Brighton & Hove has gone Albion crazy since last Monday 17th April.
But it hasn’t always been like that. As recently as 1998 the then Seagulls chairman Dick Knight had to almost beg the council to lend support to the club. Nowadays of course the council leader Warren Morgan is a Brightonian and of course a huge Albion fan.
Sadly though in their hour of need the council and the twin towns really rather turned their back on Brighton & Hove Albion.
To fight the unbeatable foe….….
SWEAT a group of Withdean and Westdene residents who 17 years ago campaigned against the Seagulls moving home to Withdean from Gillingham. On the basis that Albion’s fan to population ratio was not indicative of the upheaval Albion’s tenanacy might create.
And of course the Falmer residents who’s tenacious campaign to stop the Falmer development for many years did end in tears. Abley assisted by Lewes Coucil leader Anne De Vecchi and the occasionally annoying nasel drone of of rock superstar, but then Lewes MP Norman Baker.
Baker said lots of negative things about the stadium and offered little to substantiate his claims. He was representing the interests of his electorate he claimed. Most Lewesians couldn’t have cared less.
Falmer residents the Cuttress family however were appalled. The Albion were intending to flood their quiet,pretty little village, that the A27 and the Sussex University already discected, with a community football stadium half a mile from their pond. On land owned and bequeathed to the club by the council.
Albion won, twice but not without huge extra financial outlay and another generation of fans almost lost.
With Greggs now the main bakery outlet in Brighton and Hove and Forfars sadly a distant memory.
To bear with unbearable sorrow.…..
Almost exactly 20 years ago the Albion played their last ever game at the Goldstone. Days later the billdozers moved in. Fans young and old went along to the pay their last respects. In the years that followed in transpired there was no need to sell the stadium. It is likely when Foray 585 was put together as the company Bill Archer and Greg Stanley invested a £100. It is also likely the long term ideas were to change the articles of association hope no one noticed. Sell the Goldstone for a big fat profit whilst accidentally running the football club into the ground. Albion fans had to bear that, move on and continue providing support to the club. Those who did are just as much today’s hero’s as the players and staff who have achieved this promotion to the Premier League.
To be willing to give when there’s no more to give……..
Dick Knight who’s persistence and tenacity without doubt saved the Albion.
Knight negotiated with Archer for months in 1997. And he and his team including Martin Perry put their personal lives and in the case of Knight financies in jeopardy to bring Brighton & Hove Albion back from the brink extinction.
Even after the threat of demotion to non-league and football league expulsion had subsided, Knight had to finance a football club with no assets. Playing 70 miles away from their own conurbation with a fast dwindling fans base. Between 1997-98 the small percentage of young fans wearing Albion tops in the twins towns would have been ridiculed by those dreadful plastic Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United fans we all had to endure.
