[Albion] Who on here has switched allegiance from another League club to the Albion?

[amexer]

Does anybody know anyone who has a ST at both Albion and a London club. I certainly knew a couple in Amex early days

 

[Icy Gull]

Does anybody know anyone who has a ST at both Albion and a London club. I certainly knew a couple in Amex early days

Off the top of my head -3 and all Chelsea fans

 

[knocky1]

Dad's family moved down to London in 1930's. Grandad switched allegiance to Palace but my Dad stayed Sunderland. I was born in Exeter but came here at 6 years old.
Mum from North London and her Dad was a Tottenham man.
I only liked cricket till Sunderland went to Wembley in 1973 to beat dirty Leeds. My love was short lived.
Been a Brighton fan ever since and a good decade to start.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Another confession coming up...

I was born in Birmingham and my dad was a Blues fan. He took me along several times when I was pretty young - I saw Trevor Francis make his debut, Bob and Mick Latchford, Bob Hatton, Joe Gallagher and Gary Pendrey amongst others.

We moved to Sussex when I was 10 and I 'supported' Birmingham City from afar for a couple of years.

I started going to The Goldstone with a bunch of mates when I was about 13 and was hooked. Still watching The Albion nearly 50 years later.

 

[Hotchilidog]

As a DFL I'll have to hold my hand up. Grew up a West Ham fan since the 75 cup final mostly because of my uncle and wanting to go against the grain of everyone wanting Fulham to win.

To cut along a story short, I got disillusioned with the Premier League in its early years and I became the sort of fan I hated, only going for the booing, West Ham a tough crowd even back then. When I became aware of the Albion's struggles with Archer courtesy of Brighton fans reaching out to WHU message boards and 606, I started to take an interest especially as in 97 we were set to move down to Brighton. I went to Fans Utd as a Hammer with Rotherham and Wealdstone fans from work and then that's when I started to fall for the club. With the protests and campaigning I saw parallels with the bond scheme campaigns, sit-ins, red cards, chasing the Cearn's down the Barking Road did all that. I was so impressed with what the Albion fans were doing.

Once I finally moved down, I just felt that football was moving away from me. No saturday 3pm kickoffs, overpaid lazy players and a clueless manager. I wanted my football back and eventually found it at Withdean. I started to enjoy football again. Through the years of campaigning and meeting some of my best friends through Row Z in the south stand and hauling the REMF flag about I am now Albion through and through. Now in my 22nd or 23rd year as a STH.

 

[Comrade Sam]

Thought football was rubbish, but growing up in Shoreham and going to school in Steyning, all my mates were Brighton fans. On a Saturday we'd all go to Brighton and on the way home everyone would get off at Hove and I stayed on. Start of 85 season I decided to join them and have been an obsessed fan of the Albion ever since. I've now been in London for 22 years and occasionally watch the Orient or Walthamstow, but am not a fan. A kid in Enfield I was teaching yesterday said he was an arsenal fan because they were top of the league. I called him an embarrassment to football - he was 9!

 

[Comrade Sam]

Also know several Arsenal and West Ham fans that grew up as Brighton fans in Sussex, then moved to London as kids, teens or adults. I have dragged 1 back to the good side and another mate from Arsenal back to Carlisle and we're off to see them play the Os on Saturday.

 

[schmunk]

I was born and raised in THE LEEDS, so naturally followed THE LEEDS UNITED as a child (and they won the First Division when I was at secondary school!), but I wasn't really much into football so I've never been into Elland Road, even though in my first house I could see the ground and hear it on matchdays...

Came down to Sussex after university, but it was my sons who got me into football and I started following the Albion about 10 years ago. Now a STH (priority 4).

 

[MarkMcGhee]

Yes! I grew up a Reading fan, spent years watching hundreds of games home and away, and if you'd told 18 year-old me that in 20-odd year's time i'd be posting on another team's message board I wouldn't have believed you. I moved to Brighton to come to uni and knew quickly that Brighton was where I wanted to live. Kept my Reading season ticket and used to go back on the 5 quid Virgin trains for a few years, but work soon got in the way.

I ended up as a carer for someone who had a Brighton season ticket and saw lots of games at the Withdean around the McGhee era. My time as a proper Reading fan had lapsed, and I missed their 106 point season and Premier League years watching Brighton in the rain with no roof.

After enviously keeping an eye on Brighton's success for a few years, I got myself and my 8 year old memberships this year. He has been sucked in, like i was with Reading, and i've been loving being part of it. I now consider myself an 'a la carte' football fan- I watch as many Worthing games as i can drag the kids to, as many Brighton games as we can afford and can get tickets to, plus whatevers on TV. I try to go to the odd Reading away game for a bit of nostalgia .

Its been a real joy watching Brighton assemble an exciting team and do so well. I'm renewing memberships for next season and will be at Wembley assuming there are enough tickets for members! I'm enjoying the ride, but i'll still keep going if Brighton somehow end up back in the lower divisions like they were when i first saw them!!

 

[Nobby]

Albion all the way, bullied and ridiculed by plastics at school for it.

THIS!!

 

[HeaviestTed]

I grew up close to wimbledon so supported them until they deserted london for milton f'ing keynes - didnt really follow anyone after that for years until my son got me back into football and as we live near brighton we started going to matches and now i'm in!

 

[AmexRuislip]

BHA have always been my first and only team..

I watch Swindon occasionally but I certainly don’t support them.

Same as this, where I sometimes watch Wealdstone with a mate.

 

[The Grockle]

Didn't really show an interest in following a team till I was 11 but the Albion have always been my team.

 

[spence]

I enjoyed watching Villa on tv during the 70's. That's about it

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Liverpool plastic as a Peacehaven based kid in the eighties. No one in my family followed football so I had no wise head to guide me correctly. Went to the Goldstone at 16 and that cured me.

 

[Paranoid Android]

My Dad and Grandparents on my Dad's side are Scousers so I naturally grew up a Liverpool fan, despite living in the South all my life. Only went to a couple of games in all the time I supported them as away tickets were nearly impossible to get. Then when I learnt to drive a friend of mine (former Chelsea fan turned Brighton actually, he needed a lift so paid for my ticket) invited me down to the Amex for the FA cup game against Hull in 2014. We went to a few more games together over the following seasons and the rest is history. I tend to go to most games on my own now as he's moved away, been to Stoke, Liverpool, and Man United away this season so I finally got that trip to Anfield I was promised in my youth!

 

[Nicks]

Living in Littlehampton I was sandwiched between Pompey and Brighton in the late 60's.
My dad was an exiled Mackem due to the war so if Sunderland were playing down here we would go along as well as watching Pompey when they played the big teams such as Wolves in the Derek Dougan era.
Also went to The Dell to watch Utd in the Best, Charlton etc era as well as Leeds at their prime but never felt any affinity to these clubs.
My friend Clive was an Albion fanatic and a year older than me and persuaded my Dad to let me go to an Albion game with him.
That was 53 years ago and never looked back since then.
Sunderland are still my second team though

 

[herecomesaregular]

I was a full Ipswich kit wanker in 1980/81 as I was in love with Paul Mariner's mullet. But noone from my family was a football fan and I was only 8. The FAC Final of '83 passed me by as I'd lost interest in football temprorarily (and Brighton seemed a long way from Haywards Heath at that age, felt no link). Then I started watching Haywards Heath (Grant Paskins?) with school mates around age 14. This quickly led to being a regular at he Albion. Bremner's mullet had replaced Mariner's, it seems. First trip to Selhurst for the Kelvin Morton Show sealed the rivalry with Palace for me.

 

[Robinjakarta]

At primary school in B Hill everyone that I can recall supported a ‘big’ team - mine was Spurs, largely due to the mercurial Jimmy Greaves - however soon after that my Dad began taking me to the Goldstone for occasional games and by the late 60s/early 70s the tide had turned(just as for Greavsie). From then on only one team mattered

Very similar path except primary school in Lindfield and then Haywards Heath Grammar. It was after the glamour of the 60/61 double, Jimmy Greaves boyhood hero bar none and cheap tickets to White Hart Lane c/o a father who worked for the railway. Saw Spurs stuff Man U with Best, Law and Charlton 5-1 with Greaves scoring the most memorable goal I have ever seen with around 57,000 mainly grown men looking on in disbelief. Saw Bobby Smith debut for us at the Goldstone but continued to follow Spurs for 2 or 3 years with the silky skills of Alan Gilzean complementing Greaves. There were manu other great players including Dave Mackay, Maurice Norman (saw him break his leg - horrible), Pat Jennings, Cliff Jones and Alan MULLERY. As Jimmy Greaves and the team aged and faded, that's when I must have left the sinking ship and come home to the Goldstone sometime late '60s.

 

[Peppermint Tea]

I was born and grew up in enemy territory (i.e. North East Surrey). My old man was Welsh and hated football, so there was no inherited allegiance. Happily, there was no family member or friend who took me to that rabble in SE25. Instead, I was a nominal Liverpool fan (this was the 70s, so I was basically a massive pot hunter). And then, God bless him, a mate at school asked me to come and watch the Albion because he and his Dad (local publican, Sussex born and bred) were big fans. That was August 1979, our first ever top flight game - the 0-4 loss to Arsenal. We stood in the East stand (plonked in front of a stanchion), my mate's Dad chainsmoked his Rothmans all game, apart from calling the ref a C*nt every few mins and I BLOODY LOVED IT! That was me done - Albion for life.