Once upon a time, the PFA Awards were the undisputed measure of a season’s most valuable players. Voted for by the Professionals themselves, the response to their announcement was one of awed hush and consent – how could mere onlookers presume to know better than those involved in the rough and tumble of the actual sport? But the saccharin, sentimental and simply silly award of the 2009 Players’ Player award to Ryan Giggs changed all that. In one fell swoop, footballers were shown to be as susceptible to a bit of old fashioned press lobbying as the rest of us….
All posts tagged Brighton
Hopeless Football League Teams 8: Brighton and Hove Albion, 2008-09
Our latest entry in the Hopeless Teams series comes from Stefan Swift, co-editor of that hip Brighton fanzine The Seagull Love Review. Following his sidekick Sam Swaffield’s excellent assessment of Brighton’s current season over on the 72, Stef considers an unhappier time for Albion supporters when, less than four years ago, a club legend well and truly blotted his Seagulls copybook. The prodigal son was announced as the new manager of Brighton and Hove Albion in the summer of 2008. It was a momentous occasion. The return of Micky Adams marked the beginning of a Brave New World. The return…
Should Brighton and Hove Albion Stick or Twist?
If one remembers the instant relegation Brighton and Hove Albion suffered on the last occasion they ascended to English football’s second level, it’s been a heartening first half of the season for the Seagulls. Many expected them to do well given the verve they showed in cantering to the League 1 title in May and a position just four points off the play off zone constitutes real progress. Their start was a stunner of course – buoyed by the capacity crowd that welcomed them to the Amex Stadium on August 6; two strikes from new signing Will Buckley heralding their return…
The Seventy Two Unfortunates Football League Preview: Brand New
The penultimate amuse-bouche to the Season Preview that you might well be getting a little bored of by now focuses on the specially commissioned quintent of articles that may have gone unnoticed in the midst of the club-by-club chow down.Rob Langham, aka Lanterne Rouge, exploited his day job experience as a Commissioning Editor of books to hook in five writers to this section. Composer Kerry Andrew was signed up for the opening piece and, somewhat ironically, Kerry brings her own 9-5 role to the table as she considers the parallels between classical music and terrace chants. Following this, Williams Abbs…
TTU Awards 2010/2011: Team of the Season
Spanning our coverage to three divisions would always present problems when deciding upon this season’s best team. Just as the WBA, IBF and WBC versions of international boxing competed for eminence in the 1980s, Queen’s Park Rangers, Chesterfield and Brighton and Hove Albion possess equal claims to be the top canines thirty or so years on….and why restrict deliberations to actual Champions? Also mentioned by our pollsters were a Rochdale punching so far above their weight as to be dazzled, Championship Cities Norwich and Swansea, a Stevenage experiencing heady climes, and a benighted Plymouth Argyle squad for battling on to the end of the season…
James: Are the wealthy middle classes really the ones to back a football team...
Lanterne Rouge: Garath McCleary on signing for Reading today:
"It's amazing to be a...
Lloyd: On the Oxford / Reading thing, Lanterne, you write that "there is no c...
Ben: Yes, it does loom a bit, doesn't it? Moxey's comments on the ground re...
