TSLR057

TSLR

The Albion Fanzine TSLR057 March 2014

CLUB AND POLICE FAIL TO DEAL WITH OFFENSIVE CHANTS

AT THE AMEX COME ON OSCAR, GET

OBIKA ON THE PITCH!

£1

Inside: Moaning About Obika Moaning About The Fa Cup Moaning About English Football Moaning About Not Moaning Enough

the TSLR SHOP

Albion tat boutique www.tslr.bigcartel.com

Inside TSLR057

4.

Editorial 5.

What’s Hot, What’s Not TSLR057

6.

Calendar

The Seagull Love Review is an independent Brighton and Hove Albion magazine.

8.

Gull Delusion

Issue 58 / March 2014 The views expressed in the publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors, or The Seagull Love Review.

10.

Midfield Diamond 12.

Jem Stone 18.

Reviews

Thanks this issue to BM, BF, NB, JS, JT, AW, GE, RM, and TC

22.

Plastic Fans

Edited by SS and SS

23.

Meade’s Ball

Artwork/Photos by SS and DL Digital Publishing by BP

24.

Bitter ‘n’ Twisted 26.

Ich Bin Ein Seagull

tslr@hotmail.co.uk @tslr

30.

Carter

Up and down, up and down. As football fans we have the sort of mood swings that would naturally befall any supporter of such an inconsistant football team. After a while of not knowing if your Saturday is going to be full of joy or tears, you begin to just glaze over a bit. There’s nothing behind the eyes these days, just a void where once we knew swashbuckling flair and dreams of something big, or the opposite, the soul crushing constant of crap players and crap results in crap towns with crap pubs.

Time to take a step back and learn to live on your own Amex cloud. Skip through the concourses and laugh to yourself as you see the hoardes stuff pies down their necks with the mitigation, spat out with artisan crumbs, that we’re helping with the FFP effort. “You’ve changed” they’ll say, but it’s worth it. Blow up your Albion bubble and live in it.

Up the Albion.

S+S

What’s Hot!

What’s Not!

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned a GK coach before, but Ruben Martinez sits on the bench with an iPad. A ruddy iPad, at football. We are so big time now! That we’ve scored one goal? Or maybe he’s just playing Flappy Birds?

Technology.

The whole world was waiting with baited breath, no one more so than the national press. Then along came Hull City Tigers and spoiled it all. Gus Poyet Day was officially ruined. Rumour was it was even going to be an additional Bank Holiday. Ego.

With our defence tighter than a tramps hold on a can of special brew, it’s always nice to see a bit of Comedyfendingpopping up every now and then. Brezovan vs Hull City, what was that? Upson vs Wigan, what was that?

Lols.

The lad can’t catch a break, injured yet again. Craig Mackail-Smith seems to the worlds unluckiest man. If he tried to look on the bright side, it would probably burn his retinas. Sidelined.

When Mark Zukerberg created Facebook he already had a friend request waiting for him, from Rohan Ince.

Fact.

One for Flairniacs now. Jonathan Obika came on against Wigan to a series of groans, but he lit up The Amex with a dazzling dribble and pass back to their keeper before the pièce de résistance, an overhead kick. It was so good it hit the roof of The North Stand. An achievement never been done before.

He was duly rewarded by being rested from the Matchday squad against Millwall. Orbit.

It seems to be the big talking point at the moment. New rules to change football. FFP this and that. But we’re Brighton & Hove Albion, we do what we want. Paul Barber went and splashed some cash. Free ticket to each fan travelling to Hull, 50% merchandise sale to celebrate going out of the FA Cup and a letter in the post to each season ticket holder to say please renew. In your face £14million losses.

In your face FFP. Spending!

@BrettMendoza

Everyone can see that we can’t score goals. We only seem to score one goal.

It could ruin our Play off chances.

Then we signed Jesse Lingard to solve the problem. To be honest, if we want to make a serious challenge, we need to be making better signings than ones from comedy clubs like Manchester United. Charge.

People often say that repetition is boring and don’t be afraid of what is different. It is beginning to happen with us every game, time after time.

“Brighton & Hove Albion 1 (Ulloa)” was getting more predictable than John Terry being photoshopped into famous pictures. We need to change the record. Monogamy.

I hate it when referees change the outcome of a game. Player goes down in the box, not a single player or fan in the stand appeal for it, yet a spot kick is awarded. Makes me angry. What on earth was referee Geoff Eltringham doing giving us a penalty when Lingard went down in the box at Millwall? Sign a Man Utd player, you get ridiculous penalties. Simple maths.

Controversial.

February 2013

tslr calendar

5 February Albion’s accounts department obviously waited until the precise moment that TSLR056 went to print before publishing their now annual eye-watering loss figures. This year the sum amounted to £14.7m - the equivalent to 3.8m pints of Harvey’s; 44 Andrew Crofts (based on his transfer fee back from Norwich); 408,333 Ipswich Town away tickets or, er, 14.7m copies of The Seagull Love Review. We’ve said it many times before but Tony Bloom is emphatically amazing. Especially for an odd-speaking Antipodean little lizard man.

6 February The FA announced that the England women’s team would play a World Cup qualifier against the mighty Montenegro at Falmer on 5 April. You can rest assured the quality of football will be higher than that from the men’s team that day - Oscar’s men travel to Barnsley.

8 February Is it Adidas? Is it Nike? The ‘who will make Albion’s replica kit next season rumour-mill’ ramped up a notch this month. TSLR Towers is still hoping for the triumphant return of Ribeiro.

Chew on that, Puma. Keep an eye out for replica chewit shirt (1991-93) pin badges coming to the TSLR online shop soon.

17 February Every Albionites favourite Dutchman, Werner, Tweeted following the first leg of the Hull cup match: ‘Obika, waardeloze voetballer. Sorry, maar die gast kan er werkelijk hele-maal niets van.’ We’re

not completely sure what it means but we’re assuming it has something to do with ‘sorry, he’s not a footballer’.

Calling all Dutch linguists reading this, help us out.

21 February It’s almost as if Malcolm Stuart has snuck back into the Albion’s medical department, which isn’t an easy thing for a man of that size to do. News filtered through that CMS faced another setback from injury, the kind of thing that used to happen when Stuart administered ‘physiotherapy’ all the time. Incidentally, since retiring from Albion in 2009, Stuart has established his own private physiotherapy practice, check out his award winning website: www.malcolmstuart. co.uk

22 February Something weird happened at Falmer.

Despite the obvious disappointment of losing to Wigan at home, Spanish Dave appeared to play OK. Following the game, the Panoptic View blog won our completely unrewarded headline of the month competition with ‘Flairforce One’. We doff our flat caps.

23 February Albion’s recent one goal a game policy doesn’t seem to have extended across to the women’s team. In remarkable fashion, the Albionettes romped home 17-0 against Worthing Town in the Sussex Challenge Cup Semi Final. It must have been sheer embarrassment for the travelling Worthing contingent, who could at least seek solace in getting

absolutely hammered at the Sportsman during the match at Withers. With the half time score at 9-0, it’s a wonder that the Town players didn’t hit the bar during the second half.

24 February One thing we did learn from the first half at Hull in the second leg of the cup was at least we didn’t go up last season. Apart from the losing to P****e bit, it would have been a severely depressing season, week in, week out, in the top flight.

And didn’t we learn the lesson about Brez and the FA Cup fifth round in that terrifying match at Stoke a few seasons ago? It’s a bit of a shame that we won’t be digging out our famous ‘clackers’ for a Gus Poyet reunion this season but we’ll get our revenge.

One day...

26 February As with last season’s preposterous evening trip to Blackburn, this year proved even more of an ordeal to simply get in the diary.

Thanks to our involvement in the FA Cup (what did that get us exactly? A few extra quid I suppose, and some misplaced hope), it was announced we now have the excitement of visiting Ewood Park on April Fool’s Day. That’s right, a Tuesday night in Lancashire.

Any Albionite who ventures there - even if we’re still in the play-off race - can (and will) be described as a fool, in April or not.

27 February Jesse Lingard: we hoped the four-goal Birmingham City debutant who joined Albion on loan from Manchester United could be the new Brian Wade. More like the new Graeme Smith, judging by his Hoxton Fin haircut.

1 March The trip to Millwall may have been a little exasperating for those from the south coast but London Bridge drinking options quickly made up for it.

Was it the Market Porter?

Or the National Trust pub that claims to have hosted Shakespeare’s jottings?

Actually it was neither. Just a bit further away from London Bridge is a wonderful little establishment whose name we cannot divulge.

And despite the bar staff seemingly making their debuts, it was lovely and quiet at lunchtime and they didn’t mind football-shirted attire. Or a quick burst of verbal Solly March loving post-match. The Market Porter has never quite been the same since they chucked

us out for singing about Gary Hart to the barman who looked like Gary Hart. Sort of. Killjoys.

2 March Well at least GP didn’t win a trophy without us.

3 March A Dispatches documentary highlighted the grim biggotry that still befalls our stadiums in 2014.

Albion, shown as victims of such abuse were one of the key clubs featured, but sadly it was our administrators and Sussex Police that came out looking cowardly and uneducated.

TSLR supports zero tolerance.

6 March Burnley FC release screenshots on their official website asking Clarets fans, in confidence, to shop the homophobes featured in the aforementioned documentary. Fair play to Burnley, a progressive club from a town we wouldn’t class as part of the, ahem, Rainbow Nation.

12 April It’s that time of year again. Next month’s issue will include our traditional end of season survey. Keep an eye out on our Facebook page, your personal email we’ve pilfered over the years or @ tslr for details.

The gull delusion @GullDelusion

T

here’s nothing more frustrating in life than endless repetition; Reading the same stuff over and over again, hearing the same news reported in different guises with in-theknow quotes from different sources offering contradicting opinions. Financial Fair Play (FFP) is fast becoming the latest topic that everyone wants to have a word about, and by the time this goes to print you’ll have read several well-informed posts on the subject given the latest revelations that it might not all hold up in court anyway.

But being The Gull Delusion, the voice of the rational and clear thinking Brighton and Hove Albion fan, I couldn’t simply sit back and let this subject breeze by like another loan window without the prodigal 20 goal a season left-back. I’ve been casting a bird’s eye over The Argus, North Stand Chat and the Albion’s official Facebook page to see what the vibe is with FFP.

“Fpf noa ecxuses. Purporters noa renwew sarson tocket a na got pramera leaag.

Broom spynd munny sine lot ov plyers. ooo aaaa” …claimed someone on The Argus website (no, it’s not Andy Naylor’s guide to FFP).

I mean, maybe that particular one was down to too many Harvey’s or was haphazardly typed out on the Costa party bus on the way back from a recent special away day, perhaps, but really though, it sums up the opinion of an alarming number of Albion fans. I’ll translate for you… 1) FFP is no excuse 2) Supporters won’t renew season tickets if we don’t get to the Premier League 3) Bloom, spend your money and sign a lot of players.

“At this rate we’ll be a mid-table championship at best for the rest of eternity” …this again was spotted on The Argus (no, still not Naylor). Nothing beats a bit of optimism and more importantly realism… look forward to it ladies and gents, the rest of eternity.

A lot of the flack surrounding FFP gets banded about in the direction of messieurs Burke and Barber who are working to get the Albion’s latest financial losses down to the ‘acceptable’ level of £8 million. The jury’s out (don’t mention the court case) on Burke and his signings…

“give Obika bk to spurs if they say no bribe em with 4 highland toffee bars” – Official Facebook

“Burke can find his bargains like Grabbidan” – The Argus “we’ve made some poor signings in recent years, this is another one. We should go for Edwin van der Sar” – The Argus Barber however seems to be winning people over, mainly with his supposed transparency and willingness to interact with fans. Recently The Argus invited fans to log on to a Paul Barber ‘LIVE WEBCHAT’ which ultimately left some fans feeling short changed when compared to their usual webchat activities as Paul remained fully clothed throughout. Thankfully, in scenes reminiscent of Frost/Nixon, the big questions were asked…

“Why were the players dugout not protected from the rain with persplex cover?”

But that wasn’t enough for some and when one fan asked another for Barber’s email address the speedy riposte was “iamparasite.com”.

At the end of the day the fans know best, and these blokes on salaries of thousands a week apparently don’t know what they are doing. For one North Stand Chat resident the answer is simple, we should redevelop the clubs facilities, starting with

Bennett’s Field… “I would turn it into an urban farm”.

Meanwhile one reader of The Argus suggested we swap players instead of buying news ones which would lead to unparalleled success, starting with Ulloa for Stephen Fletcher…

“I guarantee promotion and possible top four in premiership the year after” And finally one wise old head pointed out that our free transfer dealings may not have been as low-cost as we believed…

“Just like “there is no such thing as a free lunch” there is no such thing as a “free transfer””.

The greatest delusion of all though, regardless of its connection to Financial Fair Play, is Keith Andrew’s hair.

“Cone on you Seagulls” TSLR

Cheats The Guardian lead the media in reporting on widescale and real challenges from Championship clubs against FFP. Have we been naive or is this just poor ethics again in football Midfield Diamond

N

ever, since the days of William Webb Ellis who reportedly caught the ball and ran with it during a football match in 1823, has anyone so blatantly disobeyed the rules of football for their own selfish benefit. I don’t know but I wonder if, despite inventing rugby through his actions, the young Webb Ellis was a big bully who didn’t like playing by the rules. I reckon in that sense, Webb Ellis might have been a bit like the ‘unnamed’ Clubs behind the recent solicitor’s letter to the Football League on the subject of FFP. Especially if he also threatened to beat up the games master who presumably tried to penalise him for his indiscretion.

If you hadn’t heard, it’s been reported (notably by David Conn in the Guardian) that a few Championship Clubs and one League One Club are disputing the legality of the Football League’s FFP rules. The letter threatens legal action if the Football League imposes transfer embargoes and fines on Clubs who fail to comply with the financial demands of FFP . These are the same Football League embargoes and fines that were agreed as part of the rules nearly two years ago.

My conclusion is that the Clubs disputing the sanctions must have broken FFP rules. We can all hazard a guess at who these rule-breakers may be. The word for those who don’t play to the rules is ‘cheats’. I don’t know if records exist on how shit Webb Ellis was at kicking a ball but I suspect that, like these Clubs, he thought the only way his team could win the game was by cheating.

And now, like Ashley Young trying to persuade the referee that there had been enough contact to send him tumbling, these Clubs are trying to get out of being disciplined for cheating. Incidentally, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person that initially misread the recent news about a court case involving Ashley Young, in which he was given a driving ban.

But whether these Clubs haven’t cut costs and maximised revenues sufficiently (which may still be the case with us of course), or have simply given FFP a good ignoring in an extravagant spending spree to improve their prospects of promotion to the Premier League, they haven’t complied with the agreed, established rules. The cheats should therefore be penalised in line with the same agreed, established rules.

I was always told at school that ‘cheats never prosper’. It would appear that William Webb Ellis did ok out of it. It also seems rather ironic to me that the game he started is one where the big boys get to ‘legally’ beat up small ones, the strong prevail over the weak, and standing up to the powerful could result in you getting a bloody nose.

Will the bullies pick up the FFP ball and run off with it such that we never see it again? Or will the Football League risk getting into a ruck with the FFP cheats? It needs to be the latter but I have my doubts. TSLR

“This trip wasn’t about falling out of love with the Albion. It was about recapturing the love for football as a game in its purest form – devoid of all the trappings of the modern game in Britain and in a setting where the fans are still at the forefront of what the club is about ” ’

Page 26

RAIN STOPS PLAY The kids are wearing Albion shirts, but that doesn’t mean they’re playing football. Poor weather has crippled Sussex’s already under-resourced football facilities. We get our wellies on and get involved. @JemStone

I

t’s midday on a cold but sunny Sunday morning in the first week of December and I’m taking down the football nets on Chailey Common in mid Sussex. Surrounded by trees its normally the home of dogs joyously chasing and fetching tennis balls all over acres of grass. Today there’s still the smell of bacon sandwiches coming from the fallen down club house as the Common’s four pitches have been home to games featuring nearly 100 boys playing competitive football.

All watched by a raft of volunteer coaches, refs and parents who arrived hours ago to mark pitches, place corner flags and clear up the odd tennis ball and anything else left behind after all that daily canine exercise during the week.

A group of lads from the team I coach are joking and shouting and continue to kick the ball about in the penalty area and I’m exchanging my usual banter with several of the unfortunate Palace and Forest supporting dads helping my carry balls and cones back to the carpark. My boys; the Chailey and Newick Colts have won 2-0 in our weekly match and are climbing slowly up the table in the lofty heights of the u11s Division 4 of the Sussex Sunday Youth League. A squad of 15 Kids from the local primaries who play mostly for fun not points, this a rare chance for them to get the experience and support to turn one day into a

future Lewes FC first teamer, a new Solly March or Rohan Ince or more realistically spend their teenage years keeping fit and having a laugh.

The dreams however are now on hold.

There’s a hidden group of victims who’ve fallen prey to this long long wet winter of gales, storms and rain. For three months now youth football in Sussex and the rest of the UK, where there are still nearly 35,000 youth teams, has come to a virtual standstill . Our Youth League website displays the words “Postponed pages 1-9” and I send out weekly emails with the subject line “GAME OFF - WATERLOGGED” to increasingly frustrated boys and parents.

In some ways, the FA has transformed youth football in the last decade. Nearly 400,000 volunteers now have the entry Level 1 qualification, me included, ensuring that teams with a qualified coach has risen from less than 1% in 1998 to 76% now. The FA have also in an unheralded move largely transformed how competitive football should be structured from an early age.

Perhaps they were influenced by Spanish coaches such as a certain Oscar Garcia who outlined his approach to The Times earlier this month.

“During a training session in Spain, all the kids have their own ball. When you’re a young player, 5, 6 or 7 - you have to touch the ball as many times as possible because your tech-

nique will improve a lot. The kid has to have his own ball. Until 9 or 10, you play on your own the ball, practising technique.

After 10 you can play small sided games on small pitches and after 12 or 13 you can move to 11 a side. If they play on big pitches, some will only touch the ball two or three times in 80 minutes. When kids are 5 they think they are the centre of the world. There’s no point in teaching them to pass at that age”

Progressive forces in football coaching, like Garcia, the overwhelming success of Spain and Germany in producing homegrown players has led the FA to gradually reduce pitch sizes and goals for younger age groups to encourage development. Changes such as smaller sided games of 7 players versus 7 at an early age, and then 9v9 , and only over 13s allowed to play at a full 11 a side on far smaller pitches should be applauded.

All U10s football in the UK now adopts the sensible Retreat Line Rule where players have to retreat to their half of the pitch forcing defences to play out from the back. The FA has, through courses and marketing, made some attempt to silence some of the shocking abuse from the side of the pitch targeted at young refs and even at kids from a minority of parents who should know better.

However an FA survey in 2013 found

that 84% of people cited “poor facilities” as the most pressing issue for the grassroots game. Its a difficult conclusion to dispute. As my rail replacement bus wound its way through Sussex to Three Bridges last week on my way to the Millwall game I saw empty pitch after pitch strewn with puddles, mud but no players.

We are lucky enough at Chailey to practice once a week on one of the few local 3G or artificial pitches at a local school. Its been largely unaffectedly by the winter but there are only a handful in the county and under 500 in England.

Not surprising perhaps when they cost nearly £500k to install.

The remainder of the county’s grass pitches are nearly all publicly owned and austerity’s impact on local government budgets combined with the now yearly extreme weather is an obvious constraint in our attempts to catch up with the kids in Barcelona or Madrid.

There is perhaps another place too look if as Greg Dyke insists; the premier league should give Roy Hodgson a greater percentage of English players to choose from. Although Premier League broadcast revenue is now an astonishing £5.5bn, a mere 1% of that goes back to the charity; Football Foundation; to improve facilities. Over time the government and the FA have in fact reduced, in real terms, their share of funding for

the foundation.. Something for Dyke’s commission now due after the World Cup to ponder. One things for certain. Garcia’s vision of kids touching the ball many times in a match hasn’t happened much in the UK this winter. Due to the poor playing surfaces they haven’t in fact touched the ball in a competitive match at all.

Its now early March and I’ve just finished an evening coaching. The boys, now mostly adorned in replica Albion kit where a few years back it was all Arsenal, Chelsea and Utd, and they forlornly ask me if there’s a game this Sunday. The forecast this week says mostly dry. Promotion from Division 4 could be back on. Dyke’ et al might even deliver in a few months recognising that well funded decent public facilities and coaching is the answer. Who’d have thought it ?

Sadly It will mostly come far far too late for those 100 boys at Chailey Common sat at home this winter playing Fifa. TSLR

I love the FA cup. Mainly I think due to never really caring about the result. Sure it’s obviously a good thing when we used to do well but it never particularly mattered to me if we won or not. We were never going to get to Wembley. It was always like a bonus fun thing that occasionally conjured up a quality away fixture to add variety to the endless games against Leyton Orient and Mansfield Town.

This year seemed different though.

For a number of reasons a semi-final at Wembley this season didn’t seem at all outlandish.

I cared about this game. I really wanted to beat Hull and get the chance to cheer/boo/ignore the evil one upon his return. Especially as I’d fancy us to beat Sunderland and then onto Wembley! Sweet. However I know little of this actual game. I was fairly drunk/bad memory/*usual excuses* I do know we played well though.

Just not well enough. Ulloa took his goal very classily. He’s probably a bit too good for us. Hull were better than I expected but really were there for the taking. A full strength team would have won that. Thus it’s a little disappointing that we didn’t play our full strength team. Especially as an insipid lethargic performance in the replay cost us the chance of a nice day out watching us at Wembley losing to Charlton in a dour 1-0 defeat. Probably by a comedy own goal. Again. Oh and on an entirely unrelated note watch True Detective if you aren’t already. It’s better than whatever your favourite show is. And get an NHS donor card as well if you don’t have one. End of random announcements. Up the mighty Albion. (#FFSSte)

It wasn’t vintage, it wasn’t pretty, it certainly wasn’t the last game at the Goldstone. It wasn’t anywhere as good as the first game at Falmer. But unlike so many at the new Withers this season we ended up with three points. You could read this for most recent Albion performance recently: we didn’t play all that but Leo scored and we all went home happy.

Most of the match was ruined though by a simple act of such blinding stupidity by the club in their now legendary pre match marketing emails. At no point is anyone allowed to use the compassion between us and Donny to promote official merchandise tat.

Now it’s not often that we even mention opposition players here at TSLR Towers but special mention should be given to poor Billy Sharp, as he is known around the Falmer area. That first ever Falmer era game, he crocked himself for most of the season. This time, he was victim to an awful sending off decision after missing a sitter early in the second half. Did he play for Southampton when they folded? For his sake, I hope not.

Leo scored our winner as we entered the last quarter hour - a textbook Ulloa header to deliver the points and establish the usual post match discussion in the North Stand Social Club about whether we’ll make the play offs this time or not. Ward had delivered the cross. The sending off and the massive yellow heavy away side gave us another conversation post match. Maybe. Just maybe. Not all referees at Falmer are shocking.

(Robert Codner’s Nose)

Who doesn’t love a rail replacement bus? Catching a train is so boring and reliable. Taking an ancient bus up Handcross Hill on the other hand is fraught with tension and excitement.

Fourth Gear? No chance. Third? Don’t think so. Second? Nope, no dice.

First? Maybe... ... we still have 200 yards to go the engine is seriously labouring... ... Get in! We have made it!

Unfortunately, the trials of the replacement bus were more exciting than the match, and the bus driver certainly put in a better stint than our hapless heroes in blue and white.

The less said about what happened on the pitch the better, really. However as this is a match report I do have to say something. Dodgy penalty, shit ref (but in our favour) and at least Millwall are worse than us, that is all.

Oh, and 1-0 to the good guys.

Drinking around London Bridge is good though, so it was a grand day out ruined by the football, yet again.

We really are spoilt for choice for good boozers up there. TSLR’s new London Bridge watering hole HQ is staying a secret though as it was thankfully low on queues which cannot be said for most of the pubs on an Albion away day. (Pantani’s Ghost)

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sk one hundred people to name something famous about (Kingston upon) Hull; The Humber Bridge, the Maritime Industry, good fish and chips and those mysterious white phone boxes would probably feature quite highly. Almost as attractive but not quite as high on that list would be Monday night Brighton and Hove Albion FC fixtures against Hull City AFC.

Why oh why would those sensible bods over at the FA think it was in anyone’s best interest for the Albion to kick off away at Hull fifty hours after we’d left the hallow turf at home to Wigan? Two games in two and half days? But more importantly think of the fans.

We were sipping our Harveys in the North stand social feeling slightly dejected (having just taken first division Hull to a reply), knowing deep down that our chance had probably just gone when the news began to filter through that the re-arranged fixture would be held seven days later. A mixture of scepticism and derision greeted the various twitter bods who were reading with some disbelief that the date for game had been set. And so to bed without a care, knowing the Albion were still in the cup and the game would be shown live on TV.

When waking having consumed

slightly more alcohol the night before than is probably good for you, you often get a little moment when your heart sinks having remembered committing yourself to something which at the time felt almost certainly like a good idea. Ten minutes later having checked every conceivable advance train route from the south of England into the East Riding of Yorkshire conurbation the reality of last nights ‘good idea’ was beginning to hit home.

Just as that five hour drive almost became too much to think about we were presented with a lifeline...the Albion announced that a number of fans would be chosen at random to accompany the first team on their flight. Rohan Ince was apparently co-piloting the flight but we’d still be able to drawl over Peter Brezovan’s devilishly good looks. Alas it wasn’t to be, from the looks of the press shots that accompanied the winners trip it was those pesky customers who blagged the free seats and the gorp at sexy Pete (if you’re reading; sorry ladies, but really, how much Albion club tat do you need to wear?

FFP).

Having successfully negotiated the M25 it was a relatively easy trip north (I know, I know, many of you do this every game). Humber Bridge, tick; white phone box, tick; police box (sorry wrong place); £15 free beer, tick; KC

stadium. It surprised me to learn that the KC is twelve years old. The KC stands out from its late 90’s/early 00’s stadia brothers; whilst it does have the era defining bowel feel, the upper tier of its main stand adds a welcome diversion. A bit like a mini Falmer with but with fans (admittedly in one section) who made a hell of a noise.

A moments grace as Hull’s noisy support realised the Albion fans had painted their own response to Dr Allam’s plan to change their club’s name; the orange and black banner spotted in the North stand a week before simply read ‘NO TO HULL TIGERS’.

The Hull noise belonged to the first half, they were dominant; we were poor. 14 minutes in a Davies header from a corner “looped over Peter Brezovan” into the top corner. Why Pete didn’t punch that ball over the bar is anyone’s guess. Frustration soon lead to a sober reality as on 36 minutes Hull were awarded a dubious free kick on the edge of the Albion box. From the stands it looked like Pete had made another howler. Half time confirmed a deflection and an offside debate but we were still 2-0 down and heading out.

The second half provided the travelling 486 (not 300 as ITV stated) fans with something to be proud of. Albion pressure led to players starting to believe; Lewis Dunk’s fierce effort rattled the crossbar in the best of the early exchanges. Hull on the counter were still dangerous but with the Albion looking a

different side Lopez put in an inviting free-kick which Ulloa rose highest to head home. 2-1.

Finally the Albion crowd had some belief. Our players had silenced Hull’s support and reduced them to some rather tired insults. Some dull homophobia led into “you’re so southern you’re practically French”, to which the Albion duly replied “Bonjour Bonjour, we are the Brighton boys”. #Banter.

Solly March replaced Ince for the final 30 and took the game to Hull. His enthusiasm and tenacity is infectious and is quickly becoming a player I love to watch. Oscar’s philosophy of quicker passing/attacking football which has often flattered to deceive this season seems to be grasped by March. He may not have Kazenga’s burst of pace but equally he doesn’t find himself marked out of games and sitting on the floor. Copyright LuaLua.

Ulloa had another couple of half chances, a shot from distance and header but it was March’s late run which had us dreaming of what might have been. Drifting in from the left, passing his man, beating two more Hull players and a gap in front of him opening; March found himself on the edge of the Hull box. The shot that followed didn’t do justice to his own run, and with that the Albion were out of the FA Cup. No Justice No Cup. TSLR

@tomysupercup

Real Plastic There was a time when the definition of a ‘plastic’ was quite clear, so why do Albion get tarnished with that brush? @BHAFConlyathome / brightononlyathome.wordpress.com

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s well as writing about football I also sometimes write about parenting. The other week I was invited on to a dad’s podcast by another parent blogger who lives locally. He is a very nice chap indeed but there is something slightly odd about him – he openly admits to supporting both Brighton AND Liverpool.

This sort of admission, at first glance, seems to be manna from heaven to the sort of Palarse supporting bores and trolls who inhabit social media. They claim we only sell the number of tickets that we do because The Amex is infested with people who only support the Albion as their second team. By inference this makes their own support more “pure” (something also claimed by other totalitarian regimes who’s supporters dress all in black and clap in unison with a crap drummer).

So is it really so unacceptable, in the modern world, to have more than one team?

Football, historically, is a working class game played at 3 in the afternoon because that’s when the mines and factories were closed. You were born, grew up and died in the same town.

Now cheap flights make “abroad” more accessible than ever and we migrate internally without thinking about it. So many British fans hop on a plane to watch Borussia Dortmund that their official twitter account is in both German and English. I have another friend who I used to go to Brighton games with, home and away.

He moved to Scotland for work and is now a regular at whatever Glasgow Rangers should be called these days and an occasional at Brighton.

The author Nick Hornby is well known as an Arsenal fan who wrote in some ways the defining piece of English football literature, Fever Pitch. Yet if you read the whole book he also admits he supported Cambridge United when he was at University there. Meanwhile, the other day, I was talking to a fellow dad at my son’s school who’s boy does football club in a Brighton shirt. The dad was originally from Manchester and is a City fan but he takes his son to The Amex so that his son can support his local team.

For me though, their definition of plastic is wrong anyway. They’re complaining about people who go to games. My definition of a plastic fan is one who occasionally wears a replica strip to watch a game in a pub. Who has never (or almost never) been to the ground of the team he “supports”. Who knows nothing of the joys of the smell of turf and burgers and stale beer, banter on the trains and queues for the bogs. Now, how many replica shirt wearers do you reckon there are in the pubs of Surrey in the average weekend?

Still the ultimate answer to the allegations of the Palace bores would be to take them on a tour of the West Upper on match day (though they’d have to be quiet). It is full of faces I recognise from the Goldstone, from Withdean and from when I still went away. It’s like a community reunited – and we would no more support a second team than say no to a second pint. TSLR

Meade’s Ball As assessments of Oscar’s recent reign go, there are many metaphors we can use to describe his progress. Or there’s the effort below. And that’s why we have fanzines.

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n my workplace, where I like to think I unpoignantly linger with more character than professional purpose, I had just now the Annual Professional Development Review that pinpoints my strengths and weaknesses for an audience of merely me before it’s signed. I’ve been where I am and nowhere more for close to a decade, and whilst that’s no wish for sympathy, I doubt right now to be anywhere else for the next ten years either, unless scandal strikes me and perhaps I’m found unclothed on the plastic-grassed roof of the beige building we own, holding the surprisingly warm, possibly recently thawed, body of the bony receptionist, Sylvia, who’s been missing for some weeks prior, one burningly bright morning, a necklace of her teeth scratching sharply at the quivering, nervy bulge that hosts my laryngeal prominence.

That, of course, won’t happen though. Sylvia I would bury elsewhere. Or turn to broth.

The APDR though went well, I think.

There were valid criticisms on punctuality – my tardiness I could blame only so often on a puncture to my two-wheeled wagon or for my claiming of carrying out some heroics of talking down old biddies from the wintry leafless canopies they’ve crookedly climbed to so slothishly late in life, to settle closer to the heavens – and of my desk’s rich web of squalid secrets and files so meant to retain their confidentiality but aren’t. But the majority of the synopsis of the paid me I was to okay was littered with faint praise, and I am rightly destined to appreciate just that. I’m to be mildly developed over the next twelve months, and not overhauled and reformed like when Tucker Jenkins became Mark Fowler.

I wonder if one day when all life is broadcast and recorded we’ll be able to tune in to the APDR of the likes of our current governor Oscar Garcia and possibly vote on whether we agree for his grades as TB looks on dressed at least in part as the secondary school teacher that haunted him most and made him a little of what he is. We’d watch Oscar’s unmoving face begin to tremor when TB played one of his Robbie Savage cards by saying something totally retarded from the perspective of a man who spent 3 weeks in post-mid-level-footballer media camp and had to both bribe his way through and speedily befriend the quiet but beefy Tony Yeboah to keep packed-lunch-thieving Tugay Kerimoglu at bay, but Oscar wouldn’t snap and bite the image of the 80s popstar-haired buffoon bait. I give that a 5. As I would for the most of Oscar’s answers, I think, each of them little more than a wink, a grimace and the unfurling of a folder filled with sweet-scented truths that Tony would slather over and gobble down, dreaming of a future feast.

The meeting would end, our cursors would hover over related youtube clips to see what might in the slightest be similar, and Tony and Oscar would stride off into the unseen, I like to think, to agree on another year together at least and natter over away breaks and who’ll tan the best whilst they do, just as my professional assessment did. TSLR

FA Cup Schedule There was plenty of spin surrounding our recent trip to Hull, and as such, the farce of UEFA enforced scheduling was somewhat overlooked. @Bitter_nTwisted

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I flatter myself to imagine I have regular readers given my persistent graveyard spot. I am old enough and ugly enough to take it on the chin. You were hardly likely to have leapt of bed this morning with a slight flutter of your heart overcome by the prospect of a Falmex matchday and the prospect of 500 or so words of wisdom from yours truly. This situation does have its advantages in that it allows me to crow on at length about previously well worn themes.

My homily this month is taken from the Book Of Exodus. The chosen people were certainly caught wandering in the wilderness (ie Hull) where the miracle count was bugger all nothing. Where is an Old Testament prophet when you need one? Now I won’t pretend that the sorry tale wasn’t a straightforward story of footballing capitulation from the first whistle. As the old cliché goes the best team on the day… Other aspects of the situation worry me significantly. Notably the contempt in which the average fan is currently held by the footballing authorities. Let’s go back a bit to a sepia coloured world.

The world’s oldest football competition is the Football Association Challenge Cup, a nomenclature since prostituted to the vulgarity of ‘the FA Cup with Budweiser’. The first competition attracted 14 entrants. It was won

by Wanderers who beat Royal Engineers 1-0 at the Kenington Oval in March 1872 cheered on by 2,000 excited gentlemen. Until that time no national football competition existed but it took very little time for the idea to catch on.

By 1887-88 149 sides entered with 19,000 spectators at the final. The attraction of a national competition played by men in baggy shorts

and big boots sporting heroic moustaches was obviously compelling to the Victorian public.

This left the Football Association as victims of their own success. How exactly were those who had gone out of a knockout competition early supposed to make ends meet now the demand for national football was established? Therefore in 1888, a full 17 years after the FA Cup kicked off, a league system was put in place, a poor relation to the full bloodied knock out cup competition.

Now how have the tables been turned so dramatically? How is that any team is expected to play two matches in three days? How is that 500 fans are committed enough to consider a round trip of over 500 miles to watch a game on a grim Monday night? And if the Albion faithful had just travelled 300 miles to experience the joys of Yeovil would that have been sufficient to rearrange the replay? Why is Cup final day no longer the showpiece close to the season? Somewhat inevitably there are more questions than answers.

For any club below the Premier League shake up a decent cup run adds excitement for the fans and adds a spring in the step of the players. There was no fixture pile up for either Albion or Hull only a TV listings pile up.

A showdown with Gus’s Sunderland should have been sufficient incentive for a decent cup tie. It is a gross insult to individual clubs, their fans and the world’s original football competition to force teams to play under unnecessarily stressful conditions. TSLR

“Will the bullies pick up the FFP ball and run off with it such that we never see it again? Or will the Football League risk getting into a ruck with the FFP cheats? It needs to be the latter but I have my doubts�

Page 10

jem ICH BEN EIN SEAGULL

Moving on isn’t going to be easy, the split was messy. But let’s think of the good times, not the bad. The Minor tries to figure it all out, often using examples of Greek mythology

Earlier this season a national newspaper reported as many as 1,000 English football fans are heading to Germany for every Borussia Dortmund home game. But it isn’t just the powerhouses of Munich and Dortmund attracting fans from these shores. We sent Brighton blogger and friend of TSLR @NotWorthThat to Berlin to see what all the fuss is about. He paid for his own flight mind.

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ust less than 48 hours after registering a pathetic score on The Guardian’s online Football Hipster test I found myself trying to navigate Hertha Berlin’s ticket website on my laptop, thumbing through a decade-old German-English dictionary and booking return flight’s to the German capital on an i-Pad – keen to rectify my lack of first-hand Bundesliga experience and hopefully boost my hipster credentials in the process.

The only European game I had been to was a Belgian top flight match between FC Lommel and Cercle Brugge KSV. It wasn’t the best advert for the Continental game. In fact, the only bit of the day I remember was an elderly lady sat a few rows

back stroking a cat throughout the match.

Like a Bond villain on a day off.

But I had heard the stories, read the articles and listened to the enthusiasm of the experienced European football goer. As someone growing more and more disillusioned with the increasingly corporate-driven nature of English football, I had long planned to give the Bundesliga a go.

Trips to Lewes FC’s Dripping Pan had been enough to rekindle the love for the nonleague. Real ale on the terraces, fan ownership, cool posters and t-shirts emblazoned with quotes by Tom Paine. But could it be replicated on a larger scale? I wasn’t going to find the answer in this country.

And so it was, a little less than a fortnight later, I was not travelling away to some far-flung corner of northern England to watch the Albion but instead sandwiched onto an S Bahn train – 80 cent bottle of German beer in hand – heading to the Olympic Stadium to see if Hertha Berlin could indeed live up to the Bundesliga hype.

Why Hertha? Why not Dortmund and its Yellow Wall or the football punks of St Pauli? The answer was simple. Hertha play in blue and white. Exactly the same shade of blue and white as the Albion. One such coincidences new football allegiances are born.

Berlin is a wonderful city. Full of history, self-awareness, culture and excellent food. And beer. Lots of beer. Anyone looking to tempt a loved one into a weekend away which includes a foreign football excursion could do worse than offer up the sweetener of a few days in Berlin. Barcelona may have the Salvador Dali Museum and Milan the shops, but Berlin has a real life bear living in a pocket park. You can sit, eat your bratwurst and watch an old, slightly arthritic bear ponder life little more than a few yards and a healthy hedge away. You can’t buy that.

But back to the football. Or fußball as those with a new phrase book tucked in their back pocket call it.

The walk up to the stadium from the train station is littered with sausage stall and beer stands as well as the old school unofficial merchandise which can still be founds near some of England’s more traditional grounds.

Think Anfield and cheaply printed t-shirts with Luis Suarez on them. Only better. These had big scary, growling bears. And pin badges. Lots of pin badges. Including, rather randomly, one of Brighton and Hove Albion and another of Lewes FC. It was almost like a web banner advert which changes to suit the surfer

As far as appearances go, the Olympic Stadium looks, well, a bit fascistic. Hardly surprising really, given that it was built for the 1936 Olympics. It has been adapted and modernised since. You won’t see any swastikas. But it is certainly striking. A wonderful piece of architecture which embarrasses the identikit stadia springing up all over the UK (The Amex aside).

Once through the turnstiles – a few pre match sausages and beers heavier – the football tourist is faced with an array of stalls, each manned by supporters from a different

section of the ground, each raising money for future displays and each selling their own merchandise. Think the NSK or South West Corner on speed.

My seat was in the section directly above Hertha’s Ostkurve, behind a goal. It cost about £12. Yes. £12. For a top flight match attended by around 60,000 fans.

The Ostkurve was in full voice long before kick-off – led by a manic uber fan armed with a loud speaker and a far better sense of timing and rhythm than most football fans.

There was no speeding through a club anthem here.

In truth, the match itself was little better than the Albion. In Adrian Ramos, Hertha boast the Bundesliga’s top goalscorer but one this occasion he was in fairly profligate form in front of goal. In midfield Hajime Hosogai played a similar role to the now-departed Liam Bridcutt while Fabian Lustenberger was a composed presence in defensive positions.

But this wasn’t about learning new names and casting an eye over previously unheard of players. That time would come later on BT Sport. This was about seeing whether football could still be the working mans’ game experience of yesteryear. The answer was a resounding yes. A thousand times yes. Constant singing, beer in your seats (none of which were sat in), affordable ticket pricing and a not a call to maximise revenue streams in sight.

I still love the Albion. They are still my favourite team in blue and white stripes.

Nobody will ever come close. I still have a season ticket and, thanks to the Albion’s excellent interest-free direct debit option, I still will next season.

This trip wasn’t about falling out of love with the Albion. It was about recapturing the love for football as a game in its purest form – devoid of all the trappings of the modern game in Britain and in a setting where the fans are still at the forefront of what the club is about.

Don’t criticise the Albion for their commercialism. Hate the game, not the player.

But if you do hanker for a more traditional day out, consider Hertha Berlin. They aren’t great. They only got promoted back to the Bundesliga last season. But they do represent much of what is good about German football off the pitch.

And if Hertha Berlin are too high profile for the budding football hipster, you can always opt for their second flight neighbours Union Berlin. Their tickets are even cheaper; their club shop is a small trailer backed by a delightful forest; three sides of the ground are terraces and you can get just as nice beer there.

And, with flights at less than £70 return and ticket for less than £20 readily available, a weekend jaunt to either of Berlin’s clubs isn’t as expensive a trip as you might think. Not when tickets for the Premier League can cost close to that one their own. TSLR

Carter On ... Matt Murray A bizarre entry from our loyal scribe. This month, a chance meeting with an old Goalkeeper who has little do with Albion at all. @CarterBrighton

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ichel Kuipers sees Alex Rae’s shot late, but gets down low to his left to beat it out. Kenny Miller tries to force in the rebound; FDM stretches again to block and gather the ball. Arguably the greatest piece of Albion goalkeeping - second only to Brezovan’s recent performance in the cup at Hull- played out again and again at the Amex as part of the pre kick-off montage.

Sadly, I wasn’t at Molineaux on that Monday night in November 2002 to witness Kuipers’ heroics against a promotion-chasing Wolverhampton, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

More recently, I did find myself at Wolves, for ‘An Evening with David Haye’. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of boxing, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of eating my dinner in a football stadium and listening to an interview with someone who reached the pinnacle of their sport. If anyone ever arranges ‘An Evening with Colin Hawkins’, I’d be all over that too.

Sat at my table was a man who was on the pitch that evening; I mean against us in 2002, not that he drank too much at dinner and ended up under the hydroponics. In fact, strictly on the water as he was off to do the match summarising at Leicester v Ipswich for Sky Sports the next day, Matt Murray kindly allowed me to badger him on working at Sky and as much Albion-related information I could extract from his memory.

Murray, who spent his career with Wolves, was forced into retirement at the age of 29 and at the time was regarded, in various

news articles, as ‘the best goalkeeper England never had’ - a statement now reserved for Brezovan. 2002-3 was Murray’s first full season and culminated in Wolves promotion to the Premier League after a man of the match performance by the goalkeeper in the Div 1 playoff final. The same season also saw appearances for England-U21s in a squad including somebody called ‘Bobby Z’.

But whilst Zamora went from strength to strength and made it to the top level, Murray was plagued with injury and only made one appearance in the top flight. Although, he did recover to have another exceptional season back in the Championship in 2006/7 and won the PFA Fan’s Player of the Year.

It was Zamora who scored Albion’s 15th minute goal in the Nov 2002 game, a beautiful left-footed lob over Murray, giving us a lead which Kuipers desperately tried to defend.

A frustrating game for Wolves, but not as much as the 4-1 defeat they experienced 4 months later at Withdean. I remember that one well, mainly as it was one of Gary Hart’s best performances. Murray remembers the Withdean Portakabins and it being one of only two games lost between January and May that year for the play-off chasers.

Bit bizarre to feature an opposition goalie so much perhaps; but talking about Bobby and Harty with a pro who almost got a hand to their balls was pretty exciting. I could go into far more detail as well – but I won’t mention Murray any more… TSLR

“Their definition of plastic is wrong anyway. They’re complaining about people who go to games. My definition of a plastic fan is one who occasionally wears a replica strip to watch a game in a pub” Page 8

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