[Albion] Why do so many of our fans think we are still a 'small club'?

[Bry Nylon]

We'll only know we're a big club when our replica kit is stocked in JD Sports

Getting it stocked in our own club shop would be a good f***ing start

 

[TomandJerry]

We're loads more massiver than them!

You've done it now, expect massive fans to be crawling out the woodwork

 

[Napper]

Does that make Bradford City a big club then? Not in my opinion. I’d accept annual revenue as being a better measure of a club’s size.

very similar size as us.

Well supported , 1 x FA Cup win , similar seasons top flight.

 

[Simster]

People on here over the past 25 years used to get misty eyed over the one or two 30,000 crowds they were part of. Rochdale in the 60s or whatever, Blackpool in 1977. The Derby league cup game etc. You can almost name them as I pretty much have done.

Now we get 30,000 every single week, and actually that is on the low side. Proof - if needed - that club size is quite fluid.

As for club size, I don't care. All I do care about is that my club reaches its potential, and apart from trophy wins it is finally doing that for the first time in my 45+ years supporting the club. League matches get sold out weeks in advance, to the extent that the ticket exchange is now absolutely vital to the running of the club.

As for club size, I mean who cares? Consider this: Portsmouth will be considered a bigger club than us by 90% of football fans you'll ever meet, yet they haven't averaged 30,000 since 1953. Yes there are reasons why they are considered a bigger club, but honestly even ignoring their all round bumpkin scumminess, who would you rather support these days?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Can we use fruit as a mechanism for visualizing that?

Would you say we’re like an orange? Bigger than an apple but smaller than a pineapple?

Chris Morris has a graphic.

We execute wasps but we don't execute dogs. Why?

 

[Simster]

very similar size as us.

Well supported , 1 x FA Cup win , similar seasons top flight.

Very much, historically. But again, look at our infrastructure, personnel and standing in the game compared to theirs. Club size is fluid but right now Ansu Fati isn't looking at Bradford and thinking "they may be division 4 but they've got potential to compete for a European spot"

 

[Justice]

We are so massive now we can afford to ban our own fans for having the audacity to buy a ticket for a sons girlfriend, throw some beer ( we were all young once) and accidentally step over the advertising board whilst celebrating a goal with a player.

 

[Napper]

Very much, historically. But again, look at our infrastructure, personnel and standing in the game compared to theirs. Club size is fluid but right now Ansu Fati isn't looking at Bradford and thinking "they may be division 4 but they've got potential to compete for a European spot"

i agree infrastructure , personnel and standing which could be traded off with the major trophy win of theirs.

I'd rather be us but size wise , pretty similar

 

[huzzah]

Amongst the usual Liverpool Manchester Utd Barcelona tatt sold abroad I've now found Brighton and Hove Albion tatt in Slovenia Norway Uzbekistan and Gran Canaria,so we're actually on the world map of tattorabilia,another 2 wins in Europe and I'd fully expect the Isle of Wight to follow suit, that's when you know you've made it big.

I remember my first visit to Zanzibar in the 90s. It appeared 1 in 3 men were wearing (knockoff) shirts. I was disappointed to see someone walking around in a palace shirt (I think they must have had a popular African player at the time as they were also lower league) and could not find a Brighton top having scoured the market (ended up with a green ajax shirt - which every ajax fan I've shown says has never existed).

Times have changed, a couple of months ago, my ex brought me this back from Prague.

(Should we start a tatt thread?)

 

[huzzah]

We'll only know we're a big club when our replica kit is stocked in JD Sports

every time I go through Gatwick I pop into the sports shop to see if they will finally stock our kit. still no. They have Rangers kit, but not ours!

[Edit: I should have read ahead before posting this ... still it feels like a lost opportunity, so close to home]

 

[TomandJerry]

I remember my first visit to Zanzibar in the 90s. It appeared 1 in 3 men were wearing (knockoff) shirts. I was disappointed to see someone walking around in a palace shirt (I think they must have had a popular African player at the time as they were also lower league) and could not find a Brighton top having scoured the market (ended up with a green ajax shirt - which every ajax fan I've shown says has never existed).

Times have changed, a couple of months ago, my ex brought me this back from Prague.

(Should we start a tatt thread?)

Funny looking Russian dolls....

 

[Frankie]

I remember my first visit to Zanzibar in the 90s. It appeared 1 in 3 men were wearing (knockoff) shirts. I was disappointed to see someone walking around in a palace shirt (I think they must have had a popular African player at the time as they were also lower league) and could not find a Brighton top having scoured the market (ended up with a green ajax shirt - which every ajax fan I've shown says has never existed).

Times have changed, a couple of months ago, my ex brought me this back from Prague.

(Should we start a tatt thread?)

I got this lovely item from Gibraltar well somebody got it for me as a gift,we certainly are starting to make a name for ourselves as everyone's second team according to Sky.

 

[serendipity]

Interesting, re Sussex and beyond now being Albionised. When I was at school, in Burgess Hill, in the late 60s-early 70s, we all supported the Albion and a London based team. Mine was West Ham. We went to all of the Albion home matches, and occasionally to home matches of our London based team, splitting up at Victoria, to go to the various, different grounds, and meeting back at Victoria after the game. Most kids (not me) identified themselves as supporters of the London club, more than Albion fans. I suspect that this has now changed, quite drastically.

 

[The red pepper kid]

If you think there are more Brighton supporters than Man U supporters in Sussex then I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. And there are just as many Man U supporters in every other county in the UK. We’re a small club, and will be until we have a couple of PL titles and a handful of cups to our name.

what a stupid statement

 

[fly high]

For me it's really important as I have seen the club on the brink of survival - for the best part of 2 decades if you are to include being homeless in the lower divisions.

But by acquiring a global fan base - and by becoming the number one club in Sussex - we have secured our future for decades to come.

Small clubs are always at risk of going under. So many have. It doesn't take a lot.

The generation of fans we have acquired has secured our future for decades, at least, if not forever.

It's amazing.

ER, I'd say we have always been the number one club in Sussex. I think maybe you mean more fans living in Sussex support one of the' big 6', well they are very much still around. As for overseas fans they will soon move on when/if we fall or when their favourite player moves on. Sell Mitoma & all those Japanese fans will disappear overnight to his new club.

 

[GT49er]

As big clubs go we're pretty small, but as small clubs go we're pretty big. We're not as big as the big clubs are that have always been big, and were not perhaps as big as some of the clubs are that used to be big but are now smaller than they were - although I appreciate that fans of big clubs that aren't as big as they used to be will always think of themselves as big. Lots of people (big and small) would argue that we're now bigger than clubs that used to be big, but are now small (Preston and Blackpool spring to mind), but fans of those clubs may argue that they're still big clubs not small clubs because of their history. As we've got bigger we've undoubtedly left some small clubs in our wake, but the big big clubs will always be bigger. I think the real question is are we at the big end of the small clubs, or the small end of the big clubs?

TLDR!

 

[Flounce]

We are so massive now we can afford to ban our own fans for having the audacity to buy a ticket for a sons girlfriend, throw some beer ( we were all young once) and accidentally step over the advertising board whilst celebrating a goal with a player.

But it’s OK to let opposition fans flood the 1901 Mayo Wynne Baxter lounge which was supposed to be an Albion fans upmarket lounge. So over crowded now that you won’t get a seat unless you arrive two hours before kick off. So much for the guff on the launch of 1901 on which the facilities, for Albion fans, have been downgraded on every renewal as the club try and boost the corporate side of the club in the pursuit of money.

 

[KZNSeagull]

All this obsession about size. We are a grower not a shower*

* pronounced to rhyme with grower if you hadn't realised

 

[Nibbler]

I remember my first visit to Zanzibar in the 90s. It appeared 1 in 3 men were wearing (knockoff) shirts. I was disappointed to see someone walking around in a palace shirt (I think they must have had a popular African player at the time as they were also lower league) and could not find a Brighton top having scoured the market (ended up with a green ajax shirt - which every ajax fan I've shown says has never existed).

Times have changed, a couple of months ago, my ex brought me this back from Prague.

(Should we start a tatt thread?)

Fitting that groß should be the biggest doll.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

We'll only know we're a big club when our replica kit is stocked in JD Sports

Well you can get a saints shirt at Gatwick but not an Albion one