Kick off times may be inconvenient, but Brighton on TV is a blessing
One of the very few upsides of there being no fans in stadia for the past eighteen months has been the ability to watch, if you can afford it, every Brighton game live on TV.
Not cheap by any stretch. Add together Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime, and you are looking at around £30 or £40 a month on top of your season ticket and TV licence.
It remains though a lot less expensive, and certainly more convenient for those of a lazier disposition like me, than getting up at silly o’clock to board a coach to somewhere northern, cold and unwelcoming, only to watch us draw 0-0 from a seat half a mile from the pitch behind a stanchion.
And of course these days you need what is a seemingly elusive number of loyalty points for an away ticket – even after barely missing so much as a Carabao Cup tie at the Amex in the last ten years, I am forever 30 points short of securing that Brentford ticket.
Even a full hand of subscriptions is once again no guarantee of watching Brighton away games live on the box, denied by the whims of TV executives and league officials for whom the Saturday 3pm kick-off is sacrosanct in terms of no live coverage.
There are of course other streaming options that may or may not be legal, may test your antivirus software and broadband speed, and may well attempt to entice you away from the action with the latest wrinkle therapy or celebrity body parts feature.
These of course tap into the live Premier League TV streams to the global market, far more lucrative than UK Sky Sports subscribers alone, which is why you may be seeing adverts from Chinese channels during the half time break.
Arguably, it is easier to watch Albion away games in Shanghai than Steyning. You may be lucky, or unlucky depending on who the commentator is, to have an English feed, but it is always delayed by a couple of minutes. Or so I am told.
Match of the Day remains an institution, but there is nothing like watching it live, and in the modern era of alerts from various apps updating you every time Adam Lallana strains a calf muscle, no chance whatsoever of making it to half ten on a Saturday night without finding out the score. “If you don’t want to know the result, look away now.”
Of course, to those of us of a certain age, Brighton being on TV at all was once as rare a thing as a Wolves away kit appearance. The thrill of spying the TV gantry above the East Terrace as you approached the Goldstone along the Old Shoreham Road, the neck strain from trying to catch a glimpse of John Motson’s sheepskin coat or Brian Moore’s shiny head. And that was just when we were the supporting game on The Big Match, not actually live, even in the old Division One.
The only away option then was Radio Brighton’s commentary with the late, great Tony Millard, and his BBC Sussex successors still fill that role admirably.
Sometimes it is easier if you don’t actually see that misplaced back pass, just have it described to you – via one of Warren Aspinall’s refreshingly honest groans – once it is safely back in the gloves of Bobby Sanchez.
So at the risk of saying “they don’t know they’re born, young people”, despite all the subscription fees, the eye-strain from tracking a Tariq Lamptey run on a mobile phone screen, or the nervy fear whilst watching a dodgy live feed, we are better off now than we ever were if we cannot actually be there. Particularly if the game is on down the pub.
