al Capone' old black Rolls Royce, not many of those up Chalky Road, out stepped the uniformed chauffeur opening the back door and out steps Shanksy, the training just stopped and Shanksy casually said 'alright boy's' and he went to find some training kit whilst the Rolls and its chauffeur waited.

It turned out it was a bet or a number of them which somehow included a chauffeur driven Roller to training the following day, nice one Shanksy another winner

 

[TimWatt]

That Manchester United one was quite telling. True, Man U weren't the force they became 15 years later, but they were still a big club PLUS Peter Ward was back playing for us. But under 19,000 is risible.

Don't blame me... I cheered on at most home games that season. I remember that game as having a good atmosphere (obviously we were the underdog for that one) but later games, barring the cup run, did seem to have something of an air of resignation... and maybe that societal malaise manifest itself at the Goldstone in terms of being quite an uncomfortable place to watch (cycling there and back from Steyning I found the surest way to stay warm on the uncrowded terraces).

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but looking back four years in the top division was some achievement, and we had quite a good team by the end of the next season too... But I think we all agree that our current status cannot be taken for granted and long term planning has provided our current status, and it's some comfort too know even if the worst happens that we have talent on loan and in reserve - plus there were no 'parachute' payments in 1983.

 

[Peter Grummit]

That Manchester United one was quite telling. True, Man U weren't the force they became 15 years later, but they were still a big club PLUS Peter Ward was back playing for us. But under 19,000 is risible.

For me, it was part of a bigger malaise in society, leading to falling attendances everywhere. Even Chelsea (albeit a mid-table second division club at the time) were only getting 8,000.

These falling attendances, combined with Bamber's reckless lashing out of the Monopoly money when we were on the up, combined to create a nightmare scenario for him when the wheels came off. Bailey, who was the first manager Bamber sacked for 10 years, was a victim of that. It also was the start of the problems we were to have over the next 30 years.

If I recall, it was chucking with rain that day, no roof on the North. Think Withdean without the seats. It was a glorious finish, and well worth travelling back from Uni in the Midlands, but the match-going experience generally that season was a bit of a challenge.

 

[Nixonator]

It's not an either or situation. You make it sound like that if you play expansive football you will always lose. If the boot was on the other foot and we had dominated Wolves like they did to us then I suspect you would be feeling the same as their fans.

It is an either or. Right now we are winning games playing to our strengths, and you want to throw caution to the wind and change our game completely (even though it's what out manager is custom to) for the sake of abit more entertainment? It's absolute madness.

What examples of (consistent) expansive football can you give me in the Premier League outside the top 6 who have nailed down stability here? Please don't say Bournemouth because you clearly haven't watched them if you do. Maybe Watford, but they are a basket case of a club.

Also, here's where we differ. I don't think Wolves 'dominated' us, I think we did a number on them. Maybe the next edition of Match or Shoot magazine will follow your line of thinking but for me, the game of football is not about possession stats and shots on goal and thank god that it isn't, else we would have comfortably lost. I honestly can't say I was concerned AT ALL throughout the entire game about them breaching our back line, other than; Doherty in first half, second half when someone smashed it through a crowd of players into Ryan's knees and finally the Bennett chance at the death. All matched and exceeded by the chances we had, a miss from 3 yards out, 2 breakways squandered and the goal we scored.

People keep saying we scraped a win and that we were 'lucky'. I think we could have won the game 2 or 3 nothing by the end, playing the way we did. I wonder if people would still be spouting the same bollocks if we had. 'Scraping a 3-0 home win'.