England 8-0 Norway: A reminder of how lucky Brighton is to have the Amex

After 11 years, it is sometimes easy to forget how lucky the Albion are to have one of the finest stadiums in the country. A capacity crowd cheering England to a record-breaking 8-0 win over Norway at Euro 2022 was a timely reminder of the difference the Amex has made to the city of Brighton & Hove.

If you are one of those people who does not like women’s football, now is probably the time to stop reading. Because if you don’t like women’s football, you can just ignore it rather than moan incessantly about it.

In the same way you probably don’t like grass bowls or pétanque but don’t take to Twitter or Facebook to complain about it.

The Lionesses put on a show that will go down as one of the greatest nights at the Amex. The atmosphere was electric, thousands of kids enjoyed what was probably their first experience of watching international football and eight goals rained in. Eight goals.

In 10 months between August 2021 and May 2022, Brighton only managed to score 12 times at the Amex. England had six within 41 minutes against Norway.

A 47 minute hat-trick for Beth Mead meant the Arsenal forward had more goals at the Amex than Alireza Jahanbakhsh managed in three years.

Maybe Brighton should have put the £17 million spent on Jahanbakhsh and the £14 million forked out for Jurgen Locadia into a combined £31 million bid for Mead?

Norway were no slouches, either. Ranked 11th in the world, they were widely expected to give England their toughest test of the group stage.

Instead, it was a massacre. The Lionesses were relentless. They wanted to get forward at every opportunity, tormenting their opponents out wide and delivering countless dangerous balls into the box.

It was a refreshing change from the risk-averse football England play under Gareth Southgate. Whisper it quietly, but Graham Potter and Brighton could also learn a thing or two from the way Sarina Wiegman set her side up.

There were no meaningless sideways passes in an attempt to break some sort of Guinness World Record for possession. Everything England did was for the sole purpose of making something stick on the scoreboard.

Never in England’s wildest dreams would they have expected to bulldoze a team like Norway into utter capitulation.

The scoreline though was not the only reason to come away from England 8-0 Norway at the Amex pinching yourself – even more special was that such an occasion was taking place in the City of Brighton & Hove.

England last hosted a European Championships in 2005. It was a bit of a disaster for the Lionesses, who crashed out in the group stages with current Brighton boss Hope Powell at the helm.

The Albion meanwhile had just about survived relegation from the Championship at the end of the 2004-05 season.

That was a miracle in itself; Brighton had no hope of competing with the budgets of most second tier clubs whilst playing in front of 7,000 people at Withdean Stadium. So it proved a year later when the Seagulls finished bottom of the table.

Dick Knight’s dream of a new community stadium at Falmer was being hit by setback after setback. Public inquiries, planning permissions quashed on a technicality, the increased likelihood of bat and vehicle collisions… you name it and it got in the way.

The city clearly needed a state-of-the-art stadium but a small group of nimbys were doing everything in their power to stop it.

Knight, Martin Perry and the Falmer For All team eventually won the argument, largely because they beat a relentless drum about how a new ground would benefit the whole community and not just the Albion.

Getting the green light for the stadium was only half the battle. When the economy crashed and banks became less inclined to lend vast sums of money, Tony Bloom rode to the rescue.

He paid £97 million to get the thing built. In return, he became Brighton chairman. The football club is now his and so too the Amex.

Some might argue that one man effectively owning the stadium reduced the community element. And it is true that the overriding purpose of the Amex is now to try and make money for the football club.

But show the naysayers an event like England 8-0 Norway and then let them to try and argue that the Amex has not made a major difference to Brighton and the wider Sussex area.

What made the Amex’s first game of Euro 2022 special was that it attracted a vastly different crowd to that of a normal Brighton home fixture.

Hundreds of primary school children who had come to the game on coaches left the North Stand afterwards singing “It’s Coming Home”. For them, this was an evening they are never likely to forget.

Families priced out of watching the Albion in the Premier League were able to flock to the stadium with an adult ticket costing just £15.

Gay couples held hands openly with no fear of prejudice. The Albion might be considered one of the most welcoming and tolerant clubs in English football, but when do you ever see that at a Brighton home game?

England playing at the Amex made football accessible to people who never normally watch. A wider breadth of the population were there, helping the Amex live up to Knight’s dream of a community stadium.

That in turn lent itself to a surprisingly raucous, carnival atmosphere. The Lionesses scoring eight times obviously helped, but even if England had won 1-0 with the ball bouncing off Ellen White’s ear, this still would have been a remarkable night.

Back in 2005 when women’s football in England was amateur and something of a shambles, the idea of a fully professional Women’s Super League and an England side being one of the favourites to become European Champions would have sounded ridiculous.

So too the notion that Brighton & Hove would host games in an international tournament, when the city’s stadium was an athletics track with 7,000 temporary seats located in a nature reserve, from where a mysterious figure let off fireworks whenever the Albion scored.

Brighton & Hove has come a long way in 17 years. The Amex has transformed the city into a place where world class sporting events want to be played.

We are very lucky indeed for the stadium Knight and Bloom built. Even if a bag of Starbust did cost £3.40 at England 8-0 Norway.