Things you love about supporting the Albion...

[Brian Fantana]

Following on from a number of "doom and gloom" threads about the Albion, I thought that I would try and lighten the mood a bit by trying to find out the great things about being a Brighton fan.

From my point of view it is so refreshing to feel like you support a football club rather a rich boy's play thing. We might not have the Robinho's of this world but I would much rather have the Forster's who are in it for the football and not the cash.

Being a fan of a Premiershite club must get so repetitive. You see your team on the tv all the time and eventually you lose the will to actually go and watch them play. The fact that we are hardly ever on tv means that when we are there is a buzz around. Whether you go to the game or watch it on the box, there is a feeling like the world is watching our little club and I find that appealing.

We have come to regard another season finished as not just a celebration of whatever we have achieved, but that we still exist to do so. I don't think Premiershite fans really realise what it is like to support a club that hangs on to existence by mere threads of fortune. The roller coaster ride of wondering whether we will ever play in the Premiership football at Falmer is something that keeps me going in the mornings.

What does everyone else feel?

 

[sir albion]

Can't think of much to be honest apart from a few promotions,otherwise its been a shambles and also a joke most of the time including this neverending falmer bollocks.

Just want a f***ing stadium and some funds

 

[British Bulldog]

Can't think of much to be honest apart from a few promotions,otherwise its been a shambles and also a joke most of the time including this neverending falmer bollocks.

Just want a f***ing stadium and some funds

I'm with Sir albion.

 

[Simster]

Can't think of much to be honest apart from a few promotions,otherwise its been a shambles and also a joke most of the time including this neverending falmer bollocks.

Just want a f***ing stadium and some funds

To be fair, I'd be well pissed off too if I lived in Reading and was surrounded by a bunch of newbie plastic "footy" fans - all because the local noddy outfit had been GIVEN a ground by the local businessman who made it.

When I was growing up, Reading were such a tin pot outfit in their crap ground - regularly playing to about 4,000. Now they regularly get 18,000 in division two and we're completely fecking two bob.

 

[sir albion]

To be fair, I'd be well pissed off too if I lived in Reading and was surrounded by a bunch of newbie plastic "footy" fans - all because the local noddy outfit had been GIVEN a ground by the local businessman who made it.

When I was growing up, Reading were such a tin pot outfit in their crap ground - regularly playing to about 4,000. Now they regularly get 18,000 in division two and we're completely fecking two bob.

Yeah tell me about it was at elm park many of times in those tiny crowds,now we have about 20 clubs that have overtaken us in the pyramid.BHA fc is the most frustrating club ever:thud:

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I am struggling to think of something at the moment.

I currently feel I support them out of duty as opposed to anything else. My enjoyment of football is gradually waning completely. The ridiculously inflated wages is eroding the beautiful game. How is it that a wholly average player like Bradley Wright-Phillips can earn £400k a year? To be honest, if Brighton had a professional rugby team, then I could see myself supporting them on a saturday.

We end up with buggers like CKR who were never keen to play for the club, merely cream a wage, use the club as a stop gap and not even look back. Too many players seem to have a lack of respect and/or sense.

I am fed up with high prices, poor officials, crap rules, gutless governing bodies and horrific sums of money in the game (as previously mentioned).

Apologies for the poorly constructed ramble.

 

[Simster]

I thought that I would try and lighten the mood a bit by trying to find out the great things about being a Brighton fan.

Well this is all going rather well isn't it?

 

[Cullip4]

I dont think there is a better feeling on earth than when we are winning away from home and the whole away end is singing "We are Brighton, from the South", the hairs are up on the back of my neck just thinking about it now!!

 

[Northstander]

Other tahn supporting since I was lickle...I dont know

 

[withdeanwombat]

Every bloomin' thing.

 

[Gully]

...being viewed as an object of curiousity by fans from other clubs and never being looked upon as being in any way related to plastic, if we had ever had a band-wagon I am sure the shysters who flogged the Goldstone would have tried to cash that in as well.

 

[Northstander]

I dont think there is a better feeling on earth than when we are winning away from home and the whole away end is singing "We are Brighton, from the South", the hairs are up on the back of my neck just thinking about it now!!

I agree with that....marvellous scenes indeed...away games are the way ahead!

 

[Frutos]

Those brilliant moments we come up with every now and again that make all the shite worthwhile.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Proper COMMUNITY club innit. The crowd at Withdean is as genuine a cross-section of the old town as it gets. Met some REAL good people through the Albion.

As for the club itself, it's small enough to f*** things up spectacularly now and again, but big enough to try their best to make things right when they do.

Oh, and they're plenty capable of taking the piss. As we will surely see on Wednesday. Same old Brighton

 

[1234andcounting]

Doom and gloom and loving the Albion aren't mutually exclusive emotions. As William Blake wrote - 'opposition is true friendship'.

For me, one great season or even one great result can eradicate years of suffering; ie the back to back championships overrode all of the horrors of the Archer/Belotti years.

Whilst it is difficult to be wholly objective about it, I think we have the best bloody fans in the Football League (wouldn't confidently say so further down the pyramid). Not only through digging the club out of trouble, but the support we lend to other clubs in trouble eg Wrexham. We might not make much noise at Withdean, but we care about the club and we care about football.

 

[Mendoza]

Not supporting a Premiership team, and meeting plastic armchair fans telling about trips to Carlisle, Grimsby or towns at the arse end of no where


And turning up at arse end of no where, to find 500 other Brighton fans there and singing our hearts out, making a proper racket

 

[Kenhead]

Midweek away games:

The though of sneaking off early to have a few drinks with mates and watching a game always puts me in a good mood on a monday morning.
Its even better on a wednesday morning when i'm heading into work having hardly any sleep but seeing the lads win the previous evening, as i know it was worth it.

Regardless of the result it always makes the weekend come round much quicker so i'm well looking forward to Peterbough next month which inturn will set me up nicely for Hartlepool a few days later.

 

[Spider]

Too much to mention. True, we've played badly quite a lot recently, but as a club we are really lucky. Heres some things:

-The fact that for 4 seasons in a row we changed divisions, the following avoided relegation on the last day, and changed again the next season. Some might have been relegations, but it meant that Brighton was one of the most exciting clubs to support in the world!

-The fact that we have such good fans (especially away). As others have said, there is nothing like finding an away ground full of Brighton fans, and outsinging the home fans. Probably the same for many lower league clubs, but it seems special to me.

-The fact that it's something that me, my brother and my Dad all have in common, we can all go together and all discuss.

-The fact that we are the only club in the country (and I'll try and get this wording right) to have it's own regional specific anthem. Sussex by the Sea is about a million times better than almost all the songs other teams play as they come on the pitch.

-The fact that, despite being only 19, I've seen more drama at Brighton than a Premiershite fan would see. True, United win the titles, but they're expected to anyway, it's nowhere near as fun saying you support a club that everyone else does, and paying £50 to go to silent Premier grounds is nowhere near as good as standing in Roots Hall on a Tuesday night. In the 13 or so years I've had as an Albion fan I can remember a real old ground, standing on the terraces, the roar of the North Stand, pitch invasions (despite not really knowing exactly why), the Gillingham years, the team coming back to Brighton, Bobby Zamora, 2 promotions, 1 fantastic relegation season, one of the best days of my life in Cardiff, a Championship survival, another relegation season. It's been awesome the whole way!

-The fact that something about Brighton seems special. The anthem, the stadium, the struggle to get Falmer, the fans, the fact we always seem to be higher up on things than we ought to (eg this messageboard is in the top 10 footie ones isn't it?, or getting to 17 in the charts with Seagulls ska).

God Bless you Brighton & Hove Albion! Just don't lose to 9 men again!

 

[Frutos]

Too much to mention. True, we've played badly quite a lot recently, but as a club we are really lucky. Heres some things:

-The fact that for 4 seasons in a row we changed divisions, the following avoided relegation on the last day, and changed again the next season. Some might have been relegations, but it meant that Brighton was one of the most exciting clubs to support in the world!

-The fact that we have such good fans (especially away). As others have said, there is nothing like finding an away ground full of Brighton fans, and outsinging the home fans. Probably the same for many lower league clubs, but it seems special to me.

-The fact that it's something that me, my brother and my Dad all have in common, we can all go together and all discuss.

-The fact that we are the only club in the country (and I'll try and get this wording right) to have it's own regional specific anthem. Sussex by the Sea is about a million times better than almost all the songs other teams play as they come on the pitch.

-The fact that, despite being only 19, I've seen more drama at Brighton than a Premiershite fan would see. True, United win the titles, but they're expected to anyway, it's nowhere near as fun saying you support a club that everyone else does, and paying £50 to go to silent Premier grounds is nowhere near as good as standing in Roots Hall on a Tuesday night. In the 13 or so years I've had as an Albion fan I can remember a real old ground, standing on the terraces, the roar of the North Stand, pitch invasions (despite not really knowing exactly why), the Gillingham years, the team coming back to Brighton, Bobby Zamora, 2 promotions, 1 fantastic relegation season, one of the best days of my life in Cardiff, a Championship survival, another relegation season. It's been awesome the whole way!

-The fact that something about Brighton seems special. The anthem, the stadium, the struggle to get Falmer, the fans, the fact we always seem to be higher up on things than we ought to (eg this messageboard is in the top 10 footie ones isn't it?, or getting to 17 in the charts with Seagulls ska).

God Bless you Brighton & Hove Albion! Just don't lose to 9 men again!

I'd agree with every single word of that.

 

[sir albion]

-The fact that we are the only club in the country (and I'll try and get this wording right) to have it's own regional specific anthem. Sussex by the Sea is about a million times better than almost all the songs other teams play as they come on the pitch.



I respect you love the sussex by the sea anthem,but christ i find it very very boring