Up the Albion!

Mark Brailsford shares his season highlights

At season’s end, as thoughts turn to beaches and summery pursuits, football fans around the country begin to put to bed the ups and downs of the league campaign just gone with mixed emotions. Some fans will be trying to forget the crushing disappointment of relegation. Others will be planning for play-off matches with dreams of Wembley Way dancing in their dreams.

So how do Albion fans fit into all this? A top ten finish after promotion to one of the toughest leagues in Europe is excellent progress and despite the play-off campaign petering out with a tinge of regret, it was quite a turnaround from the mid-autumn slump that had some fans looking nervously at the bottom half of the league rather than the top. The key points of the season are too many to list in one column, but here are my top ten moments of a marvellous first season at our amazing new stadium.

Season highlights

1 That emotional first match against Doncaster Rovers, losing 0-1 at half time and with minutes to go, a writer friend of mine said: “We’ll win, it’s in the script.” When Will Buckley scored the winner, even atheists wondered if there was a God.

2 The first away victory, this one against Portsmouth, winning 1-0 and then Portsmouth hitting the post with a last minute penalty; hilarious.

3 The defeat of Premier League teams Sunderland and Newcastle at The Amex. Deserved against Sunderland, fortunate against Newcastle but look where Newcastle are now!

4 Watching Albion match Liverpool in the second half of the League Cup game with Suarez and Gerrard on the pitch at The Amex. How far the Albion have come.

5 One of the best games and yet Albion lost: Down to nine men in the first 15 minutes then going 0-1 down to Burnley, Albion fans found their feet and their voices in the new stadium and a stirring fight back had everyone marvelling at Albion’s spirit, both on and off the pitch.

6 Vicente. Everything he did oozed with class and majesty. To see such a player grace the blue and white stripes will be a memory that many will treasure for years.

7 Beating Southampton 3-0 so comprehensively at The Amex with a stupendous goal from Sparrow and a goal from a gifted youngster, Jake Forster-Caskey. Many a beer was raised after this result..

8 You might be surprised to see this one: the match away to Liverpool in the FA Cup. The moment Kazenga LuaLua scored with that free kick and for a while at least, parity with Liverpool at Anfield. Until that forgettable second half, Albion looked rather good and older Albion fans marvelled at how far the club have come since that day at Hereford in 1997.

9 The Stadium. Most teams struggle when they move to a new ground, not the Seagulls. Albion supporters had waited so long for what for some time seemed an unrealisable dream. Yet here we were, watching a team playing sumptuous football in a stadium with an actual roof! (The beer and pies helped too).

10 Finishing ten points ahead of Crystal Palace! (YESSSSSSS!)
If you thought this first season at The Amex was special, just wait. Next season promises to be even better.

Mark Brailsford is starring in The Treason Show at The Latest Musicbar, Wednesday 23–Friday 25 May, and in Hanover – The Musical, 5–27 May (Saturdays and Sundays only). Tickets from the Fringe box office:
01273 917272, www.brightonfringe.org

Photo: copyright – Paul Hazlewood