Brighton & Hove Albion Fans’ Forum 2021 Round up

The Brighton & Hove Albion Fans’ Forum 2021-22 took place at the Amex Stadium on Wednesday 8th September 2021 and as normal, it was an evening full of insightfulness, surrealism and the downright bizarre.

For the uninitiated, supporters are able to quiz the panel of Tony Bloom, Paul Barber and Graham Potter about anything they want to do with the Albion. In fact, it does not even have to be about football – this year we found out what type of dog Graham Potter has and where he walks it.

There is an unwritten rule that before asking a question, you must state your name, where you live, where you sit at the Amex and then offer optional thanks to Tony, Paul and Graham.

Tactical advice for the manager was sadly missing at the 2021 event, meaning we were denied a retired bus driver from Peacehaven suggesting that Brighton leave a man up when defending corners just in case it is something that Potter with 30 years experience in football has not yet considered.

Still, there were plenty of highlights even without fans trying to tell the manager how to do his job. Here is our round up of the Brighton Fans’ Forum 2021, hosted by Johnny Cantor and broadcast live on BBC Radio Sussex.

Tony Parker from Lewes and the North Stand got things started, following the rules by thanking Tony, Paul and Graham for managing the club magnificently. He then suggested that Shane Duffy could play up front before asking what Graham could say to set the minds at rest of supporters who felt the club should have signed a striker in the summer?

No messing from Tony who dived straight in with the issue that dominated the transfer window. Graham said that everyone wanted the team to improve and that there were a number of ways to do this.

Firstly would be by looking at what went well last season and what did not go quite so well. Making marginal gains in the areas where the Albion were poor can lead to increased points and better performances. Presumably, these areas involve not missing basic chances from three yards out.

Secondly, can the contribution of individual players be improved? Signing a new striker is not easy and there is no guarantee that a big money signing would get the goals expected of them or lead to an improvement in the team.

Potter said that if he had Danny Welbeck, Neal Maupay and Leandro Trossard sat with him, they would all say they can improve and that there is more to come from them.

Potter feels it is his responsibility to help those who are desperate to get better become better players. Interestingly, there no mention of Aaron Connolly here, who would presumably be sat in Shoosh instead.

He added that if a player become available who the club felt would improve their options up front, then they would try and sign them. There was however hardly a queue of such individuals who would be right for the Albion.

Potter said that the easy thing to do would be to sign one of these strikers regardless of if they would improve Brighton, just to get supporters off his back. But it does not necessarily make it the right thing to do when it comes to making the Albion better off.

Bloom built on this, saying that the recruitment team worked year-round to sign players and they had to be individuals who fit in with the team and the environment.

Any new signing is agreed between a number of people. Those involved with the decision making process are happy with the squad that they have given Potter to work with for 2021-22.

Chris from Worthing (no details of length of support or where he sits at the Amex given) could not get his head around selling Percy Tau, loaning out Florin Andone and Andi Zeqiri, or signing Abdallah Sima and sending him straight to Stoke City. Why were none of these players considered for the Premier League?

Potter said he had to look at the balance of his squad and how if you have more strikers, it means that fewer attacking midfield players can be involved – a position that the Albion are clearly well-off in with the likes of Adam Lallana, Pascal Gross, Jakub Moder and Alexis Mac Allister.

He also said he had to take into consideration the individual themselves, who may want or need regular first team football. Keeping them just so they can fulfil a role as fourth choice striker may not be best for the player.

There was no mention of what happens when the inevitable of Maupay, Welbeck and Connolly all being injured at the same occurs, so perhaps we will see Duffy up front as suggested by Tony from Lewes…

Eddie from Brighton who sits over in the East Stand Lower thought some of the football last season was fantastic. After the problems with carrying out ID checks, proof of negative Covid test and mobile tickets at the Everton game, he wanted to know what improvements the club were looking at from an operational point of view?

Barber said it was very difficult to ask people to change behaviours and routines almost overnight that have been in place for a decade since the Amex opened.

The club were having to balance a desire to get everyone in as quickly and safely as possible with what Barber said would almost certainly be mandatory checks from October 1st.

He wanted to get everyone used to the system in advance of that date. This would help avoid complete carnage by trying to introduce the checks at for the first time with no preparation whatsoever at the home game when they became a legal requirement.

Nobody yet knows whether the government will rule that these checks have to be carried out at random or on 100 percent of attendees. The club have therefore been testing different implementations in different areas.

Some turnstiles have had every person checked, others one in 10, others one in 20 and so on. That is why some supporters attending the Watford and Everton games have simply been waved in without having to show proof of vaccine or a negative test whilst others have queued for long periods of time to gain entry to the Amex.

These tests have also informed the club about what sort of queues form, the reaction of supporters and the pressures placed on staff. The club is learning all the time from the process to improve going forward.

Needless to say, in the few days since the Brighton Fans’ Forum 2021 the government have now u-turned and said that vaccine passports will not be necessary for major sporting events. Expect another 21 reversals in policy between now and the start of October.

Paul was another season ticket holder in the East Lower and he had a cunning plan to ask three questions, claiming that it was one big question with three different parts for each of the panel. He asked Paul what the major factor was when it came to deciding whether to make a move for a new signing, Graham how much say he had over recruitment, and Tony whether he had any stories about how his poker skills helped the Albion pick up a bargain?

Host Johnny did not seem impressed by Paul’s spurious claims that this was only one question but he let him get on with it anyway, providing a possible blueprint for supporters to get multiple Brighton Fans’ Forum questions in at future events beyond 2021.

Barber answered ‘part one’ of the question first. What Graham needed informed the process alongside how much Tony was comfortable spending on a signing, although there were many other factors involved.

He added that it was amusing to read about what he and the club should be doing on various outlets (hi Paul) and that 99.9 percent of the players that the Albion get linked with, the club have either never heard of or never spoken to.

Potter answered ‘part two’ by saying he was the head coach and his responsibility and focus was on coaching the squad. He puts an XI on the pitch and the recruitment team can look at that and see where new recruits are needed.

A conspiracy theorist might suggest that Pascal Gross at right back and Jakub Moder at left wing back in the opening three games of the current Premier League season were desperate pleas to purchase natural width before the transfer window shuts.

Tony did not have any stories to tell for ‘part three’ of the question. Interestingly, he did add that Brexit (means Brexit) was a good thing for signing players from outside of Europe. Perhaps that should have been plastered on the side of a big red bus rather than lies about funding the NHS.

The lady who asked Graham at Brighton Fans’ Forum in 2019 whether he could make her life more exciting was back in 2021 and actually introduced herself as that. She said Graham had managed it… with the football, especially the 3-2 win over Manchester City which left her more excited than she had been for many years. She then said she had been a fan at the Goldstone, Withdean, for many years, and still got goosepimples when she came to the Amex. After around 20 minutes, we finally got to the question which was can the club increase capacity for parking?

Barber said Brighton & Hove City Council do not like cars and that when the Amex was built, a transport plan had to be put in place so that the stadium did not rely on people driving to it.

Mr Bennett wanting to redevelop Bennett’s Field had come at the worst possible time, cutting the already limited parking when a lot of people are wary about using public transport because of Covid.

Barber said Spurs are getting 60,000 people in and out of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with no parking, proving it can be done. But there is no magic wand to improving the situation at the Amex and although the club will keep working on it, finding additional spaces for cars is very difficult.

Mark from Worcester wanted to know if the club could reconsider the level of conditions attached to season ticket sharing?
We have written about the problems with the Albion’s season ticket sharing scheme before, namely that a lot of fans are not bothering with it because of the costs involved, which in turn is leading to noticeably lower attendances.

Mark said that he understood the implementation of a one-off cost to a season ticket holder of £20 to upgrade for the privilege of being able to pass their seat on.

He did not see why tickets could only be given to those who have paid £25 to become a MyAlbion+ member, nor why it was so difficult to pass seats between different age groups.

Barber said that terms and conditions and the law do not allow tickets to be passed between people, even if it has been happening for generations.

It can lead to issues in letting banned supporters into stadiums, opposition fans in home sections or in landing a season ticket holder into trouble if the person who takes their seat causes problems.

Covid meant that digital ticketing had to come in. Older and vulnerable people meanwhile might not have wanted to attend every game until they felt it more safe to do so.

The club therefore had a choice – either leave tickets on phones and have no sharing system, or come up with a system that allowed season ticket holders to pass on their seats in a way that allowed the club to maintain information about who was coming in for track-and-trace reasons.

Barber said the result was that for £20, supporters can share their tickets as often as they wanted with as many different people as they wanted – as long as they are MyAlbion+ members.

The club do not see this as being unreasonable, pointing out that people who have invested in the club by paying to become members should have priority in watching matches over those who have not.

Barber then asked how can the club capture the data if there was no membership scheme in place and they do not know who is in the stadium?

Quite why the club suddenly need £25 to get the phone numbers and email addresses of attendees when they have been doing it for nothing whenever a person bought a ticket in the past is anyone’s guess.

Barber finished by saying that thousands of fans have signed up for the season ticket sharing scheme, proving that it works.

Presumably in the same way that he had more emails in support of Premier League PPV than against it (PPV was dropped within a month with thousands of pounds raised for the Brighton & Hove Foodbank instead) and that the decision to charge £12 to enter the Seven Stars Bar was extremely popular (Seven Stars Bar was shut within nine months).

The lady who wanted Graham to excite her was back for another question, much to Johnny’s annoyance. She wanted to know how the club worked out attendances as when she looked around the stadium, she was never quite sure that the announced crowd was correct? She also wanted to thank Graham (again) and say sorry to him and the players for the times she has had to leave the Amex early and not clapped them at the end.

If this woman is not succeeding Fiona Bruce as the host of Question Time based on her work at the Brighton Fans’ Forum 2021 then there is something seriously wrong with the world.

Barber gave the answer that everyone already knows and that is the club announce tickets sold rather than physical bodies through the turnstile. Or as we like to call it, a pre-ttendance.

Maria is a new season ticket holder joining her husband who has been a season ticket holder for quite a few years. Maria wondered what advice was given to young players in the academy about selecting an agent?

Barber said that players in the academy have seminars run for them regarding a whole range of subjects covering a career as a footballer, including representation.

There are good agents and bad agents and what the club try and do is advise what an agent can do and what an agent should do. It is then up to the player and their parents to make a choice.

David from Hove sits in the West Stand Lower. He is not prepared to travel to Crawley to watch the women play and would like to see more of their matches played at the Amex. Would that be possible?

Barber said that the club would love to have the women’s team playing back in Brighton but that the demands on the pitch at the Amex were already significant. The men’s first team had to take priority as they generate the income that allows the club to run.

That said, the Albion are committed to playing a part in growing the WSL. They know that Crawley is not ideal and if more matches can be played at the Amex, then they will be held there.

Opening the stadium is not cheap, especially for only 2,000 supporters. Hope Powell and the players understand that and the club will look at other ways to get them playing games in Brighton. Hello Withdean and a £4.50 carvery before every WSL match…

Louise from Hastings and the North Stand wanted to know if there were any plans to introduce safe standing in the North as there is a big call for it?

It took the best part of 45 minutes but 2021 did eventually get the time-honoured tradition of a Brighton Fans’ Forum question about safe standing.

Barber said the club had considered it and previously invited fans who were interested to a meeting at the Amex three years ago to talk about it. Only 33 people turned up, suggesting that the demand for it was not as widespread as believed.

To install safe standing at the Amex would involve Bloom paying a lot of money to rip up the existing North Stand at the same time as reducing capacity because safe standing demands more space per person than normal seating. As Barber said, not a good combination.

There was a question next for Graham about how he was finding life in Sussex and if he had explored the county?
Graham said that there had been tough moments during the two-and-a-half years, including losing both his parents. He said that the support he had from the club and the fans had been superb.

Potter added that Sussex is a beautiful part of the world and in arguably the best moment of the Brighton Fans’ Forum 2021, he likes walking his King Charles Spaniel up on Devil’s Dyke.

Nick from the West Stand was surprised that Michal Karbownik was sent on loan to Olympiacos with a right-to-buy clause included in the deal. He wanted to know if this was the sign of a successful transfer strategy, signing players and then moving them on for profit? Nick also wondered if Barber had links with Vancouver Whitecaps still from his time working in Canada?

Barber said that he talks to Vancouver regularly and that one or two players have come over to train with the Albion. MLS is getting bigger and bigger and that more talented young players are emerging from North America as a result.

Tapping into that market is now easier thanks to Brexit (means Brexit) and that gives the Albion greater opportunity to look at signings from the MLS and other parts of the world which had previously been restricted because of the tighter work permit regulations which existed when Britain was in the EU.

Barber then added that the club would love to go on a North American tour to strengthen the links being built by the significant investment that American Express have put into the Albion.

Potter responded to the Karbownik question, saying that the best way for players to improve and reach their potential was by playing. He cited the development of Ben White and the loan path that turned him into a £50 million player.

We remain none the wiser as to why a man touted as one of the most promising young players in Europe has been offered permanently to Olympiacos just eight months and one FA Cup appearance after Brighton brought him to England for £4.5 million.

Tim from Falmer has been a season ticket holder since 1979. He is no good at technology and could not get his season ticket onto Google Pay. He has spoken to Supporter Services who have been brilliant but he still does not have his ticket. He wishes he could have a plastic ticket with his photo on as some other fans of his era have been supplied with as he found it was easier to get to home games at Gillingham the Amex.

Not so much a question as a wonderful monologue, including the obscene and wonderful claim that home matches involving a 150 mile round trip were easier than watching Brighton at the Amex.

Barber pointed Tim in the direction of Head of Supporter Services Jenny Gower who was sitting at the back of the room and might have even had a spare season ticket card on her for him to use.

Matthew from Jevington is a season ticket holder in the West Lower. His question was would the club be focussing its attention in future on getting more Sussex-born players into the first team squad via the academy like Lewis Dunk and Solly March?

After Googling Jevington, it is apparently a very small place near Polegate. Who knew? Barber said that they scouted as many local players as possible and they did their best to get them to the Albion, despite the fact that the county has a much smaller catchment area and pool of talent compared to London and other parts of England.

Somebody who did not give their name, hometown or where they sit asked the penultimate question of the night. This identified male asked what had been put in Duffy’s tea to spark his turnaround, when Tariq Lamptey would be fit and if Jurgen Locadia had a role to play?

Potter said that Duffy had endured a terrible experience last season in terms of what he had to deal with off the pitch as well as a loan move which did not go well at all.

Duffy has since taken stock of his life and where he wants to go (not Molly Malone’s anymore since its sad demise). He has come back from Celtic almost as a different guy and you can now see that on the pitch which Potter added is fantastic to see.

Lamptey has taken some big steps recently and might feature against Swansea City in the third round of the Carabao Cup. Finally, Locadia is getting reintroduced and he has the opportunity to knuckle down and show his talent and ability.

The final question of the Brighton Fans’ Forum 2021 came from another male who refused to give his required details. He wanted to know the panel’s opinion on xG?

Potter said that xG got teams out of jail a little bit as it blurred the lines between winning meaning a team was good and losing meaning a team was bad.

With xG around, footballing was no longer sorely a results business. What it did show in terms of last season was that Brighton were on the right path.