The new season kicks off this Friday for the Arsenal and a new season means promoted teams. Newcastle bounce up and down so often it isn't really news when they are promoted again but the other two teams I am genuinely excited about seeing in the top flight again.
Huddersfield Town and Brighton and Hove Albion. Huddersfield, the Terriers. I loved their old stadium with its large terrace down one side and of course they were the first team to win the title three years on the spin, Herbert Chapman and all that. And Brighton? They may lack the history of the team from West Yorkshire but they've lived their own roller coaster ride in different seasons and I don't think many fans outside of Selhurst Park is going to begrudge them their first campaign in the Premier League.
Without looking I can tell you when the Seagulls first played in the top flight back in 1979 their first home game was against us and we mullared them 4-0 and no, I wasn't there but I did go to the FA Cup tie at Highbury later in the season when we beat them 2-0. The following season I saw us play them at Highbury again, this time in the League, and we won 2-0 again. I think this was the first time I sat in the Lower West and my only other memory was yelling 'don't shoot' at Graham Rix...as he drove forward looking to shoot. He shot, he scored and I didn't return to the Lower West for a few years!
The Goldstone Ground was where I watched my first ever football match back in 1973 when Brian Clough was still in charge and it was second ground where I got slapped. I had taken my younger brother down to see Brighton v Nottingham Forest and Gary Williams had scored a last minute scream to earn the home side the points. My brother was a bit of a Forest fan so I turned and, as most brothers do, laughed at him. He punched me and ran off! I spent the next several hours walking between the stadium and the station trying to find this errant 12 year old to no avail so I was forced to go home by myself wondering how I was going to explain to may parents how I had lost their number four son. All that nervousness, all the alibis, all the lies I tried to create were for nothing...he was sat at home watching TV wondering where I had got to!
For much of the 1982/83 season I was working Saturdays and still clinging to the belief that punk rock would make a come back much like an AKB faithfully clinging to the belief Wenger was lost during the move from Highbury and he will be found wrapped in bubble wrap in a store room deep inside the bowels of the bowl and is waiting to be found and lead us once more to glory. My weekend work, in a record shop, meant I couldn't of course get to as many games as I would have liked, Sky hadn't invented modern football yet, so I was stuck with mid week games when I could skip college knowing no once there gave a toss about my academic efforts anyway.
I parked my motorbike in the car park at Guildford station and made my way to Brighton via Redhill. We were shit in those days, we had lost two and drawn one of our first three games, and if a good team has a good spine we had George Wood, Chris Whyte and John Hawley. True, Terry Neill had splashed the cash pre season and brought in Tony Woodcock and Lee Chapman but we were still useless and the table didn't lie.
18 - Arsenal 3 0 1 2 2-5 1
19 - Norwich 3 0 1 2 2-6 1
20 - Birmingham 3 0 1 2 1-7 1
21 - Brighton 3 0 1 2 1-10 1
22 - Aston Villa 3 0 0 3 1-9
Brighton had a couple of familiar names in their line up with Gary Stevens later coaching in Thailand and Steve Gatting returning to Arsenal in a coaching capacity in 2007 and we of course had nothing and probably deserved to lose 1-0.
When I got back to Guildford station to collect my motorbike some bastard had cut the spark plug and me being a useless prick with anything mechanical I sat there like a twat wondering what to do next. I mentioned the old punk rock thing earlier. It was around this time my mohican had fallen off and I was sporting a number one. Along with my DMs, bleached jeans (thanks mum), and green bomber jacket I would often have nice policemen stop me on the streets and wonder what I was doing out so late at night. In the car park at Guildford station around midnight with me kneeling by my bike for once I was grateful to be seen by a local plod and once he ascertained I wasn't some car thief on the prowl he helped me on my way.
There was no such guardian angel for the Arsenal that season. We reached the semi finals of both the League Cup and the FA Cup, losing to Manchester United on both occasions. Me working weekends meant I could go to our League Cup games and FA Cup replays but ultimately to was to no avail. We were done twice by Ron Atkinson and his United team which included bruisers like Whiteside, Hughes, Robson, Moses and of course the first Judas, Stapleton.
Ten years later and we reached two semi finals again. This time we won them, reached the League Cup and FA Cup Finals and won them. Sadly, I had moved on to Germany and I celebrated Andy Linighan's last minute winner on the side of Germany's highest mountain. Brighton's journey has been just as interesting. They were forced out of the Goldstone Ground, played home games in Gillingham for a few years but now are back with what looks like a lovely stadium. Not sure if I will be able to get there this season but when I do it won't be with a motorbike!
No comments:
Post a Comment