Be-right-on and Hove Albion's long struggles for a new stadium, since the old Goldstone Ground was sold beneath the fans' feet by an unscrupulous board in the mid-1990s, has been a painstaking, painful process, still now in limbo after two-and-a-half public inquiries, two doorstop planning reports, at least £10million in cash-strapped club costs, an elementary error by John Prescott (or his people) and probably a whole rainforest-worth of Argus pages. For the moment and for the forseeable, the club will continue to play at the dire, only-three-sided Withdean Stadium, actually an amateur (oh-so-amateur) venue that somehow makes even Barnet's Underhill look like the Stade de France by comparison.
The Argus coverage of the Falmer fight (my dim, distant past contributions apart, perhaps) has been unstinting and excellent, but there was one odd little sentence in this weekend's leader article praising the encouraging performance by the newly-formed Seagulls Party in a recent Lewes District Council by-election:
THE pro-Falmer Seagulls party will have turned a few heads by polling upwards of 350 votes in its first election.
Despite the pre-election fanfare this was never a poll which the party, formed only five weeks ago, had any chance of winning.
People in the Ouse Valley and Ringmer ward of Lewes District Council had more pressing matters such as the proposed waste incinerator at Newhaven on their minds when they entered the ballot box.
That Ed Bassford achieved 22 per cent of the total votes cast and beat the Labour candidate to third place is remarkable.
It is evidence that significant numbers of voters in the district are opposed to Lewes District Council's High Court challenge of the Falmer stadium planning permission.
If Ed Bassford can gain so many votes after three weeks, Lib Dem and Tory bigwigs on the council must be worried the Seagulls could swoop and peck a big hole in their majorities at next May's district elections.
Was this Lewes... or Lilliput?
"Stop me, uh-uh-oh, stop me..."
"... stop me if you think that you've heard this one before..."
Looking back, it was rather crushingly inevitable, really. Spurs, having failed to win in the League at the Reebok Stadium, well, ever, yet buoyed by an unbeaten pre-season campaign against a Bolton side in disarray, on a losing streak and down to just 13 fit first-teamers... Away defeat, nailed on.
Throw in, too, ooh... a 400-mile round trip across rain-drenched, roadworks-ravaged motorways + a few grunting, surly stewards for whom monosyllabism would be a great linguistic breakthrough + an attractive but soulless and silent, atmosphere-free modern stadium, speckled with hundreds of empty seats in the Bolton stands (For the first home game of the season? For shame...) + the dismaying lack of effort or imagination from Spurs' stars, the skilful Berbatov and bedding-in Zokora aside + the several hours it seems to take Paul Robinson to respond and futilely get across to long-range shots like Campo's daisy-cutter from a different postcode + the waste of, and over-reliance on, Aaron Lennon in a drifting role behind the two strikers instead of clinging to, and frightening defenders on the flanks + the refereeing "decision" that allowed Bolton to typically bully their first, unfair goal by barging into defender Callum Davenport + our players' timid indecision that allowed Bolton to, unsurprisingly, bully and out-muscle us throughout + the over-confidence that allowed us to imagine maybe, just maybe coming away from this grim-up-North bogey-ground with anything other than an opening-day defeat + to cap a dreary day, + a soggy, over-priced splatter of "pasta salad" at bleak Knutsford service station, to the incessant soundtrack of a kids' arcade game shrieking "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" (yes, let's) = oh, what a lovely summer Saturday...
Thankfully, a hastily-Catherine-compiled iPod playlist of Morrissey, Dolly Parton, Nancy Sinatra, Glenn And Chris, Chas And Dave and others allowed us an appropriately--often-maudlin-yet-just-what-Dr-Tottenham-ordered singalong all the (long, long) drive home...
"Nothing's changed - I still love you, oh I still love you,
Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to..."
Still, after a probably-much-needed kick up the complacency, here's to (re)starting the season proper at home to Sheffield United on Tuesday - because they'll no doubt be the division's whipping boys this year, right...?
Looking back, it was rather crushingly inevitable, really. Spurs, having failed to win in the League at the Reebok Stadium, well, ever, yet buoyed by an unbeaten pre-season campaign against a Bolton side in disarray, on a losing streak and down to just 13 fit first-teamers... Away defeat, nailed on.
Throw in, too, ooh... a 400-mile round trip across rain-drenched, roadworks-ravaged motorways + a few grunting, surly stewards for whom monosyllabism would be a great linguistic breakthrough + an attractive but soulless and silent, atmosphere-free modern stadium, speckled with hundreds of empty seats in the Bolton stands (For the first home game of the season? For shame...) + the dismaying lack of effort or imagination from Spurs' stars, the skilful Berbatov and bedding-in Zokora aside + the several hours it seems to take Paul Robinson to respond and futilely get across to long-range shots like Campo's daisy-cutter from a different postcode + the waste of, and over-reliance on, Aaron Lennon in a drifting role behind the two strikers instead of clinging to, and frightening defenders on the flanks + the refereeing "decision" that allowed Bolton to typically bully their first, unfair goal by barging into defender Callum Davenport + our players' timid indecision that allowed Bolton to, unsurprisingly, bully and out-muscle us throughout + the over-confidence that allowed us to imagine maybe, just maybe coming away from this grim-up-North bogey-ground with anything other than an opening-day defeat + to cap a dreary day, + a soggy, over-priced splatter of "pasta salad" at bleak Knutsford service station, to the incessant soundtrack of a kids' arcade game shrieking "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" (yes, let's) = oh, what a lovely summer Saturday...
Thankfully, a hastily-Catherine-compiled iPod playlist of Morrissey, Dolly Parton, Nancy Sinatra, Glenn And Chris, Chas And Dave and others allowed us an appropriately--often-maudlin-yet-just-what-Dr-Tottenham-ordered singalong all the (long, long) drive home...
"Nothing's changed - I still love you, oh I still love you,
Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to..."
Still, after a probably-much-needed kick up the complacency, here's to (re)starting the season proper at home to Sheffield United on Tuesday - because they'll no doubt be the division's whipping boys this year, right...?
"Here we go, here we go, here we go - again..."
Ah, the first day of the Premiership season tomorrow. A Test match may (or may not) still be in full flow in the south London sunshine, while the imprint of Zinedine Zidane's battering-ram bald head probably still hasn't quite faded from Marco Materazzi's midriff. Yet it's already time for Tottenham and the rest to lurch back into action (ideally lasagne-less) and start the important work of demolishing those dreams that have somehow formed during the fondness of football's (brief) absence.
On the August opening day of last season, I and all the other Spurs fans foolish enough to head down to the South Coast to Portsmouth's embarrassing imitation of a professional stadium found ourselves the only area of Fratton Park uncovered by even a rickety roof - and thus, as the monsoons poured down, ended wetter than had we taken the plunge off the end of Southsea Pier. I could just about be made out on that evening's Match Of The Day, peering bleakly out of waterfall-effect fringe. At least we won, 2-0, with an excellent early goal foe inspiring confident hopes of a dynamite season ahead for Jermain Defoe, culminating in World Cup glory... Well, it was a nice idea...
This Saturday I'm driving up to Bolton, hopefully for a warmer, drier day, and certainly to a sturdier stadium - though the 5.15pm kick-off will no doubt have me wondering, on the long drive back that night, why I didn't stay at home and watch this one on TV, to ease into the season gently...
Anyway, everyone else is doing it, so why can't I - here are a few, hostage-to-blogging-fortune, forecasts...
Champions: Chelsea
Runners-up: Liverpool
Relegated: Fulham, Sheffield United, Watford
Championship champions: Birmingham City
Runners-up: Crystal Palace
Play-off winners: West Bromwich Albion
Play-offs: Southampton, Norwich City, Leeds United
Champions League: Real Madrid
Runners-up: Manchester United
Uefa Cup: Tottenham Hotspur
Runners-up: Benfica
FA Cup: Liverpool
Runners-up: Chelsea
League Cup: Aston Villa
Runners-up: West Ham United
Final Premiership table:
1 Chelsea
2 Liverpool
3 Manchester United
4 Arsenal
5 Tottenham Hotspur
6 Everton
7 Blackburn Rovers
8 West Ham United
9 Newcastle United
10 Bolton Wanderers
11 Aston Villa
12 Middlesbrough
13 Portsmouth
14 Manchester City
15 Charlton Athletic
16 Wigan Athletic
17 Reading
18 Fulham
19 Sheffield United
20 Watford
And a few more:
* England debuts are given to Adam Johnson, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Pennant and Steven Taylor
* The Emirates Stadium is as quiet as the Highbury Library
* Jose Mourinho leaves Chelsea at the end of the season
* Multiplex insists Wembley will be ready in time... for the 2012 Olympics
* David Beckham plays again for England
* Michael Carrick has an injury-disrupted first season for Manchester United, is half-written off as a sort-of flop, then belatedly emerges in style a la Sheringham
* Theo Walcott publishes his first autobiography
* Jermain Defoe scores 20 goals
* Terry Venables is the subject of a redtop scandal
* The Emirates Stadium's early full-houses dwindle alarmingly as the dreary weeks go by, plunging the club with the largest debt in world football ever-quickly closer to bankruptcy, while Thierry Henry admits his error and signs for Barcelona during the January transfer window and the ailing players he leaves behind struggle to stave off relegation.
(One of these is, admittedly, not so much a confident prediction, as a flight of wishful fancy. I know, I know - this year's probably a season too soon for Tommy Huddlestone...)
On the August opening day of last season, I and all the other Spurs fans foolish enough to head down to the South Coast to Portsmouth's embarrassing imitation of a professional stadium found ourselves the only area of Fratton Park uncovered by even a rickety roof - and thus, as the monsoons poured down, ended wetter than had we taken the plunge off the end of Southsea Pier. I could just about be made out on that evening's Match Of The Day, peering bleakly out of waterfall-effect fringe. At least we won, 2-0, with an excellent early goal foe inspiring confident hopes of a dynamite season ahead for Jermain Defoe, culminating in World Cup glory... Well, it was a nice idea...
This Saturday I'm driving up to Bolton, hopefully for a warmer, drier day, and certainly to a sturdier stadium - though the 5.15pm kick-off will no doubt have me wondering, on the long drive back that night, why I didn't stay at home and watch this one on TV, to ease into the season gently...
Anyway, everyone else is doing it, so why can't I - here are a few, hostage-to-blogging-fortune, forecasts...
Champions: Chelsea
Runners-up: Liverpool
Relegated: Fulham, Sheffield United, Watford
Championship champions: Birmingham City
Runners-up: Crystal Palace
Play-off winners: West Bromwich Albion
Play-offs: Southampton, Norwich City, Leeds United
Champions League: Real Madrid
Runners-up: Manchester United
Uefa Cup: Tottenham Hotspur
Runners-up: Benfica
FA Cup: Liverpool
Runners-up: Chelsea
League Cup: Aston Villa
Runners-up: West Ham United
Final Premiership table:
1 Chelsea
2 Liverpool
3 Manchester United
4 Arsenal
5 Tottenham Hotspur
6 Everton
7 Blackburn Rovers
8 West Ham United
9 Newcastle United
10 Bolton Wanderers
11 Aston Villa
12 Middlesbrough
13 Portsmouth
14 Manchester City
15 Charlton Athletic
16 Wigan Athletic
17 Reading
18 Fulham
19 Sheffield United
20 Watford
And a few more:
* England debuts are given to Adam Johnson, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Pennant and Steven Taylor
* The Emirates Stadium is as quiet as the Highbury Library
* Jose Mourinho leaves Chelsea at the end of the season
* Multiplex insists Wembley will be ready in time... for the 2012 Olympics
* David Beckham plays again for England
* Michael Carrick has an injury-disrupted first season for Manchester United, is half-written off as a sort-of flop, then belatedly emerges in style a la Sheringham
* Theo Walcott publishes his first autobiography
* Jermain Defoe scores 20 goals
* Terry Venables is the subject of a redtop scandal
* The Emirates Stadium's early full-houses dwindle alarmingly as the dreary weeks go by, plunging the club with the largest debt in world football ever-quickly closer to bankruptcy, while Thierry Henry admits his error and signs for Barcelona during the January transfer window and the ailing players he leaves behind struggle to stave off relegation.
(One of these is, admittedly, not so much a confident prediction, as a flight of wishful fancy. I know, I know - this year's probably a season too soon for Tommy Huddlestone...)
"There are fewer more depressing sights than that of an English man in a baseball cap..."
... and yet surely fewer more pointless police pursuits, than that of continually adding yet more charges to the Pete Doherty (w)rap sheet?
Here's another seven for the tally, though most must have lost count by now. When he reaches 100 charges, does he get to keep the handcuffs?
Shame, because the two Libertines albums are stunning in many parts. Pete not only bothered to turn up once, but both times I had tickets to his gigs, and on each occasion put on a surprisingly-storming show - one acoustic and solo (well, with occasional harmonies from Dot Allison) at the tiny Freebutt pub in the backstreets of Be-Right-On, and one at the seashore Concorde 2 with whatever incarnation of Babyshambles hadn't yet had enough of him.
Should never have got mixed up with that Croydon crowd. Plus, he's a QPR fanzine fanboy, so he's suffered enough already, surely...?
"What's Ike got to do, got to do with it...?"
Jarring and unnecessary analogy of the day, from Johann Hari's otherwise-serious and incisive piece in the Independent today headlined "The spiteful return of anti-Semitism": "It's easy to identify the extremes, the [comedian Steve] Hugheses or [Mel] Gibsons, but harder to see the shades of grey building towards them, partly because anti-Semitism is a concept that has been more abused than Tina Turner at the hands of Ike."
Just a guess, but perhaps as Johann was preparing to file his copy, that final turn of phrase just eluding him as the deadline approached, the radio happened to strike up "River Deep, Mountain High", and, well, the rest writes itself...?
A track that is, of course, no redress for domestic cruelty and abuse - but is, at least, a creation of wonder and joy in its own right.
Just a guess, but perhaps as Johann was preparing to file his copy, that final turn of phrase just eluding him as the deadline approached, the radio happened to strike up "River Deep, Mountain High", and, well, the rest writes itself...?
A track that is, of course, no redress for domestic cruelty and abuse - but is, at least, a creation of wonder and joy in its own right.
"It's not going very well, is it...?"
A loathsome, ludicrous, would-be football-fan-electrocutor, Wembley-wrecker and all-round dodgy-dealer he may be - but maybe Un-cuddly Ken Bates isn't all bad: his latest declaration suggests he does, at least, have good taste (if also bad taste) in comedy.
And when New Chelsea are the opponents, even Leeds can somehow seem to deserve (a smidgeon) of sympathy.
And when New Chelsea are the opponents, even Leeds can somehow seem to deserve (a smidgeon) of sympathy.
RIP Bruno Kirby, a man who played Pete Clemenza and yet who also asked: "You made a woman miaow??" That's versatility, that's class.
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