We All Follow the Albion

The sun is proudly sitting in a clear blue spring sky. All the clouds are burnt away and nothing is getting in the way of the warmth bringing joy to the world. My weekend has been a good one. Yesterday mum and I went into town and she bought be a Rolling Stones songbook, a punk songbook and one that contained a load of 80’s indie songs. This contained ...

Brighton and Hove Albion ended their 2018/19 campaign with a 4-1 loss at home to Manchester City on the final day of the season, leaving them on 36 points and manager Chris Hughton without a job. It had been a serious regression from a debut season in the Premier League that had shown real signs of being a good platform to build from. Transfers had flopped, squad morale was through the floor, the attitude and style of football was negative and a particularly poor ...

No-one has given me a hard time for weeks. School feels totally different to me now.A few weeks ago I would worry about being picked on by Kim and her friends, Whitey, Flints and that lot or any other random group from almost any year in the school. Well maybe not third years, even I am not quite pathetic enough to be bullied by third years. I suppose it still being early in the year they are all terrified of school too. Anyway, I used to fear it happening and often it would. There is nothing like telling yourself that something won’t happen when you know full well that you are lying. Now though I am beginning to believe myself when ...

“Songs about happiness murmured in dreams. When we both of us knew how the ending would be”


The day has left me shaking. I can’t tell if I am happy or sad. Something has changed.

Barely even answering mum as she asks me how my day was I make for my room and more importantly my guitar. I start to play but something is wrong, I can’t concentrate. All afternoon I have thought about two things. Firstly getting home to play my guitar, this is what I always do when I have a rough day. The other thing is going round to Manny’s house tonight. I don’t have all the details I need. I don’t know who will be there. I know where he lives because he scrawled it down ...

I am not sure when it started, or how. They are all laughing. I can feel the high pitch needles of laughter piercing my brain. I can see them looking over at me out of the corner of my eye and I just pray that it will be over soon. As they get closer I can feel their cheap bitter perfume filling my nostrils and clouding my brain. My thoughts are disrupted as the smell and laughter mix with the general classroom white noise and push me insistently towards a meltdown. I feel them crowding around me and try to look straight ahead.

I don’t understand any of this situation, I have never understood what they get out of it. They obviously enjoy it. Kim is screeching ...

“I want to be in a band. When I get to Heaven.
Anyone can play guitar,
and they won’t be nothing anymore.”

“His latest obsession.” That’s what my mum calls it. Always with that slight rolling of the eyes that hurts my heart. Mum says that I have to understand that she and dad have seen so many obsessions throughout ...

I didn’t make it back to school for a few days. mum wanted to storm up there and talk to the head! But I begged her not to. I don’t want any fuss made. I told mum that I probably just left my book somewhere. I know I didn’t... one thing about my obsessive brain is that I always know where my stuff is. If there is ever a time when something of mine is not where it should be (even if I am using said thing myself) my brain constantly monitors the situation until I can put the thing back where it belongs. As I write this, a small part of my brain is solely concentrating on reminding me to put the book ...

"Everywhere I hear the sound of marching charging feet, boy.
Because the summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy."

My acting immersion plan was far from perfect and today was one of those days where it was far from that. I have created characters that can interact with most of the adults in my life. Adults were relatively easy because they were mostly consistent. They mostly want to and tried to help me. Some of my teachers were impossible but from what i could work out they were impossible for everyone. A few of the kids at school were possible to interact with, as long as I didn't make any mistakes. Girls were another story, it was going to take me an age to work out what they are all about. When I was younger I usually found girls easier to get along ...

End of July. Normally, I’d be writing my season preview about now. The previous season would have finished in May in either spring heat or an unseasonal downpour, with a half arsed lap of honour, beer, handshakes and hugs in the bar afterwards and one final moan about train queues and sing-song on said train.

NSC would have been through several rounds of transfer market angst, including at least three posts that said “just sign a striker. ANY striker. HOW HARD CAN IT BE?” (the same posters then nowhere to be seen as the 15 million pound Dutch answer to Mark Farrington stunk out every single game). We’d ...

After the final game of the Premier League before lockdown finished on March 9, Brighton & Hove Albion were hovering dangerously above the relegation zone, just two points above the drop and without a win in 2020.

Fast forward four months, and only four games, and the Seagulls are seemingly completely out of trouble. The 1-0 triumph at Norwich was the most important result ...

Saturday. And not just any Saturday. “Super Saturday”. When the children of the future study the significant and vaguely horrifying year of 2020 there might just be a little footnote about 4 July 2020 mentioning it was the day that (spoiler alert!) Brighton effectively stayed up at Norwich. Sorry, I meant the day that lockdown in the UK was eased to its most relaxed since March with the reopening of some ...

If you’d asked me, back in December 2019 when we beat Arsenal away, what I’d be doing in June 2020 the answer would have been obvious. Whilst it probably would have been sunny outside I would have been sitting on my sofa watching football with The Boy, perhaps with a cold drink in my hand. I would, however, have been thinking about the massive travelling circus that was going to be Euro 2020. Teams. WAGs and press travelling the continent and racking ...

The talk right now is all about how, when and if the Premier League will return to finish the 2019/20 season.

Whatever happens here, teams will need to know where they stand shortly, if they have met season expectations, and what league they will be playing in next season.

This is going to be an incredible and very strange summer period for many different reasons, and that looks set to have a big impact on the 2020 summer transfer window. ...

If Only Tonight We Could Sleep - 1989

I don’t mean to upset mum but that doesn’t override the fact that my shirt and tie are strangling me. We’ve arranged with the school that I don’t need to wear a tie, so why do I have to now?

“Please, honey,” says mum, her voice wobbling through her gentle flowing tears “Just for today. Alan, just for today”

She moves her eyes down ...