How These High-Flying Seagulls Took Their Game To The Next Level

Brighton and Hove Albion have shown clubs the right way to turn things around

- Brian Williams

Ask the owner of any football club where they want to go these days and the answer you will get is The Next Level. So I entered the postcode in my satnav and found there are two ways to get there.

Route one involves a short-cut via any old disused Olympic Stadium that happens to be lying around, and while it may look attractive at first glance it is a rather bumpier road than you might have thought.

Route two, which is nowhere near as fast but considerably more reliable, takes you down an old-fashioned thoroughfare known simply as Proper Way. Brighton and Hove Albion have reached their destination by taking the second option.

Like West Ham, they no longer play in their historic heartland.

Unlike us, though, their new stadium is purpose-built for football and popular with a vast majority of Seagulls supporters.

I know some who still refuse to go anywhere near the retail park that now occupies the site of the old Goldstone Ground, but that doesn’t mean they dislike the out-of-town replacement now known as the Amex Stadium.

And a smashing ground it is too – regularly being nominated for awards in recognition of the way it treats away supporters.

Albion’s journey from the brink of destruction to the Premier League is one that should gladden the heart of any true football supporter.

Let me take you back 20 years to May 3, 1997. West Ham were in Manchester, with nothing to play for.

I was in the kitchen, listening to football scores from around the country.

In particular, I was concerned with events in Hereford, where Brighton were fighting for survival in the ultimate relegation game that would see whichever side that lost drop out of the football league.

And, following a first-half own goal, the Seagulls were staring disaster in the face.