Withdean West Stand – the worst away end in the Football League

Between 2005 and 2011, Brighton & Hove Albion’s Withdean Stadium had the dubious honour of being home to the worst away stand in the Football League. Quite possibly the worst away end in English football history, actually.

When Brighton had first arrived at the start of their ‘temporary’ 12 year stay, the club had refused to develop the west end of the athletics stadium.

It was not hard to see why; the running track meant that any stand built there would be around 50 metres away from nearest goal and 150 metres from what was happening at the other end of the pitch.

The distant vantage point might have been overcome if you could build a stand tall enough to give supporters a suitably elevated view. This was not possible either because of the residential properties at that end of the ground, including the home of the infamous Mr Catt who liked to spend his spare time taking the Albion to court over their use of Withdean.

For their first six years at the Theatre of Trees, the Albion therefore resisted the temptation to develop the west end. Eventually, attempting to compete in the Championship with a stadium which could only hold 7,000 supporters became impossible and so in 2005, work started on a new 900 seat stand as part of a project to increase capacity to 8,850.

Withdean had already been named the fourth worst stadium in England in 2004 by The Guardian. One of the best comments in the article from a visiting supporter said: “A three-sided athletics stadium, not a football ground, and the track makes the pitch seem miles away.”

“The fourth side is a sandpit for the long jump and a hammer-throwing area, which utterly ruins the atmosphere. Despite being the worst by a mile, it’s among the most expensive.”

We are not sure we agree with the slander of the hammer net – clearly, the fan in question was not there on the occasion when a wayward shot ended up flying into the net to spark wilder scenes of celebration than those which greeted an actual goal.

And if that away fan thought they had it bad at Withdean in 2004, wait until they visited from 2005 onwards when they found themselves sitting behind said long jump pit and hammer throw area (although sadly the net was taken down for each game) and paying £25 for the privilege.

The WAB team always wondered just how bad things were for a visiting supporter. Could you see anything if you turned up without a set of binoculars? What was it like entering the stadium through Mr Catt’s back garden?

And most importantly of all, was all this disappointment offset by there being a bacon baguette van? From watching countless Albion horror shows through the years, we knew what a difference a half time bacon and sausage baguette can make – even when you are watching Brighton lose 1-0 to nine man Walsall.

Then in January 2011, all our Christmases came at once. Brighton were paired with Portsmouth in the third round of the FA Cup. Pompey were entitled to 15% of the stadium due to competition rules, away fans were therefore housed at the east end of Withdean and the normal away stand was given to home supporters.

In the name of research (which had nothing to do with the West Stand being the cheapest part of the ground to sit in), we decided to give it a whirl. Our findings were that it was even more horrific than first imagined.

It started with the journey to get into the stand. The three turnstiles that granted entry were situated at the back of the leisure centre, leaving a rather long walk from the Tongdean Lane bridge all the way through the car park, up some steps, around The Sportsman, past the tennis courts, through another car park and into the ground. Getting a taxi from a central Brighton pub at around 2.40pm was not advisable.

The first thing you came to after entering the West Stand was the catering facility, an early opportunity to see if the fare on offer compared to the South Stand’s bacon heaven.

Needless to say, it didn’t. Not only were there no baguettes on offer, but there wasn’t a single rasher of bacon to be found anywhere. Forget the £25 ticket price or the fact that the Withdean away end was in a different Brighton postcode, the lack of bacon was the biggest black mark against the West Stand.

If you did want food, then the single fairground truck had just five people serving. One truck. Five people. 900 supporters in the stand. You didn’t need a GCSE in maths to predict that it would take 20 minutes to get a (non bacon) food item at half time, something which added to the overall experience of wonder.

The toilet facilities were also problematic. Portakabin urinals had been taken to a new level in the South Stand; many Brighton fans would happily hide away in them to escape the rain during a wet Withdean day or because they were the only place you could hear the tannoy. Some might even say they were one of the more pleasant aspects of playing home games for 12 years in a converted athletics track.

In contrast, you would not want to spend a second longer than necessary in the Withdean away end toilets. They could only host six males at a time, they were cramped, and if some sort of diarrhoea epidemic hit every single member of the West Stand audience then there is no doubt these facilities would not cope.

And then there was the view. Unless you had the use of the Hubble Space Telescope to see what was going on, you were buggered. Anything happening at the east end was indistinguishable, as was the case when Pompey came to town and Dave Kitson managed to get himself sent off in the first half. If you could not spot a player with vibrant red hair getting his marching orders, then who could you spot?

We were lucky in that Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes scored two of the Brighton goals in front of the Withdean away stand as the Albion sauntered to a 3-1 victory over Pompey.

For Fran Sandaza’s third in second half stoppage time, the only way of knowing how our horse faced attacker had notched was by watching a replay back on Match of the Day that evening.

There was one positive about the whole Withdean West Stand experience – you were close to where the player’s ‘tunnel’ was in the north west corner of the stadium. Which also meant you could get one of the best views in the house of Gully’s Girls. Be grateful for small mercies.

Overall though, it was a pretty ghastly experience. A rubbish view over 150 metres away from one of the goals, no atmosphere, nowhere to hide if it rained, cramped and dank toilets and no bacon.

Fair play to any League One supporters who travelled from places like Hartlepool, Carlisle or Plymouth and paid £25 for that. The Withdean West Stand really was the worst away end in the Football League.