What is the relationship between our glorious beautiful football club and the city it resides in? Is Brighton a ‘football city’, what does that mean? Was Brian Clough’s above statement correct? And should we really care?

Below, fanzine founders/co-founders Dan Tester (Scars and Stripes), Sam Swaffield (The Seagull Love Review) and Parker (Dogma) share their contrasting thoughts and feelings - pragmatic, dogmatic, and reflective - on Brighton & Hove’s relationship with the Albion.

Photography: Andrew Forsyth

Not enough chimneys

Maybe a decade or more ago, on a 5live commentary of a midweek League Cup fixture in Cardiff, the excellent, missed, David Pleat was discussing the future prospects of the upwardly mobile Brighton and Hove Albion.

Pleat was an erudite and insightful co-commentator. His musings were peppered with anecdotes and historical interludes, and unlike the more basic TalkSport format, he would have opinions that transcended football and took the conversation in other directions.

On this occasion it was a pragmatic criticism of the then rookie chairman and owner Tony Bloom, and the realities of a glass ceiling this football club would hit because of the socio-economic make-up of the town they were from.

He said the Albion would never enjoy sustained success at the upper echelons of the game because we did not have ‘enough chimneys’.

The commentator pushed him on that phrase. He meant that Brighton wasn’t a working class town, and therefore would never develop a fervour and following amongst the locals to compete with the great industrial towns and cities who have dominated the professional game for well over a century.

Clough took a similar line, used as the title of this article, in his excellent autobiography, regaling briefly on his time at the club in the early 70s.

It begs the question, does the conurbation actually give a shit about its club? How does that impact supporters from the city?

There’s some truth in this claim. Let’s compare Brighton to Burnley.

Why Burnley? Because the place is famous in the UK for its partisan support for the local club. If you meet someone from Burnley, they likely follow the Clarets. And because the East Lancashire milltown has such a vocal diaspora on this island, you do meet a lot of them.

When you meet a Brightonian, do you automatically think ‘oh, they must be Albion’? Probably not, and you’ve probably had your fingers burned in the past going down that route. Normally in those situations, outside of the city, it’s folk from Haywards Heath or Littlehampton who say Brighton because it’s easier and cooler and they support Arsenal anyway.

The thing with Burnley and its residents is that a trip to Turf Moor on a Saturday was the premier leisure activity. A pastime for working people, with little money, few treats and fewer options even if they fancied it. The football club dominates the town, it’s the most famous thing about the town and it’s the only reason people consistently travel to the town. The link to the community is so solid that the place is almost at one with the club.

Someone said the other day, talking about a friend checking into a hotel in the town, that the receptionist presumed they were only visiting Burnley for the game. The idea that someone would spend a weekend in Burnley for any other reason being too fantastical a concept.

Ok, back to Brighton, and there are and have always been a few other bits and bobs to do on a weekend. Taking into account just the natural wonders of the beaches and Downs means football in suburban Hove hasn’t always been top of the list for locals.

Then there’s the unusually good shopping, eating, drinking and general culture to get involved with.

This is historically a small club in a big town, plodding on with not much to say for itself until Bamber gave it a shot in the arm. Even the all-blue shirts of the early 80s were a strategic move to pull the provincial Albion onto bigger and better things and away from the amateurism the stripes seemed to represent. The family ties were there, but in small numbers. Brighton was indifferent to its forgettable Seagulls.

And so here we are. The club is enjoying its greatest ever era across all metrics. But it’s not enough. We want more. We crave more people in shirts and scarves on a Saturday morning. More BHA graffiti inappropriately adorning any available nook and cranny. More stickers on lamposts. More bloody murals. More icons and associated iconography. More tattoos on calves and more stickers on the back of cars.

Why does no one care? How do we make them care? How do we prove David Pleat wrong?

We can be rough too, you know! Sure, instead of generations working in the cotton mills, we have generations working in middling jobs at American Express. Yes, those are actual chimneys creating evocative Lowry-esque vistas over Hanover and the Dials, even if they recently installed log burner outlets.

We could work harder in joining the dots between city and club. Paint some stripes on the George Best mural at The Albert and say it’s Peter Ward. When we do produce murals, make them a bit more West Belfast and less like a Brighton Festival commission. Perhaps we need to increase the ‘fuck off P****e’ references around the station to add a little edge?

As Brighton’s historically transient populous continues to gentrify the old place, and young Brightonians move out to the old flat-roofed-pub Tory towns in hope of a lucrative mortgage, the reliance on the club to the city might decrease further. Equally, the middle classes in the city with no links to old institutions like the Albion will double-down on the football-ambivalent status quo.

So yes, the fans, the club and the city do have a relationship that perhaps isn’t as strong as the aforementioned Burnley.

But like everything in the city, it’s better, it feels more ‘Brighton’ when things are done differently. And if that doesn’t raise your spirits somewhat, find some solace in the fact that you’re not a Bournemouth fan.

Sam Swaffield / Co-founder, The Seagull Love Review / @SamSwaf

Glory Hunting

The mid 1990s was the lowest point in our history. This well-documented period featured countless protests and marches, relegations, pitch invasions, appalling football, homelessness and almost extinction. Our support suffered too.

Attendances at the Goldstone Ground were fairly average, historically, hovering around the early teens for much of our existence. FA Cup ties would sometimes boost this to over 30,000. After World War II the average rose to over 20,000 for a few seasons, in line with the rest of the country’s increased enthusiasm for the game, after five years of the Wartime League. In the 1970s, as Mike Bamber’s charges reached the top-flight for the first time, crowds usually reserved for cup matches became the norm - for a while.

As recently as 2008, just 4,395 hardy souls meandered through the Withdean Stadium turnstiles for a third-tier victory over Cheltenham Town.

Aside from the Falmer years, Albion’s core support has always been fickle (in my view). There can’t be many clubs in the English leagues who, in the space of 15 years, have seen a jump in home attendance figures of more than 25,000?

Brighton has always been different from the beige commuter towns that proliferate the Home Counties. We don’t follow the herd, and keeping up with the Joneses is a much less important aspect of life for most of us. Things happen here that don’t elsewhere. Open-minded, tolerant, and accepting, I couldn’t live anywhere else. I’m fiercely proud of my hometown.

My friends who weren’t fortunate enough to grow-up here all gravitated to the seaside because they felt they didn’t fit in elsewhere. They wanted to be surrounded by people who think outside of the box, don’t care for the mainstream (in the main) and - should they desire - stroll around North Laine wearing whatever they wished.

When the Albion was on its knees in the mid-1990s, and the Premier League spewed out of many of the city’s pubs on a Sunday afternoon, Manchester United shirts were everywhere. Gloryhunters chuntering away at a TV screen, cheering a corporation based more than 200 miles away. Oh, but they win things. Great. More plastic than a Love Islander.

In the extremely unlikely event of seeing anyone adorned in the stripes, you would stop them for a chinwag - even if you didn’t know them from Adam - and check for news. Had a decision been made on when we were leaving the Goldstone? Where do you think we’ll play next season? Are you going to the protest outside Bill Archer’s house in Blackburn? Etc etc.

We were a very rare breed back then. It felt quite lonely and uninspiring at times during the ‘troubles’. The only time you felt like there was hope was on the terraces at Priestfield or a far flung away end miles from home. The Albion barely existed in Brighton and Hove.

Nowadays, with a healthy chunk of ‘new’ fans, Falmer is nearly always full. As it should be when we’re playing the best football in our history. But, Brighton is not a ‘football town’, and never will be. The population is too transient, too diverse, too busy.

While a significant proportion of our ‘legacy fans’ - I utterly despise this term - may fall into the ‘lifer’ category, much of our ‘new’ support doesn’t. It’s a leisure pursuit for them which, hopefully, will become a lifelong habit.

Brighton and Hove isn’t particularly ethnically diverse, but it does have two red seats, and one green, in a sea of blue. Thank fuck for that.

The city has the largest LGBTQ community in Europe and is home to a huge collection of misfits, although this is gradually being watered down as more and more DFLs descend from the capital.

My view is that Brighton & Hove Albion represent the glorious county of Sussex, but not the city, despite the club’s best efforts. And I think it’s fair to say that changing that would prove impossible.

Dan Tester / Co-founder, Scars & Stripes / The Albion Mag / @DJDanteBrighton

Confirmation Bias

I live in Brighton, work in Brighton, I adore Brighton: the identities I apply to my football club are very much city-centric. Football club as an aspect of my civic pride.

But is this pride reciprocated? Are Brighton’s citizens proud of its beautiful glorious football club, or are they indifferent (or just a bit diffident)?

I see a BHA sticker on a pub toilet cistern

Call it dogma if you will, but what I see and hear is a city that is very much blue & white, both literally and figuratively.

Stickers on cisterns, badges on vehicles, scarfs on people, supporters I know and supporters I do not, overheard conversations, exchanges in the workplace.

Townsfolk that are rightly proud of their football club, and who turn up in large numbers to demonstrate that pride.

I walk past a building and see an Albion flag in an upstairs window

A 2020 Premier League fan survey revealed that 76% of our season ticket holders lived seven, or less, miles from the place we call home (Falmer).

To add some context to this number, 76% placed us in eighth place on the local-clubs-for-local-people league table. Liverpool (with just 49% of their season ticket holders defined as ‘local’) were in last place, followed by Manchester United (53%) and Arsenal (55%).

A seven-mile radius encompasses Brighton and Hove, the coastal strip eastbound through to Peacehaven, Lewes, and a handful of villages out towards Plumpton.

A lorry drives past with a Brighton scarf in the back of the cab

Brighton and Hove is officially the most godless city in England, but it is a city with a collective faith and a shared gathering point: statistically the person standing in the queue next to you on the concourse most likely lives in Brighton or Hove.

I buy some cans and notice a faded Albion flag behind the the counter

Brighton and Hove, a proper football city? Yes, but it’s not a Leeds or even a Leicester, or a Stoke or a Portsmouth or a Hull, ‘proper football towns’, large urban conurbations represented by just one professional football club.

Well, the population of Leeds is 503,000 and their average home attendance last season was 36,000. More than 470,000 people live in Leicester, and Leicester’s average attendance last season was 32,000.

I spot a man in a pub whom I recognise from matchdays

The population of Brighton & Hove is 242,000, and last season our average home attendance was 31,000.

Leeds, Leicester and Brighton have all played Championship football in the recent past. Brighton’s average home attendance, in a promotion season it should be noted, was 27,000. When Leeds last achieved promotion from the Championship they also averaged 27,000, and Leicester just 24,000.

I peer through the rain and see BHAFC on a construction site stairwell

The football clubs representing authentic non-Premier League rootsy ‘proper football towns’ Stoke (population 277,000), Portsmouth (population 248,000) and Hull (population 289,000) averaged gates of 20,000, 15,000 and 12,000, respectively, last season. When Hull City last played in the Premier League their average attendance was 23,000.

I meet a man on a train with a seagull on his neck

I’m not really sure what a ‘proper football town’ looks like, or if such a place exists.

But it should be noted that if you are looking for someplace that consistently overperforms it’s civic peers on the population Vs people-supporting-their-local-football-team ratio, then that place is Brighton and Hove.

Parker / Founder, Dogma

This article was originally published in Dogma Issue 8, Jan/Feb 2023 and has been amended slightly for publication here.