Game Twenty Four - Brighton Away

28th October 2008

Another week, another game, another chance to be disappointed by Leicester in a random place. And yet having broken up with my girlfriend not two hours before kick off, I found myself now looking out over the pitch at the Withdean Stadium (or as much as I could see from the vantage point that we had.) It was with a heavy heart that I had made the trip from Brighton town centre to the stadium….so much promise of what might have been had withered out and I was now stood in the freezing cold thinking about priorities. At the moment, my main priority is football. I have to be at these games even though it costs a fortune and decides the course of my life. Every decision I seem to be making at the moment is mainly worked into whether it would result in me missing a game. Should I go to this gig? No, it’s on a Tuesday and a game may be moved or we could have an FA Cup replay game. It’s crazy - everything seems to come back to how it affects my 100% attendance record this season. Nothing else matters at the moment but being there for kick off. If you’d told me two years ago that I would go to Brighton on a Tuesday night to see us in league one, I’d have called you an idiot and asked you why on earth I would do something like that…. Now, why on earth wouldn’t I be there? I’m ploughing money into the football machine but in reality, you have to pay for the things you love. Like all those there on Tuesday night, we are paying the price financially and in terms of large amounts of time wasted. And in the case of several, we will be paying with colds and the flu for a few days.

But enough of that. Whats happened has happened and I won't dwell on things in the blog and resort to the game as if it was just another standard trip with other incidents cleared from my mind. I met up with Helen and her parents by the sea front and we took the 20 minute walk up to Brighton train station to get our (free) train up to the ground. A few brighton chavs seemed amazed to see that they had Leicester fans on their train and despite wearing a bright yellow Leicester shirt and wearing a Leicester baseball cap, they still came over and had to ask if I supported Leicester. The clues were there kids!

When we got off the train, we then found that we had to partake in about a half a mile walk down the darkest of alley ways to get to the ground. And when I say dark, I mean it!! Pitch black and we couldn't see more than 2ft in front of our faces and so had to resort to the flash on our cameras to light the floor and identify the holes in the path. 3 steps, flash, 3 steps, flash. Cue pictures of gravel!

After about 5 minutes of stumbling it started to get silly and we were trying to get photos of each other in between nearly drowning in puddles and stumbling into a random barrier that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever!!

We finally made it in one piece and the Withdean shone out in the distance like a light at the end of the tunnel. This was probably the best view I had of the pitch all game!!

When we finally reached it, the queue for the pub was longer than the queue for tickets which spoke volumes for the type of ground that it is. I would use the term "Stadium" but that's pushing it a bit far!! We had a quick chat with Jobber outside the pub and then with the FT lot before making our way in and had the fun task of trying to get the flag up in decent place. No matter where it went though, no one would really see it!!

All the Foxes Talk lot then tried to congregate together at the back of the stand with good success for the first few minutes of the game but we were then forced to move as people continued to arrive. Soon me, Katy and Lil Dave were forced to shift our position to the right side and nearer the front (not that it made any difference to our view!)

How Brighton can charge £20 for a mid-week match when this is the view is beyond me!

Apparentley some things happened in the first half, most importantly being two goals for Matty Fryatt to give us a 2-0 lead going into the break. It's unfair for me to say exactly what they were like as we hadn't a clue what with them being at the other end of the ground. In fact we were convinced that the second was scored by Steve Howard which speaks volumes for what our view was like. Speaking of Howard, he also had another goal disallowed to add to his collection for the season. It seems to be becomming the theme at the moment as whenever the ball hits the net from him, its accompanied by the referee's whistle. Livid!

In fact the only thing we had a decent view of was the policeman's 800m walking race. Not sure who won in the end but the lead was changing hands all through that turn so I'm sure it was a photo finish!

The real entertainment of the night though was at half time when we all gathered together behind the stands. Guest appearances from Fi (a.k.a Another of Walshie's Women) and "Moby" (a.k.a Isle of Wight Fox) were combined with the usual suspects and typical banter. The theme of the night seemed to be one word sentences with "Keen!" "Livid!" and "Response!" seeming to take centre stage and answering any question going.

A test was also drawn up to show the two sides of Lil Dave. Note the stolen Cote D'Ivoire scarf!!!

Face One: The reaction to Steve Howard

Face Two: The reaction to Matty Fryatt

After the fun of those 15 minutes helped me forget everything else, it was soon time to head back to our seats and watch another victory away from home.... erm.... yeah about that..... A clear penalty wasn't given in our favour and that proved to be the turning point as loan signing Johnson lashed in two long range efforts to bring Brighton back on level terms. This caused some major pummelage from Katy as she was not "keen" on the new look scoreline. Livid!

At 2-2, this was only going to end in one way and it didn't involve us going home with any points. Step forward Mr Jack Hobbs. Even from where we were, we could tell that he'd made a massive cock up as he slid in to block a cross under no pressure. The ball spun up and evaded Martin and over the line. From 2-0 up to 3-2 down. This wasn't the stuff promotion is made of - it's that of relegation and if anyone should know, it's Leicester fans.

The real killer though was as the players walked off dejected, and didn't even really acknowledge the travelling fans. 170 miles from leicester to brighton and they couldn't even raise their hands to respect that. Cheers lads!!

The scoreline really rapped up a pretty crummy day. Despite the mutual split with my now ex-girlfriend, I still wasn't in the right frame of mind to be at the game and standing in the cold and rain didn't really appeal at all but it turned out to be just what I needed. The companionship of football fans together is better than anything else I've been involved with. We share the roller coaster of emotions and they never fail to put a smile back on your face when you're feeling down. Cheers to you all guys - you make the away days what they are! Even last season when the results wern't going to plan, they were still all great days out. Here's to many more classics!