Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊

Serious Question....



Worthingite

Sexy Pete... :D
Sep 16, 2011
4,959
Worthing
Just finished reading Build a Bonfire finally!!! I have a serious question for people, apologies if I offend with it, but.....

If Bellotti, Archer and Stanley hadn't done what they did....where do you think we'd be now? After reading the book, in a bit of a twisted way, I'm glad that those tools did what they did, and I'm very grateful to the people who campaigned for over a decade solidly for a home of our own. And I'm proud to be a Brighton fan now with everything we have, but I can't help wondering what sort of state the club would be in now without their underhand sale of the ground? Would we still be at The Goldstone, would TB and DK have got involved in the way they have, and would we have everything we've got now without everything that's gone before??

Sorry, it's probably a bit rambly, I've had a few and I'm tired!!!! Just curious to find out what other people think might have happened had those three not had their opportunity to screw the club?!?!
 

Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,171
In the field
Personally, I like to disconnect the two events. I know that without the Goldstone debacle without Archer and Belotti etc that we might not be so advanced now, but there is no way that I'm going to give those two any sort of twisted credit at all. The fact that we have ended up where we are now is totally testament to DK and TB, and that's as far it as goes for me.
 

bn1&bn3 Albion

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
5,623
Portslade
I don't know where we would be but one thing for sure is, without Archer and Bellotti, the stadium we have today would not have been so special. I still wish those ***** a painful death.
 

Leighgull

New member
Dec 27, 2012
2,377
The question has to be asked IMO. Everything happens for a reason and the club had pushed to the top flight from The Goldstone before...I don't think the infrastructure around the old place was up to us becoming a major force (unlike Falmer) again,but I would have preferred a more orderly restructure and avoidance of all the pain.
 

cloud

Well-known member
Jun 12, 2011
3,027
Here, there and everywhere
Those years were painful, but they make the current stadium and success so much sweeter.

Every single person who campained, lobbied, voted, fundraised and gave support can take some credit for where we are now .. in spite of Bellotti & Archer, not because of them.
 


upthealbion1970

bring on the trumpets....
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jan 22, 2009
8,861
Woodingdean
Those years were painful, but they make the current stadium and success so much sweeter.

Every single person who campained, lobbied, voted, fundraised and gave support can take some credit for where we are now .. in spite of Bellotti & Archer, not because of them.

^^^^^^^ what he said
 

Goldstone Rapper

Rediffusion PlayerofYear
Jan 19, 2009
14,865
BN3 7DE
It's not so much that they sold the ground, as painful as that was. It's more that they did so without the fans making the decision and without having a viable Plan B (as well as seeking to profit should the club go under). Generations of fans had been going to the Goldstone and would still be going to watch Albion play long after Bellotti and Archer were involved with the club. It was the supporters' decision to make, not these two.

I dare say that supporters may have come to a decision to sell the Goldstone as well, probably with a higher price. Just the way it was done, with lies about a new stadium (that amounted to nothing more than a drawing), no consultation on it or where to play home matches the following season that rightly stirred fans' anger.
 

Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 7, 2003
12,364
Brighton
Interesting question.

There's a Nietzsche quote that goes something like "what nearly kills us makes us stronger" and I think that is inevitably true of the Albion. That said, I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.

Where do I think we'd be? We'd either have been wound up by now, or we'd have a new ground - more like Colchester's - and probably sited at Shoreham Airport. We'd be a perennial League 2/League 1 team. Just my opinion.
 


Icy Gull

Back on the rollercoaster
Jul 5, 2003
72,015
I imagine we could have done a lot better without Stanley and his cronies consigning us to being tinpot for so many years. Something would have happened with the Goldstone, probably a sale that the club benefited from. TB may well have still got involved, whether we would have the Amex is debatable but I'm not in any way grateful for what those bar stewards did. Maybe new fans can accept it, but for me those years in the wilderness losing at least a generation of fans were not worth it. I'm pretty sure we would have done ok without being raped.
 

Goldstone Rapper

Rediffusion PlayerofYear
Jan 19, 2009
14,865
BN3 7DE
I think Tony Bloom would still have got involved with the club. His family's involvement go back generations. The wider public sympathy might not have been there, though, and the referendum result would have been a lot closer.
 

SULLY COULDNT SHOOT

Loyal2Family+Albion!
Sep 28, 2004
11,283
Izmir, Southern Turkey
I think it is a valid question to ask if the Goldstone needed to be sold. The issue is the WAY that it was done. It was so underhanded and what happened to the money... who actually benefited the most at the time? It certainly wasn't us! If the same process had been followed that Knight and co took in subsequent years and the seller had reinvested in the club then we wouldnt be having this conversation and Build a Bonfire would never have been written.

There were so many little tragedies... take Mark Beeney who left to save the club and a couple of years later it looked all for nothing.

Its a bit like saying we needed millions of people killed in the second world war so that we can live in the world we live today.
 


brixtonA23

New member
Aug 5, 2011
376
Good question.

On ITV4 they play The Big Match Replayed. And by pure fluke I caught a feature match Brighton 1979 and the comment that maybe Brighton would be promoted to Division 1. I was blown away by that, purely because the only available story of Brighton is on You Tube.

Brighton Hove Albion 1983 F.A. Cup Semi Final - YouTube

And that's the story I remember. Utter happiness to stand at Wembley with asbestos hats and flags and what seemed like 50 000 of the best fans in the world. And then the rapid demise to the brave few who stood with their flags to save our club.

But to your question. I'm not sure. There was a time for enough is surely enough, but that passed. Nobody stood up then. I hope and believe it was just timing and not finance or greed, nor self gratification.

The worst thing in life is to look over your shoulder and rose tint better times. Time to look forward. But still a damn fine question.
 

dougdeep

New member
May 9, 2004
37,732
SUNNY SEAFORD
All I know is that without our amazing fans there would be no club. I honestly believe that no other set of fans could have achieved what we did.
 

Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 11, 2003
59,071
The Fatherland
Interesting question. Part of me thinks that Bloom is such an astute guy that he would have tapped into the huge and at the time unrealised Albion fan base regardless i.e. had the Goldstone not been sold when it was he would have still stepped in and dragged us up to our current position but via a different route and set of circumstances. That said I am proud of what we achieved and an quite happy we have the histroy we have; it makes us different and makes us a proper club using the term club in the broadest sense. A few months back I was listening to the birthday celebrations of Radio 6 and Jarvis Cocker said that, whilst it is cheesy, Radio 6 are truly owe everything to their listeners. He added many stations say they only exist because of their audience but Radio 6's listeners actually campaigned to save the station from the axe. Same with us; we only exist because of us and that includes Bloom.
 


glasfryn

cleaning up cat sick
Nov 29, 2005
20,261
somewhere in Eastbourne
Interesting question. Part of me thinks that Bloom is such an astute guy that he would have tapped into the huge and at the time unrealised Albion fan base regardless i.e. had the Goldstone not been sold when it was he would have still stepped in and dragged us up to our current position but via a different route and set of circumstances. That said I am proud of what we achieved and an quite happy we have the histroy we have; it makes us different and makes us a proper club using the term club in the broadest sense. A few months back I was listening to the birthday celebrations of Radio 6 and Jarvis Cocker said that, whilst it is cheesy, Radio 6 are truly owe everything to their listeners. He added many stations say they only exist because of their audience but Radio 6's listeners actually campaigned to save the station from the axe. Same with us; we only exist because of us and that includes Bloom.

just this
 

withdeanwombat

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2005
8,688
Somersetshire
I used to get out sheets of paper and scale on the Goldstone site and try to rearrange the ground to take a new football stadium ,rotating the pitch about and fitting new stands etc.The site was an awkward shape and couldn't properly accommodate decent sized stands on each side.So then Goldstone Lane and Newtown Road had to go,and eventually the factories opposite the Goldstone on Newtown Road and behind the South |Stand had to be liquidated,and of course there were no carparks cos only Directors drove to games,and Hove station was right there.Besides,I lived near the ground and walked there.And I was only eleven and this was more than fifty years ago.
 

The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
The question has to be asked IMO. Everything happens for a reason and the club had pushed to the top flight from The Goldstone before...I don't think the infrastructure around the old place was up to us becoming a major force (unlike Falmer) again,but I would have preferred a more orderly restructure and avoidance of all the pain.

Possibly, but the reasons here were pretty nefarious, and not part of some great beneficial masterplan.

All I would say is, while echoing the sentiments of many on this thread, if we had remained at The Goldstone, I believe we would have had virtually zero chance of getting the stadium as Falmer.
 

jimhigham

Je Suis Rhino
Apr 25, 2009
7,691
Woking
The OP, as most on here agree, has posed a very good question.

Perverse as it may seem, the underhand way in which the ground was sold from under the supporters' feet helped us all in the long run. The circumstances of our eviction galvanised the fanbase who went on to create the template for supporters' protest. We have been blessed to have so many dedicated and talented people to drive the project along. However, it was ultimately underpinned by the thousands who gave voice to it and hence a national profile, which was badly needed to defeat the NIMBY impulse. Without that so much of what has followed would have been impossible.

And odd as it may seem, I suspect that thousands of us enjoyed the protests, the whistles, walkouts and marches. How many of us only really discovered how much we loved the club during the wilderness years? I know I did.
 


jonsey

Active member
Aug 5, 2011
363
North Sussex
Personally, I like to disconnect the two events. I know that without the Goldstone debacle without Archer and Belotti etc that we might not be so advanced now, but there is no way that I'm going to give those two any sort of twisted credit at all. The fact that we have ended up where we are now is totally testament to DK and TB, and that's as far it as goes for me.

could not agree more, those days are far, far behind us now. All the grief that those two idiots gave the club is History
 

cunning fergus

Well-known member
Jan 18, 2009
4,736
Just finished reading Build a Bonfire finally!!! I have a serious question for people, apologies if I offend with it, but.....

If Bellotti, Archer and Stanley hadn't done what they did....where do you think we'd be now? After reading the book, in a bit of a twisted way, I'm glad that those tools did what they did, and I'm very grateful to the people who campaigned for over a decade solidly for a home of our own. And I'm proud to be a Brighton fan now with everything we have, but I can't help wondering what sort of state the club would be in now without their underhand sale of the ground? Would we still be at The Goldstone, would TB and DK have got involved in the way they have, and would we have everything we've got now without everything that's gone before??

Sorry, it's probably a bit rambly, I've had a few and I'm tired!!!! Just curious to find out what other people think might have happened had those three not had their opportunity to screw the club?!?!



They were dark, dark days................the fact that we are basking in the sunlit uplands now should not deminish one iota the seriousness of the events that were unfolding 15 years ago.

We appreciate the relative freedom and peace we have in the West these days...............that doesn't mean we should thank Hitler.
 

Albion and Premier League latest from Sky Sports

Paying the bills

Latest Discussions

Paying the bills

Paying the bills

Paying the bills


Top
Link Here