Goldstone Memories - 1964/65

[Spencer Vignes]

A fantastic thread of contributions over the past couple of days. Thanks for all your comments and memories. We'll do it again ahead of the visit of Wolves next week, focusing on a different season from the Goldstone years (I'll post details late Sunday/early Monday). Feel free to connect with me [MENTION=23620]Spencer[/MENTION]Vignes if you're into the modern way. If a technophobe like me can get their head around it, then anyone can.

 

[AnotherArch]

A great season when we scored 102 goals in our promotion run. All 5 forwards as they were known then in the W formation reached double figures. The only down side in that season, was losing one of the best players I have seen pull on an Albion shirt in a car crash, when Barry Rees was killed, he had only played 12 games after signing from Everton.

In fact there were SIX forwards who scored double figures. Bill Cassidy was the reserve (no subs in those days) who used to stand in for injured forwards - usually Bobby Smith. He was a bit of a joker on the pitch.

 

[AnotherArch]

Get Norman Gall to recall his winner against Tranmere. He did not score many, but that was very important on that day. We overtook the pacesetters Tranmere then and never looked back for the rest of the season.

 

[Hiney]

We were never known as "The Shrimps".

Here is Tim Carder's article from Issue 12 of Albion Chronicle - the magazine of The Collectors & Historians Society. I've lost the pictures that accompanied the article and I hope the text makes sense after the transfer from PDF.

SHRIMPS, DOLPHINS AND SEAGULLS! The History of the Nicknames and Badges of
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. by Tim Carder
(I have been asked so many times by people doing books and websites on badges and nicknames about the Albion that I thought I’d put together a brief article on the subject. Perhaps we could make this no.1 in a series of BHACHS Factsheets.)
October 1950: the Brighton Standard, the unofficial media outlet of the Supporters’ Club, launched a competition for a nickname for Brighton & Hove Albion. Yet reference books of the era quote the club’s nickname as Shrimps. So why was a competition needed?
Because ‘Come on you Shrimps’ was never heard at the Goldstone Ground, the home of the Albion for 95 years from 1902 until 1997. How do we know? Well, it was never referred to in the local newspapers or club publications. Charlie Webb, who was a player and then manager from 1908 until 1948, said that he had never heard it in his 40 years with the club. And most importantly, there is no suggestion in interviews with supporters from the 1920s onwards of a connection with shrimps – and a legitimate nickname must surely be used by fans en masse and with familiarity.
In any case, why would the club be associated with shrimps? The fishing industry was a major contributor to the local economy for centuries, although its relative importance waned from the early 19th century. In 1902, the year after the club was founded, there were 88 boats operating from Brighton beach landing herring, bass, mullet, sole,
mackerel, cod, etc. — but not shrimps, which thrive in the mudflats of Morecambe Bay, The Wash and the Thames Estuary. There was never a shrimping industry of any significance in the area, if at all.
And ‘shrimp’ is a derogatory term for something or someone small and insignificant. Why would a club or its supporters want a nickname like that? In 1960, for instance, a Lancashire newspaper carried the headline ‘Shrimps on the Menu’ when referring to Albion’s F.A. Cup tie at First Division Preston North End! The Brighton Evening Argus noted then that the club has never been known as Shrimps. It would be a particular problem against Southend United as they are the Shrimpers (from the local shrimp industry at nearby Leigh-on-Sea). Imagine a shrimp on a club badge!
So Shrimps, whatever the reference books say, was never a nickname for Brighton & Hove Albion. Why it was ever believed to be is not known, but the mistake perpetuated down the years. The crowds at the Goldstone would simply shout for the Albion, or perhaps occasionally for the Seasiders or maybe the Stripes (as did followers of other coastal or striped teams).
By 1950 many of the club’s regular opponents in the Third Division (South) had well-known nicknames, perhaps reflecting a local industry: Newport County (Ironsides), Northampton Town (Cobblers), Reading (Biscuitmen); or maybe the colours of the team: Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic (Cherries) and Norwich City (Canaries); or employing a convenient animal symbol like Millwall (Lions) who played at The Den. The numerous examples of other clubs probably gave rise to the desire for a genuine nickname for the club.
The 1950 competition brought forward a number of good suggestions – Dolphins, Holidaymakers and Seasiders – but the winner was the contrived Brovions, derived from Brighton and Hove Albion. The new name was used by the crowd on 9 December 1950 but, needless to say, it didn’t catch on.
Twenty-two years on, in the summer of 1972, the club itself held a competition for a nickname. This was prompted by advice from the Football League that, in order for clubs to obtain copyright and/or trademark protection with a view to increasing commercial revenue, they should design new badges excluding all heraldic aspects.
Through the Evening Argus, the Albion directors asked supporters for their suggestions for a new nickname, with interesting results. Some reflected the maritime location – Coasters, Mariners, Seasiders – while others referred back to Brighton’s rise to prominence under the Prince Regent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: Regents, Sovereigns, Bucks, Royals. Birds provided a number of choices: Bluebirds, Swifts, Seagulls and Martlets (a martlet was an heraldic bird used in the arms of Brighton, Hove and Sussex). Other suggestions included Southdowners, Goldstoners, Sparklers, Gems and Diehards, but by far the most popular choice was Dolphins. The friendly aquatic mammal had a topical theme locally because a popular dolphinarium had opened at the historic Brighton Aquarium in 1969.
The Albion board agreed to adopt the new nickname and commissioned a new club badge with a dolphin motif, but the matter was low priority and a new insignia was not introduced straightaway. In 1974–75 each matchday programme sported a photograph of a dolphin. The following
season the first
programme
displayed the new club badge on the front cover, a silhouette with the legend ‘The Dolphins’ (but not worn on shirts).
Some fans did take up the cause
of the new nickname, while the club
issued a number of souvenirs
reflecting it. The new badge
remained on club stationery until
1977. However, it never won mass appeal, with Albion still far and away the most popular familiar name.
The situation changed in 1975–76. The club was challenging for promotion from the old Third Division alongside Crystal Palace; the great modern rivalry between the two sides had begun the previous season. Palace, once the Glaziers, had adopted a new nickname already, Eagles. The massed cries of ‘Eagles, Eagles!’ reverberating from Palace fans around Selhurst Park had left a lasting impression on their Albion counterparts. Somehow, ‘Dolphins, Dolphins!’ would just not have worked!
On Christmas Eve 1975 a group of Albion fans were gathered in the Bosun pub (now the Shark Bar), no.57 West Street. Among them was Derek Chapman who later became a club director, but it was Lee Philips who came up with a new retort to the impressive Palace chants: ‘Seagulls, Seagulls!’, reflecting again the coastal location of Brighton and Hove. Ironically, Seagulls was one of the suggestions in the 1972 competition.
The cry rapidly caught on with other supporters, coming into its own at the big Goldstone clash with Palace on 24 February 1976. With 33,300 rival fans packed into the ground, the atmosphere was tense as Albion secured a superb 2–0 victory in the race for promotion. The cries of ‘Eagles, Eagles!’ from the visiting supporters on the East Terrace were drowned out by ‘Seagulls, Seagulls!’ from the rest of the arena, especially the North Stand. At last the Albion followers had found a genuine nickname for themselves, used en masse.
The team has been known as the Seagulls ever since. The seagull image and rallying cry helped to cement the growing bond between the club and its burgeoning support over the next few years. A whole range of souvenirs soon came out sporting the new image, and in 1977 the club badge was officially changed to a seagull silhouette to reflect the fans’ choice.
In fact it was the first time that the team’s shirts sported a badge on a regular basis.
There was no shirt badge at all from 1901 until 1948, when manager Don Welsh introduced the first change to the kit since blue-and-white stripes replaced the original ‘fisherman’s-blue’ shirts in 1904. The new badge was a combination of the arms of the twin
This traditional badge was used sporadically on the team’s shirts until 1970 (although the youth team shirts continued with it thereafter). There was also a hybrid emblem employed by the club on programmes and stationery – but never used on shirts – which incorporated the shield of Hove and the dolphin crest of Brighton; and other variations on this theme for lapel badges.
In 1958–59 the shirt badge was a shield emblazoned with a calligraphic representation of the club’s initials. Initials were used on shirts twice more: in 1968– 69, with the somewhat odd ‘B&H FC’, and in 1970–71 with the more accurate ‘B&H AFC’.
The new seagull roundel first appeared on the team shirts in 1977 and remained, with a few variations in colour, until 1998. It was used on all manner of memorabilia, both official and unofficial, as well as other images of the now famous seagull.
The nickname and the football club are now inseparable. The club programme has been known on and off as Seagull Review or The Seagull, and the official website is www.seagulls.co.uk. Gully was a popular mascot in the early 1990s in a comical seagull costume.
It is perhaps ironic that such a hugely popular and successful nickname and image originated not as a result of organised competitions and directors’ decisions, but as a relatively spontaneous reaction by supporters to the ‘threat’ from the club’s greatest rivals. Seagulls – never just Gulls – has been a part of the Albion for more than a quarter of the club’s lifetime, and it is hard to imagine Albion life without the friendly avian symbol. In 1998, though, the roundel was replaced by an new shield badge, introduced by new chairman Dick Knight following the bitter ‘civil war’ for control of the club in 1995–97. It was seen as perhaps being symbolic of a new start for the club.
In 2001, Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. celebrated its centenary year. From 1 January the team wore a special centenary shirt (which lasted until April 2002), sporting not the seagull badge but the arms of the two towns of Brighton and Hove once more. For 2002–03 the seagull shield reappeared on shirts, with the arms insignia on the back.
There is one other nickname worth recording. The
reserve team was formed in earnest in 1903, and became the special love of Noah Clark, a generous and hard-working director for 25 years. The story goes that, in those very early days when sheep were still grazed on the Goldstone turf during the week, the gambolling of the spring lambs prompted a friend to telephone Clark with the message that his favourites were chasing around the pitch! The reserves thus became known generally as the Lambs, a monicker that stuck until the Second World War. Another nickname for the reserves, which is occasionally still heard, is the Stiffs, but this was also used by many other clubs. This is probably derived from the stiffness of a corpse, thereby coming to mean a good-for-nothing or second-rate group of players.

 

[AZ Gull]

Here is Tim Carder's article from Issue 12 of Albion Chronicle - the magazine of The Collectors & Historians Society. I've lost the pictures that accompanied the article and I hope the text makes sense after the transfer from PDF.

 

[Spencer Vignes]

Funnily enough Norman Gall will be recalling that goal against Tranmere in tomorrow's programme! But you'll have to buy it (or steal a copy) to read it. Much as I'd love to, I can't really cut and paste his exact words here in advance of the programme going on sale.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

I have posted re this before, but I walked with Barry Rees from Poets Corner, where he was in digs, up to the Goldstone on the night before he died. I have donated the match programme to Tim Carder and the museum for posterity's sake but have copied here the page from my match programme that he autographed for me. Needless to say, as a 12 year old, I was devastated the following afternoon when I read of his death in the Argus. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried for days afterwards. He and the team of 64/65 will always hold a place in my life.