THE pitch invasion - new Paul Hayward pieces in The Telegraph
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Shorehamkid
Active member
- Aug 3, 2011
- 189
The top link you have to have a premium account to read... can someone copy and paste it please?
Seconded
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HitchinSeagull
Active member
- Aug 9, 2012
- 414
Also to the Times Henry winter piece which is also premium
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You can read 2 premium articles for free if you register.
tigertim68
Well-known member
- Sep 3, 2012
- 2,621
Really enjoyed that article , great read
Tesco in Disguise
Where do we go from here?
Fourthed
Yes I printed it. Will fish it out in the next while. Tad busy at the mo . . . .
Great articles with a stand out quote from TB in the second article:
“I’ve been a passionate Brighton supporter for 40 years. When I took over eight years ago and became chairman, and committed to building the stadium and the training ground, I did it because I love this club and I was in the fortunate position that I’d made enough money.
“It was an easy decision for me. But it’s not enough to do that. You have to run the club in the right way and run it correctly. Many local owners have put money in and it hasn’t worked out well for them. So it was important that, outside the 90 minutes of games, I make rational and unemotional decisions.”
How lucky we are....
Here's the first one:
When Manchester United visit Brighton and Hove Albion next season they will come with an 'official motorcycle partner' for Thailand, an 'official wellness partner' in China and a 'nutritional supplements partner' from Japan. Enough, there, to please an Asian Hell’s Angel on a health-kick.
When Manchester City travel to the same stadium, they will still be trailing an agents' bill of £26.3 million from last year – part of a huge transfer of £174m from England’s top 20 clubs to middlemen. Until this season, when they signed Shane Duffy for a reported £4m, Brighton's record fee was £2.5m to Peterborough for Craig Mackail-Smith.
After a £250m outlay by Tony Bloom, the Albion’s chairman and owner, nobody could hang the label of ‘pauper club’ on the 48th team to gain admission to the Premier League. But the figures mentioned above point to an anxiety that affects fans of all clubs in the Championship.
They ask themselves: will we enjoy life at the top, will our club become a deal-making factory, will we come straight back down? Few in Sussex are currently tormented by such thoughts. After 14 years of homelessness in a turbulent 20-year span, not many Albion supporters will tour the Premier League mansion thinking: ‘No, thanks, take me back to Gillingham – or the Withdean running track.’
The day after Chris Hughton’s team were promoted, a “curator of magazine articles and memories” tweeted: “Commiserations to Brighton and Hove Albion on losing real football and entering the vanity and greed league.”
This humorous observation is easily dismissed. For all its imperfections, the Premier League is not a world any major football club would turn their back on. The challenge, though, is to retain the spirit, the identity of the promoted club, in the face of huge temptation to become a commercial behemoth and ‘global brand.’
Those of us who express squeamishness about the top tier’s laissez-faire economics could justifiably be accused of hypocrisy. We run into the fun house like kids and then pinch our noses? Can we really have it both ways? Well, yes, if the possibility exists for clubs to still be extensions and expressions of their community, which Brighton largely are, for reasons to do with a troubled history.
Part of this is the cold reality of actually staying in the top echelon. The rest is to do with the soul of the club, and whether the people who run it can stop it becoming a conduit for transferring money to agents and players. For Brighton, the early signs were good when some of Hughton’s players were filmed crowd surfing inside a train on the way into the city for a good night out.
According to the BBC, 31 of 71 the teams promoted from the Championship were relegated 12 months later (44 per cent). The average finishing position was 15th. Only twice have all three promoted clubs survived the first year.
Conversely 56 per cent of teams have beaten the drop – which is a much nicer way of looking at it – and some, such as Burnley and Bournemouth, have made impressive strides towards ‘consolidation’ – a popular concept among the upwardly mobile.
On the deeper emotional level, it hangs on who owns the club, how they run it and whether the supporters can resist the urge to demand Champions League football straight away. Here, fans are required to make an intellectual shift away from the joys the ultra-competitive Championship towards every game possibly feeling like a relegation struggle.
In my experience, fans of many Championship clubs say they would rather be in the Championship, fighting it out with equally-matched opponents and feeling closer to the players.
Brighton, though, have survived too much adversity to develop airs and graces. Bloom says: “The amount of money in the Premier League does equalise things a bit. Money is spent every season at every single club. We have to strengthen, that goes without saying. But we're not looking to spend huge amounts. We'll do things on a gradual basis, as we have done. We have good players already, and we want to strengthen from that position.”
Rather than assuming the Premier League turns everyone money-crazed in the end, perhaps we can hope for a gradual restoration of what football really means to people, who generally have no wish to be seen as ‘consumers’ of an entertainment product controlled by billionaire speculators. Yes, the action is addictive, but the alienation is also there, if you care to look.
The reason Brighton’s pitch invasion prompted not a murmur of condemnation is that it expressed solidarity between club, manager, players and residents. That sense was felt around the country – and amplified its news value. A bit more of that would make the Premier League a better place.
“I’ve been a passionate Brighton supporter for 40 years. When I took over eight years ago and became chairman, and committed to building the stadium and the training ground, I did it because I love this club and I was in the fortunate position that I’d made enough money.
“It was an easy decision for me. But it’s not enough to do that. You have to run the club in the right way and run it correctly. Many local owners have put money in and it hasn’t worked out well for them. So it was important that, outside the 90 minutes of games, I make rational and unemotional decisions.”
How lucky we are....
Here's the first one:
When Manchester United visit Brighton and Hove Albion next season they will come with an 'official motorcycle partner' for Thailand, an 'official wellness partner' in China and a 'nutritional supplements partner' from Japan. Enough, there, to please an Asian Hell’s Angel on a health-kick.
When Manchester City travel to the same stadium, they will still be trailing an agents' bill of £26.3 million from last year – part of a huge transfer of £174m from England’s top 20 clubs to middlemen. Until this season, when they signed Shane Duffy for a reported £4m, Brighton's record fee was £2.5m to Peterborough for Craig Mackail-Smith.
After a £250m outlay by Tony Bloom, the Albion’s chairman and owner, nobody could hang the label of ‘pauper club’ on the 48th team to gain admission to the Premier League. But the figures mentioned above point to an anxiety that affects fans of all clubs in the Championship.
They ask themselves: will we enjoy life at the top, will our club become a deal-making factory, will we come straight back down? Few in Sussex are currently tormented by such thoughts. After 14 years of homelessness in a turbulent 20-year span, not many Albion supporters will tour the Premier League mansion thinking: ‘No, thanks, take me back to Gillingham – or the Withdean running track.’
The day after Chris Hughton’s team were promoted, a “curator of magazine articles and memories” tweeted: “Commiserations to Brighton and Hove Albion on losing real football and entering the vanity and greed league.”
This humorous observation is easily dismissed. For all its imperfections, the Premier League is not a world any major football club would turn their back on. The challenge, though, is to retain the spirit, the identity of the promoted club, in the face of huge temptation to become a commercial behemoth and ‘global brand.’
Those of us who express squeamishness about the top tier’s laissez-faire economics could justifiably be accused of hypocrisy. We run into the fun house like kids and then pinch our noses? Can we really have it both ways? Well, yes, if the possibility exists for clubs to still be extensions and expressions of their community, which Brighton largely are, for reasons to do with a troubled history.
Part of this is the cold reality of actually staying in the top echelon. The rest is to do with the soul of the club, and whether the people who run it can stop it becoming a conduit for transferring money to agents and players. For Brighton, the early signs were good when some of Hughton’s players were filmed crowd surfing inside a train on the way into the city for a good night out.
According to the BBC, 31 of 71 the teams promoted from the Championship were relegated 12 months later (44 per cent). The average finishing position was 15th. Only twice have all three promoted clubs survived the first year.
Conversely 56 per cent of teams have beaten the drop – which is a much nicer way of looking at it – and some, such as Burnley and Bournemouth, have made impressive strides towards ‘consolidation’ – a popular concept among the upwardly mobile.
On the deeper emotional level, it hangs on who owns the club, how they run it and whether the supporters can resist the urge to demand Champions League football straight away. Here, fans are required to make an intellectual shift away from the joys the ultra-competitive Championship towards every game possibly feeling like a relegation struggle.
In my experience, fans of many Championship clubs say they would rather be in the Championship, fighting it out with equally-matched opponents and feeling closer to the players.
Brighton, though, have survived too much adversity to develop airs and graces. Bloom says: “The amount of money in the Premier League does equalise things a bit. Money is spent every season at every single club. We have to strengthen, that goes without saying. But we're not looking to spend huge amounts. We'll do things on a gradual basis, as we have done. We have good players already, and we want to strengthen from that position.”
Rather than assuming the Premier League turns everyone money-crazed in the end, perhaps we can hope for a gradual restoration of what football really means to people, who generally have no wish to be seen as ‘consumers’ of an entertainment product controlled by billionaire speculators. Yes, the action is addictive, but the alienation is also there, if you care to look.
The reason Brighton’s pitch invasion prompted not a murmur of condemnation is that it expressed solidarity between club, manager, players and residents. That sense was felt around the country – and amplified its news value. A bit more of that would make the Premier League a better place.
The Albion Roar
97.2FM
I saw Paul in the press area before the game.
I asked him if he was going to cover the game from a Brighton fan's perspective. He said he wouldn't, and couldn't. It wasn't his job.
"But what if you asked nicely for an opinion piece; a vanity piece of your own?" "Well, yes, I'll ask. But my first job is to report on the game from a neutral point of view. It's not going to be that easy if we win to write an article while doing cartwheels...", he pointed out.
Looks like we got that Brighton perspective piece - to a point - after all.
I asked him if he was going to cover the game from a Brighton fan's perspective. He said he wouldn't, and couldn't. It wasn't his job.
"But what if you asked nicely for an opinion piece; a vanity piece of your own?" "Well, yes, I'll ask. But my first job is to report on the game from a neutral point of view. It's not going to be that easy if we win to write an article while doing cartwheels...", he pointed out.
Looks like we got that Brighton perspective piece - to a point - after all.
Weststander
Well-known member
- Thread starter
- #13
The bond between TB, CH, the players and fans on Monday, including the evening trip to West Street, was special. At no EPL club would there be such togetherness or fans allowed to get within metres of players.
The EPL routinely uses bodyguards, and the arrogant players don over-sized Beats headphones to blank out their fans.
It would be great if the Albion can buck that trend.