The last time Albion played at home in the top flight – on Saturday 7 May 1983 – was coincidentally against Manchester City. Much has happened since then.
1) The twin towns of Brighton and Hove became a city in 2000 with the Queen bestowing the status as part of the millennium celebrations.
2) The bypass has scythed through the downs west of Toad’s Hole Valley, continuing through Hangleton Bottom and on to the site of the old West Hove Golf Course now occupied at the southern – club house end – by Sainsbury’s.
3) Preston Park Station has reduced from four platforms to three after a fire at the main Brighton signal box in 1985.
4) Various festivals, including Party in the Park, Pride, Shakedown and Fat Boys Slim’s Big Beach Boutique, have livened up a once conservative city.
5) House prices in Brighton and Hove are now comparable with London. In 1983 a three-bedroom house in central Hove would set you back around £28,000. Nowadays you could expect to pay at least 20 times that. (Transfer fees have rocketed too.)
how about burned pier?
Yes what about the west pier that the council neglect to look after, after they closed it in 1975. 42 years now and look what we got a donut which cannot run properly. It should be called the jam donut after the amount of times it got stuck.
The council didn’t own the West Pier. Nor does it own or run the i360.
The council did own the West Pier but in the 1970s it sold it to the West Pier Trust for £1 after having failed to maintain it for years – cf the Madeira Terraces, the Royal Pavilion for many years, Black Rock, Stanmer House and the King Alfred. Much as I prefer the West Pier to the Palace Pier, the latter was privately owned and better maintained.