Your First Experience of the Albion

[studio150]

8 years old, Goldstone.
1996
Brighton 1-0 Doncaster Rovers

I had never witnessed anything like it, the atmosphere, supporters, people crying, pitch invasions, I had no clue what the hell the club was about and never understood the reason for all of the above until a few years later.

I couldn't ask for a better Albion baptism.

I assume a typo error for the year

 

[ferring seagull]

I wasn't aware of professional football as a six year old and wasn't particularly sporty at that age.

A neighbour not much older than myself (could have been ten or eleven) asked my Ma if he could take me to a match and she agreed as I'd be out of the house for a while though I didn't really spend much time at home unless it was raining or my local mates were doing other things. I didn't know then that I was seriously short-sighted so couldn't really enjoy the spectacle.

My over-riding memory was playing kick about with some other lads at the back of the North Stand which was essentially a giant puddle. Remember the smells of liniment and pipe tobacco. This was early sixties.

Excellent thread you started there - Well done !

 

[StonehamPark]

I assume a typo error for the year

Yeah my bad, one year early.

 

[pearl]

I haven't a clue and sadly never will as my parents have forgotten when i first went or roughly how old i was and can't even seem to be able to offer a guestimate. (not even able to say if it was when we were last in the top flight or not)

My first memories were standing on an old yellow Heineken crate turned so that i gained the maximum extra height possible and still barely being able to see over the perimeter wall of the East stand (probably at around the half way line) but i have no recollection of any of our players or their names or who the opponents were to try to help narrow it down to a season as i would have gone to several games during it

I remember seeing the bloke who played Duffy in Please Sir with a beer crate on Hove Stn after a match at the Goldstone

 

[ManOfSussex]

A birthday treat just before my 9th birthday in 1987, so I was still 8, at home to York City. Garry Nelson's first ever goal for Albion settled it. The seat I had in The West Stand then was slightly different to my STH seat in The West Stand now.

 

[Shy Talk]

1955, verses Walsall. No idea what the score was. Seen a few since!

 

[Petunia]

It was nearly 30 years ago exactly...April 20th 1987
I was instantly hooked and have recorded details of every match I've been to since. Tonight is my 690th match

Blimey

 

[symyjym]

I was 12 and the match was Wolves FA Cup 1979, evening under floodlights standing at the fence behind the goal in the north stand.

I came in at the right time to coincide with promotion to the 1st Division and didn't have to suffer the decades of struggle to get there. Suffered since but not before.

All the kids going today will only remember Brighton being promoted to the Prem like I did back then. They were special times but reaching top flight this time round will be a new chapter in our history and we can put those old memories in the museum where they belong.

 

[Jam The Man]

Blimey

You should see my spreadsheet! Uwe's goal last night was the 1058th I've seen...

Dedication, obsession or insanity? You decide!

 

[Surf's Up]

January 6th 1962 v Blackburn Rovers (at the time one of the top teams in England!) - we lost 3-0 in front of 20,405 at the Goldstone and I was hooked.

 

[Morvangull]

Sometime in the autumn of 1958, aged eleven was my first game, but the first I really remember was the 4-6 home defeat by Middlesbrough that season with Dave Sexton scoring a hat trick in about 2 minutes for the Albion.

 

[Weststander]

Sometime in the autumn of 1958, aged eleven was my first game, but the first I really remember was the 4-6 home defeat by Middlesbrough that season with Dave Sexton scoring a hat trick in about 2 minutes for the Albion.

Would Brian Clough have been a striker for Boro that day?

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Hartlepool in the fan united game.... was the first league game

First friendly was against Spurs

 

[maltaseagull]

1963 on our way to Division 4.
Think we lost at home to Darlington. But the bug was caught.

 

[wigman]

February 1971, a boring 0-0 draw at home to Preston.

 

[Glawstergull]

Absolutely football mad in the mid-sixties. My Dad took me to The Goldstone on 28th August 1968 and that was it.

Hooked

A week later I was born.
That makes....both of us old.

 

[TheJasperCo]

Boxing Day 2004, aged 12, the most dull goalless draw against QPR in the most freezing conditions imaginable. Loved it - still got the ticket stub and the program from that day.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Spring of 69, vs Barrow. I was eleven, and my mate Andy was 11, and we took our younger brothers, Nicky and Graham (known as 'Case'), both aged 8. On our own. We walked to the Goldstone from Portslade, along the Old Shoreham Road. We stood behind the South goal. When we scored we threw our blue and white bobble hats, knitted by our mums, high into the air. It was possibly at that game that Kit Napier scored direct from a corner. The score was the same as the World Cup final which, at the time, seemed somehow important.

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

Living in Littlehampton at the time my Dad often took me to Pompey for a game as a treat and also to Saints when they played Man Utd and Leeds back in there early 70's heydays
Then a boy a year older than me took me to Brighton and I was hooked
Nothing ever came close to the North Stand as an 11 year old and 48 years later I still love this club and the atmosphere at whichever ever home ground we have played at

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I remember seeing the bloke who played Duffy in Please Sir with a beer crate on Hove Stn after a match at the Goldstone

Used to see him regularly. East terrace. Peter Cleall. Unlike his character he was a 'posh' Brighton College boy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cleall