My Pop Life #193 : People Make The World Go Round – The Stylistics

People Make The World Go Round – The Stylistics

But that’s what makes the world go ’round
The up and downs, a carousel
Changing people’s heads around
Go underground young man…

Every Thursday morning I get woken by the trash collectors outside the front yard. Making slow progress up Carlton Avenue, throwing black bin liners full of crap into the back of the truck, chatting, making scraping sounds, thuds, following the slowly moving truck up the street.  There’s something calming about how this happens with clockwork regularity, and this morning I woke after a marvellous night’s sleep – the best for some weeks indeed – and retired to the back room where the sunlight hadn’t quite reached thanks to the giant church edifice at the bottom of the garden.  Cats came to join me in contemplation as I felt gratitude for the simple regular domestic details of life without fear, without stress (pretending!) without debt (hmmm).   My brain was calm, wandering through the concept of exotics pets (wow I hate this trend SO MUCH, please leave them where they are);  the human appetite which must be tempered at every turn – no sugar, no meat, no fat, no smoking, no adultery, no gambling, no fighting, no envy, no stealing the same old story told and retold generation after generation in every culture every religion every century as the world turns and the trash man collects every Thursday.

Russell Thompkins Jr in the early 70s

This song begins with the line “Trash man didn’t get the trash today…. and why because they want more pay”.  The rhythm of life has been disturbed.  But the rhythm of the song has already been established as a 4/4 interrupted by a 2/4 every now and again (I haven’t counted it out).  A beautiful arrangement reminiscent of Bacharach, but emanating from the minds of Thom Bell and Linda Creed in early 1970s Philadelphia.  The song opens with the wind blowing through wind chimes as the bass and the keys gives out an urgent pulse, the strings and drums arrive together with the off-beat marimba and vibraphone as the exquisite voice of Russell Thompkins Jr tells us the tale of urban life – pollution, strikes, shares tumbling, long hair gets a mention, rich v poor, it’s a classic social snapshot which was in vogue at this time – think Papa Was A Rolling Stone, Wake Up Everybody, What’s Going On and so on.  Black music had worn a social conscience on its sleeve since the riots of the late 60s, the murder of Martin Luther King, the fact that many artists had fulfilled their contracts and demanded more control (Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder), and were writing about what they saw around them – Marvin Gaye’s brother had come back from Vietnam and they’d spent days talking together before he wrote his magnum opus.

Thom Bell

It’s easier to define things (incorrectly) in decade generalisations – 60s soul vs 70s soul but actually the break comes in 1968 with James Brown’s I’m Black & I’m Proud. Soul music had started to introduce the orchestra in the late 1960s at Motown with Diana Ross’ Someday We’ll Be Together and Reach Out And Touch, Isaac Hayes had broken it all down with the LP Hot Buttered Soul in 1969, drenched in orchestration and stretched out to glory on every song and opening the door of soul music to anyone who had bigger ideas for the sound.  Cellos !  Violas !  Orchestration became the name of the game and over the next five years and large number of extremely good soul records were produced – largely, I have to admit, in Philadelphia PA.  A studio run by Thom Bell alongside Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff who created the Philly Sound – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes with the outstanding vocals of Mr Teddy Pendergrass who would go on to be the soundtrack for a million conceptions, The O-Jays in their Love Train, still playing today (I saw them in Brooklyn a couple of years ago with Rita Wolf my ex-girlfriend from the 80s), Lou Rawls, Billy Paul, The Intruders, MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother) the houseband with their huge orchestrated instrumental hit TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia), McFadden & Whitehead and of course The Stylistics – who were actually on another Philly label Avco Records.  

Leon Huff, Thom Bell, Kenny Gamble – TSOP

Later we would get the great Barry White from Los Angeles, Wattstax where Isaac Hayes ruled, The Three Degrees, The Detroit Emeralds, The Jacksons, all utilising the full orchestra for their sound, all fantastic.  I’m working off the top of my head here because the internet is down, but I think that the first soul hit to use strings in such a featured way is The Delfonics’ La La Means I Love You, again from 1968 (the watershed year when the world turned a little more sharply: Street Fighting Man. Vietnam. And so on and so forth.)  But the first ?? No this must be mistaken.  It was however and anyway one of the first productions from Thom Bell for the Philly Groove label (previously Cameo/Parkway) in Philadelphia, and set the template for The Stylistics and The Spinners, and indeed Philadelphia International.  Massively influential, it all led, of course, to disco, which dominated the music scene at the close of the decade.

The Delfonics with Thom Bell in 1970

The Stylistics had an incredibly lush sound and their first LP – called, with predictable and satisfyingly clockwork regularity – “The Stylistics”,  yielded an embarrassment of riches – every song is superb, and five or six of them were hit singles : Stop Look Listen To Your Heart, Betcha By Golly Wow, You Are Everything (also a hit for Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross), You’re A Big Girl Now and People Make The World Go Round.   All but one written by Creed and Bell it was a perfect marriage of melody, voice, arrangement and soul.  Their second LP a year later was equally fecund – Stone In Love With You, Break Up To Make Up, Peek-A-Boo, You’ll Never Get To Heaven – all with the same signature slow groove lush orchestration and extraordinary voice of Thompkins.  The 3rd LP gives us Rockin’ Roll Baby the title track and the magnificent You Make Me Feel Brand New.  Then Thom Bell moved on and they floundered somewhat. On their 4th record they harnessed the power of Van McCoy to create Can’t Give You Anything, a song which hit the charts in England in 1975 and which I wrote about in My Pop Life #70 .   It’s a magnificent run of music.

That incredible first Stylistics album : “The Stylistics“

When I was driving bandmates Glen Richardson and Tom White up to Liverpool last month (a prestigious gig for us, performing the Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour albums for their 50th anniversary at the wonderful Philharmonic Hall) we chatted music most of the way up – it was a pre-Bank Holiday Friday and the journey took 10 monster hours, frying our brains.  But we had a half-decent soundtrack so everything was all right.  Glen asked at one point “in a perfect world, which tribute band would you want to play in?”  Tom, being a young 30-something fella (previously produced 4 LPs with his brother Alex as Electric Soft Parade, a couple with British Sea Power members as Brakes, many solo LPs now with The Fiction Aisle) chose American indie band Guided By Voices.  Although I’d heard of them I couldn’t name you a single song, and neither could Glen.  Such are generation gaps.  I cannot for the life of me remember what Glen chose (how odd), but I said ‘orchestral soul from the early 1970s‘ – at which point the iPod, which had been listening closely to this verbal duel, proceeded to play a number of these  songs such as If You Don’t Know Me By Now and Could It Be I’m Falling In Love, including this one from those Stylistics, plus Love TKO from Teddy Pendergrass and we wondered whether Me & Mrs Jones was about adultery or cocaine, and how iPods can do this kind of thing.

The song worked its magic again last week, driving around Guadeloupe with Adjoa Andoh, Roz Eleazar and her sister Sai not even two weeks ago.  We needed some healing and escape for on the previous Saturday Roz, her boyfriend Gabe and sister Sai, Larrington Walker and I had gone to the beach down in Malendure to explore the Jaques Cousteau Reserve.  We’d got separated (2 persons per kayak) and my boat had inexplicably swerved off to the Jardin Japonais an underwater coral reserve which was stupendously beautiful, but not Pigeon Island where the others had gone.  I lost my friends, swam with the turtles for a bit and then upon returning to the hotel found out that Larrington had died face down snorkelling off Pigeon Island.  I’d seen the ambulances and Gendarmerie Plongeuse but hadn’t asked what was up.  The girls were calm that evening, relating how they’d seen Larrington lying on the beach as if asleep.  Someone else had pulled him out of the water.  They’d given statements to the police, and traded versions over the whisky and beer.  The rest of the cast and crew – guest suspect (like Roz, Adjoa and I) Osy Ikhile, Marc Elson boom, director Sarah were in shock too.  It is a notoriously difficult place to shoot – the heat, the humidity, the mosquitos, but this was another level.  Death in Paradise.  He was 70 years old, but Jo Martin told me on the Sunday that he was fit and swam a kilometre every day.  That’s like an hour of swimming.  We vowed not to speak to the press if somehow it leaked out and they wanted a story for their headline.  We drank ourselves into a stupor that night.  The following day was numb.  We stayed in the hotel, perched on the side of the mountain, a decision was made not to shoot on the Monday out of respect.  So we had a weird day off and by now Adjoa had arrived to the news that her colleague had passed on.  Monday came and I rented a car after breakfast and set up the ipod with a recently created playlist called simply PHILLY.  It played us all the way around to Port Louis and back – two 90-minute drives to a small community on the low-lying sister island Grand Terre and a ghost town with but one restaurant open – Dominican – with tremendous fish (and lentil stew for the vegans) and an almost-deserted beach just past the old cemetery with pure white golden sand and trees right down to the water line.

Adjoa, Roz, Sai in Port Louis, Guadeloupe

We swim in the warm Caribbean water and Adjoa and I both step on sea urchins, receiving a little parting gift in the soles of our feet which the intrepid Saireeta pulls out the following day with tweezer and unerring eye.  It is on the way home that The Stylistics record comes on People Make The World Go Round, and Adjoa swoons and sings along – it reminds her of her youth in the 1970s – we immediately chop it back and play it twice.  And although Roz and Sai are both way younger than us and not fully indulging in the nostalgia-fest of Philly, like we are in the front seats, nevertheless they are enjoying the sweet soul sounds of the seventies and healing along with us for we are in mourning after all.   And by the time we return people are preparing for Hurricane Irma which MAY OR MAY NOT make landfall on Guadeloupe on Wednesday morning.  Someone asks me if I’ve ever worked on a show before where someone has died, and although my memory is unreliable I think in fact that I have not.   And clearly I wasn’t supposed to experience this death fully either, for despite spending breakfast with Larrington and meeting him on the beach, I was swerved away by the captain of my boat (speaking French not English) and thus was not a material witness either to the police or to Larrington’s son Alandro who arrived later that same day.  I did in fact speak to Alandro briefly and gave him the photograph below which was the last picture of Larrington, sitting in the kayak paddling toward his ultimate destiny.

Larrington Walker, rest in peace

But People do actually make the world go round don’t they?  The news will always be full of despair.  Now and again the trash man will not collect the trash.  But world will not crumble (Gibraltar may crumble the Rockies may tumble – they’re only made of clay..) because people will continue to make the world go round, and my love is here to stay.  This morning I rediscovered the simple joy of doing nothing as the sun cracked through the window and lit a splinter of floor which Roxy examined and found to be good. BoyBoy was on my lap looking at me with such love in his eyes as I stroked his tummy.  I could hear the odd car horn from the street outside, but they disturbed me not for I had found my life.    These moments of peace have a variety of names – smell the roses, breathe, gratitude, but how wonderful that they tend to arrive in moments of pressure to remind me that stuff happens and life goes on.

I always loved this song.  It’s on The Stylistics Greatest Hits which I had at college on vinyl.  I’ve never seen them live, and now there are two versions doing the rounds (there’s only one with Russell Thompkins Jr though called The New Stylistics).  But then we went to see Stevie Wonder in 2008 at the O2 in London, just after we’d come back from our intrepid China trip, seeing my brother Paul in Shanghai and catching some asian flu bug in a river near Yangshuo (not Jenny, just me since she didn’t jump into the river.  It looked nice.  To me).  I was knocked out.  Various blood tests were coming back negative – you can only ask a yes/no question to a blood test : Is It Pneumonia ?  NO.  We eventually asked nine questions and they were all no.  By then the shadow on my lungs had gone.  But for Stevie Wonder it was touch and go.  I’d been bedridden since getting back, weak as a kitten.  Had to see Stevie though. Non-negotiable lifetime moment.  So I asked dear Rory Cameron, guitarist with the Brighton Beach Boys if he would be chauffeur for the night for a fee and drive my car up to Greenwich for the gig.  Rory’s tale is still a fresh scar on the band since he is no longer with us and lives in Bury St Edmunds.  I may get around to telling it one day.  In 2008 all was well and there was nothing we wouldn’t do for each other.  Inside the arena we found we were in the 12th row, which is pretty damn good.  Stevie had no support and opened with Miles Davis All Blues from A Kind Of Blue.  It was going to be a slightly different kind of gig !  He also played some Herbie Hancock, some Michael Jackson and this song by The Stylistics, in among his own treasures – and he could’ve played for 25 hours only singing his own songs…and so it only remains for me to note that the song has also been covered by a young Michael Jackson in 1972 (with different lyrics!) on his marvellous 2nd album ‘Ben’.

I just said to Jenny – if that day comes when I cannot move my hands and my voice is gone and you can only rely on guesswork to establish what it is I need.  You know.  That day.  (No. Never that day will come ! )  C’mon now people.  We all gonna die.  Some will fade away others will Snap !  done.  Anywaze – I said to Jenny, said I to her : When That Day Comes, then Just Know that Chocolate Raisins and The Stylistics will always be the correct choice.

 

 

 

My Pop Life #186 : Praise You – Fatboy Slim

Praise You   –   Fatboy Slim

We’ve come a long, long way together – through the hard times and the good

       I need to celebrate you baby I need to praise you like I should…….

*

March 1971 was my first visit to The Goldstone Ground in Hove, to see Alan Duffy, Brian Powney in goal, John and Kit Napier, Peter O’Sullivan, John Templeman, Norman Gall.   Amazing that I can remember pretty much the whole team.  Tattooed on the brain. Went with a group of kids from the Lewes Priory football team : Martin Cooper,  Conrad Ryle, Simon Lester – we played on Saturday morning then went into Brighton in the afternoon for a Division Three game v Port Vale.  We stood in the North Stand with the hooligans, scarves wrapped around our wrists.  Jumped up and down singing Knees Up Mother Brown and the Banana Splits Song.  A year later, we were the hooligans, marching through the cold wet streets of Watford and Luton singing our songs of Albion and war.  Andrew Holmes joined the gang.  John Hawkins.  Paul my brother.  Conrad’s older brother Martin was a regular too but he stood in the Chicken Run – the East Stand which was a stone terrace with a few metal railings to lean on (prized positions).  That season we played Aston Villa on Good Friday and Reading on Easter Monday – maybe it was the season after, standing in a crowd of 36,000 people.  As a slightly dysfunctional teenager with a tenuous and insecure family life, the idea of playing at home was powerful.  For an atheist to stand with my fellow man and woman and sing in our thousands replaced any religious feelings I may have had left by the age of fourteen.  In other words, I was hooked.

The legendary Brian Clough came down to manage us with his assistant Peter Taylor. The most memorable game from that tenure was an 8-2 home defeat to Bristol Rovers, still a club record failure, and a 0-4 defeat in the FA Cup to Walton & Hersham, a part-time club.   Clough would go on to two European Cup wins with Nottingham Forest and was the best manager that England never appointed.  Taylor stayed and signed Peter Ward who became club legend goalscorer, but was replaced with ex-Tottenham & England man Alan Mullery – he became a club legend manager himself and took us to promotion in 1979 away at Newcastle United.  By now I was a student at the LSE.  I would come down for games on a Saturday, and my Glaswegian friend Lewis McLeod would come along too, despite being a Rangers fan.  By now we were standing in the Chicken Run.  The team swept all before them and rose to the elite with a 3-1 win at St James’ Park.  I travelled up alone on the train, even bravely venturing into a Newcastle public house on my own before joining the huddled masses in the Away end, celebrating a legendary victory and travelling back on the train with the blue & white family and endless cans of beer and joy.

Manager Alan Mullery with the team 1980

The following season we went to some exciting away games – Manchester City, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur.  I got punched at Tottenham after the game.  Martin Ryle told a mounted policeman about it and pointed out who’d hit me and we saw the kid getting sandwiched between two police horses just down the High Road.  Enjoyed that.  Four seasons in the top flight.  On Match Of The Day now and again.  Nobby Horton in midfield, Steve Foster playing centre-half, with a headband.  Mike Robinson, Gordon Smith, Jimmy Case.  Beating Liverpool in the Cup two seasons running, playing Sheffield Wednesday in the semi-final at Highbury literally a few hundred yards from where I lived with Mumtaz in Finsbury Park in 1983, Winning 2-1.  Sitting on my stoop with my scarf on watching the fans streaming away from the game.  Magic.  Failing to get Cup Final tickets, watching on TV as Jimmy Melia’s team drew with Manchester United 2-2 and almost winning in the final minute.  And Smith Must Score…ohhhhh.  But Robinson should have scored in retrospect.  We lost the replay 4-0 and were relegated in the same season.

Things declined after that, gradually.  At some point in the 1980s I started to collect grounds – and picked up places like Sheffield Wednesday, Ipswich Town, Fulham, Leicester City and Rochdale. The chairman Mike Bamber who’d brought in Mullery lost control and this fuckwit called Bill Archer took over.  Greg Stanley was his stooge on the board.  And David Bellotti, failed Lib Dem candidate for Eastbourne was his gofer.  Between them they nearly took the club to extinction.  By now I was sitting in the West Stand when I came down for games – I’d now watched the team from 3 sides of the Goldstone Ground.   Just as I moved back to Sussex and had a season ticket for the first time in my life, things went downhill rapidly.

Albion walk out for their last home game at the Goldstone, 1997

I made friends with Ian Hart, Worthing undertaker who ran a fanzine called Gull’s Eye with Peter Kennard and I wrote a few columns for them about the resistance movement.  We became aware that Archer was planning to sell the ground “to pay debts”.  A huge campaign got underway to resist this asset-stripping.  We picketed the ground one day and tried to stop fans from going in.  Thousands stayed outside, then broke through the flimsy gate of the Chicken Run at half time and got onto the pitch and up into the director’s box, mingled with the away fans too, all of whom were aware of our plight and supported us.

There was a Fans United match at the Goldstone (which I couldn’t make) when we played Hartlepool, and Doncaster Rovers in particular had helped to organise fans from every club come down and publicise what was happening to the Albion.  Bellotti was barracked at every game and had police protection – although he never came to any harm, often he would be asked to leave by the police.

Then the York City game at the end of the ’96/97 season when the pitch invasion after 15 minutes left a broken crossbar and a huge sit-in with match abandoned.  2 Points deducted but now everyone knew what was afoot, too late to change the outcome.

 Dick Knight took over but the sale was done.  The last game at The Goldstone, our home, was against Doncaster Rovers.  It was like a funeral.  I sat in the South Stand for the first and last time, and had watched my team from all four sides of the Goldstone.  We ran onto the pitch after the match and people started take the place apart for keepsakes.  Seats.  Signs.  Anything.  I got a large chunk of the pitch which I kept in a flowerpot in the garden, trimmed with scissors and sporting a subbuteo goal. Meanwhile after being 13 points adrift at the foot of the table we finally need a point in the last game,  away to Hereford United which meant the losers were out of the League.  I couldn’t face the implications or the game and chose to go to the Dome for a Mahler concert on a Saturday afternoon, swerving the tension and feelings of sickness, coming out at 5pm and asking the nearest bystander the result.  Pre-internet of course. We drew 1-1, Robbie Reinelt scoring the all important goal – Hereford were down and out, we’d survived.  This period of the Albion’s history – the guerrilla warfare, the back-stabbing, the surge of fan’s anger and magnificent commitment to their club is recorded by Steve North and Paul Hodson in the memorable book Build A Bonfire.

Albion legend, another saviour : Dick Knight

But the ground had been sold for £7 million and we were homeless.  Debts were paid but one year later the Goldstone was re-sold : this time for £28 million.  It turned out that Bill Archer had sold the ground to himself and then made a £21 million profit out of our homelessness – the worst kind of scum.  Albion played at Gillingham for two seasons, 75 miles away, to meagre crowds and an impoverished atmosphere.  I usually drove there, and we’d congregate in the pub, defiant, phlegmatic.  The spirit of the fans and our indomitable sense of humour is illustrated beautifully with a small anecdote from Colchester United FC where I’d gone with Martin Ryle and his son Jude for a League game.   Fans being cruel the Colchester massive taunted us with “Where’s The Goldstone gone, where’s the Goldstone gone?” to the tune of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.  Came the immediate response from the Albion faithful : “It’s a Toys R Us, it’s a Toys R Us“.   We have the best songs – out of necessity.  When we hear “Town full of queers” (Guantanamera) or “Does Your Boyfriend know you’re here?” (Bread of Heaven) we traditionally sing “You’re too ugly to be gay“.  I’m proud to be a Brighton fan, not afraid to sing about being gay.   Came home with relief to the Withdean Stadium in 1999, an athletics track converted with temporary stands and a two-bob portakabin atmosphere.  Micky Adams arrived and bought young striker Bobby Zamora and suddenly we were on the up again, winning two promotions in successive seasons.  I met him once at a Club do, just as it had been announced he was leaving for Leicester.  I think he’d been getting stick all night because when I thanked him for everything and wished him all the best for his future he was genuinely pleased and thanked me in return.  But it was all two steps forward, one step back, what we needed more than anything else was a proper ground.  The campaign for Falmer Stadium was long and bitter and took in various local heroes like Paul Samrah, Paul Whelch (RIP another LSE graduate), Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) and Skint Records, Paul Camillin, Dick Knight of course and John Baine – Attila The Stockbroker – with whom I’d made a protest single – ‘We Want Falmer‘ b/w ‘Sussex By The Sea‘ which got to number 17 in the charts (see My Pop Life #51).   One of my more memorable days was the protest outside the Labour Party Conference on Brighton Seafront when one fan appeared with a sign reading : Prescott :  Mother Cooked Socks In Hull.

Skint Records and Norman were having a moment or three in the sun.  Based in Middle Street in The Lanes, with co-owner & Arsenal fan Damian Harris as Midfield General (I would later appear on one of his records) and Norman as Fatboy Slim they adopted the Seagulls in 1999 and provided shirt sponsorship during this critical 9-year period.  My favourite Albion shirt has their name on it.

The logo was pertinent and a frank admission of status – we were broke.   Rumour had it that Norman was paying Bobby Zamora’s wages in exchange for a car-park space : the many ramifications of playing at Withdean included a no-parking zone around the stadium.  I used to park and walk like many other fans – sometimes I’d take the bus from the bottom of Trafalgar Street after a few pints of Harveys.

Norman – and his wife Zoe Ball (now separated) – are integrated members of the Brighton & Hove community, around and about at openings, screenings, football matches, club nights and very supportive of the local scene – like their local successful brothers Stomp –  in many and diverse ways.  They were at the premiere of The Murmuration (see My Pop Life #87 ) at The Booth Museum in Dyke Road.  Norm was an usher at Patrick Sullivan‘s wedding in Rottingdean when we all went to the pub both before and after the service.  I once watched a Liverpool v Chelsea European Cup game round his house with Jim and Pat which was faintly awkward – I was the only one supporting Liverpool… then I called Norman once to ask about vintage recording equipment as texture for my abandoned Session Musician documentary Red Light Fever (see My Pop Life #116) and others) and he very kindly offered me some interesting space to shoot an interview with bass player Les Hurdle (who’d recorded with Giorgio Moroder and The Foundations among others).  We’ve seen Norman DJ at two World Cups – in Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro parties, playing records for football fans.   He is a proper decent bloke, and very good at his job needless to say.  The records that Skint put out at the end of the 20th & beginning of the 21st Century helped to define Brighton as the number one party city in Europe – Rockefeller Skank, Right Here, Right Now, Praise You, Weapon of Choice, Gangster Trippin’ and many remix remake remodels too.  We all celebrated the big beat culture which started on Brighton seafront and conquered the world, peaking in July 2002 when 250,000 flocked and danced to Big Beat Boutique 2 where the Skint DJs partied all day and all night between the piers.

Big Beach Boutique II, July 2002, Brighton Beach 

Planning permission for Falmer Stadium was finally granted after a long struggle.  Nobody wanted the football fans on their doorstep.  Every version of the plan for a stadium was met with objection.  But it happened.  We’d fought an imaginative campaign and got the nod – Martin Perry was instrumental in achieving the result and building the actual finished stadium, alongside every single Brighton fan from that time, including my friend Ian Andrews who’d worked at the club since the 90s being brought in by Dick Knight, and running the accounts through the Withdean years.  I would sit with Ian, David Cuff, Adrian Simons, Julian Benkel and Mark Griffin – and indeed with actor Mark Williams during this period – or we would meet in the Lord Nelson on Trafalgar Street, famous Albion pub.  All good friends still.

All the trials and tribulations have brought the club closer to the city of Brighton. We are now a true community club.  After all the noise, litter and scare stories about the middle class enclave of Withdean being invaded by football hooligans, the last game there was rather emotional.

As promotion to the Championship beckoned, Julian and myself went on a few last away trips to places where I didn’t think the team would be playing again (with respect to those clubs of course) : Hartlepool United, Northampton Town, Dagenham & Redbridge.  Ian gave me a hard hat and showed me around the Falmer foundations one memorable afternoon in 2009 :

Myself and Ian Andrews, Falmer Stadium 1st December 2009

The Amex today – photograph ©Peter Whitcomb

The first game at the new stadium was a friendly against Tottenham Hotspur – my wife’s team and all of her family.  We had season tickets to the new ground, David Cuff had been among the first to gain access and we were 12 rows back from the front, bang central, near the dugouts where the managers, trainers and substitutes sat and alongside the press box.  When the music of Sussex By The Sea started up across this magnificent sparkling brand new arena filled with fans, and the two teams walked out onto the sacred green sward, a tear rolled down my cheek and my chest was full of emotion.  Home.  Our Home.   And the first League game was against… Doncaster Rovers.  By then the chairman was Tony Bloom who been on the board for many years but slowly acquired a greater percentage of control.  Dick Knight was made President for Life, and Tony funded the stadium and, later, the brand new state-of-the art training ground at Lancing near Shoreham Airport.  A Brighton fan all of his life, two of his uncles were on previous Boards of the club.  Bloom made his money in online gambling and has now invested over £250 million into Brighton & Hove Albion.  That is a local hero.

We still can’t match the budgets of our main rivals – this season Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Norwich.  But life isn’t all about money.  There is something about trying to win games of football which is a mystical alchemical process – a team event at which all have to be present, an undefined nebulous concept called confidence, determination, spirit, something a manager worth his salt can produce in players, week in, week out.  Gus Poyet managed it with a legendary season in the final year at Withdean ( final away game at Walsall pictured below) when we were promoted once again.

Andy Holmes (for it is he), Julian Benkel, David Cuff at Walsall

We opened Falmer Stadium – now called The Amex in the Championship.  At the end of that magnificent 2nd season in the new arena, we stumbled at the final hurdle in a terrible match at home to Crystal Palace in the play-offs as Poyet reportedly had resigned to the players in the dressing room before the game.  Or was he pushed?  His relationship with the club had deteriorated to an alarming degree over those final months, but it was a fatal flaw in a great footballing brain.   I met Gus on the tube once in London and he was sincerely enthusiastic and charming talking about The Seagulls.  Oscar Garcia and Sami Hyypia came and went and then Chris Hughton, ex Spurs defender and living legend arrived and took us to the play-offs once again last season – the third time in four years.  Over the disappointment of last summer – 2016 – he kept the same group of players together and added a spine – Duffy, Murray, Norwood, Sidwell.  Anthony Knockaert was our enlightenment, Bruno Salter our soul, Lewis Dunk our local hero along with Hailsham boy Solly March, Dale Stephens our midfield maestro along with Beram Kayal, David Stockdale our rock between the sticks, Glen Murray our shark goalscorer, Tomer Hemed our spearhead.    Chris Hughton our football genius.  Tony Bloom our saviour.

Tony Bloom celebrates Promotion 2017

Since moving to New York in 2014 I’ve let my season ticket lapse.  I’ve watched two games per season basically.  Last season I wandered in to two more grounds – Bolton Wanderers and Wolverhampton Wanderers.  I saw two games this season, both at home, against Huddersfield and Leeds : both tough games, both wins.  We’ve been in the top two all season, have now been promoted to the Premiership and are one win away from the title – first place – and the Championship Trophy which will represent the finest achievement of this football club in it’s 116-year history.  A new chapter awaits.

Anthony Knockaert celebrates at the Amex.  The Premiership beckons

I’ve been watching games on my computer where I can.  Following on Twitter.  I’ve had a lifetime of watching the Albion, ups and downs.  I miss the pints and the cameraderie, the team sheet and the songs.  The moaning about the ref.  The irritating opposition player.  The pies.  But at least now I get to watch the team on TV – for here in America, all the Premiership games are screened live.  You can record them.   And doubtless I’ll be in England to watch one or two.

We have come a long long way together.  I need to celebrate you baby.  Yesterday, 17th April 2017, my beloved Brighton & Hove Albion were promoted to the Premier League.