Billy Seagull

Without wanting to get embroiled in a my dad's bigger than your dad argument, I'll have a go at answering some of your points. There reason it's built like it is, is all down to getting planning permission and the amout of local opposition from the local green lobby, NIMBYS in the neighbouring village and the Lib Dem council of the neighbouring Lewis district council where the coach park is built on. Bearing in mind the planning application first went in in 2001 you can see how close we were to the place not being built. To get round some of this opposition they had to design it to sink into the land and the hill which it sits on, hence the lopsided look. They also had to limit it to 22,000 seats, part of the opposition argument was that we didn't need a stadium that size given our attendences at withdean and gillingham. The club management and architects actually pulled off a masterstroke when they left the gaps in the corners and opposite the main stand, nobody realised at the time that they'd actually built a 30,000 seat stadium and filled it with 22,500 seats. Thre are no brownfield sites in Brighton at all, it really was this or nothing. It looks wierd inside, but better to look wierd now with ability for the club to grow in the future. The cost of £90 mill includes everything from legal costs to money spent on local infastructure. It also cost alot to excavate the millions of tonnes of chalk from what used to be the hill where the stadium sits now. Apparently just the stadium part was more like £60 mill. None of the money is from bank loans, it was supposed to be but all the banks were going bust when they were finding money, hence the whole lot coming from Tony Bloom's back pocket. Transport isn't as bad as people are making out. I normally stay for a pint after the game and then walk straight onto a train, but when I have left on the whistle the most I've queued for was 40 minutes after the Liverpool game which admittedly was a shambles. It is getting better. Some of the comments comparing it to Colchester or MK Dons are laughable. Had you smashed us 0-3 like you were supposed to I'm sure you wouldn't be quite as harsh.

Usually just a lurker over here but wanted to chip in on this one. I think other than a handful of internet keyboard warriors and a few people who still hold a grudge from '78 most Albion fans don't have a problem with Saints. Fan The Flames has made a very good point, our fans over the last 10 years or so have a history of going the extra mile to have a pop at other teams, I think it's easy to confuse that with having an actual proper dislike. Chesterfield still hate us because everyone turned up with brown envelopes at a match after their bung scandal, incidentally we were promotion rivals at the time. There was a fake rivalry with Reading for a couple of seasons when Pardew nicked alot of our players, and incidentally we were promotion rivals at the time (can you see where I'm going with this). I remember in about 99/00 going to Ninian park and someone had actually bothered to make a banner that just said "baaaaaaaaaaa" and had a picture of footballers ****ging sheep. Give it a couple of of seasons and there will probably be someone else, it's nothing personal, it does seem to be a bit of a habit. As for the palace rivalry, say what you like about it but it is real. It might not have the undercurrent of non football stuff like you and pompey (shipbuilders/navy) west ham millwall (dockers) utd liverpool (dockers again) etc etc but it's still a big match for both sides. I don't expect any of you to give a ****, but this is a decent article if you can be bothered to read it http://www.palace-echo.net/bha1.shtml As for football, it's good to see both promoted sides have a good start. After the game at Withdean last season I always thought you lot would do well given the size of your team and the physical nature of this division, I think you're nailed on for play-offs, hopefully we'll be there or thereabouts but it's early days yet.