My football team Brighton & Hove Albion's fabulous new stadium since last season, after 15 years with no proper home!
In 1997 the Seagulls were robbed of the Goldstone, our ground for over a century. We had to gratefully ground-share with Gillingham FC in Kent about 70 miles away, for a year or two, and then the picturesque but very inadequate Withdean Stadium, a converted athletics track, was our temporary home for 13 years (see PAD 19 Nov 2006). For most of this time until until late 2007 the club and all its supporters were fighting hard for permission to build a proper, much needed new ground at Falmer, on the outskirts of Brighton. Finally...work started on the new stadium site in January 2009 with plans to move into it by August 2011.
August 2011.......STADIUM COMPLETE! We were newly promoted back up to the Championship League and the first home match in this league was in the new Amex Stadium...what an occasion!
UPDATE OCT.2014....... We are still there in the challenging Championship League. Been in the play-offs for the almighty Premier League for the last 2 seasons, but then just missed promotion each time. Will it be 3rd time lucky this year? We now have a huge, new state-of-the-art training complex and academy at nearby Lancing. It is said to be one of the best in the country.
UPDATE 2016.....After just avoiding relegation last year, this year we just missed out on automatic promotion only by a narrow goal difference score, then in the play-offs we had awful bad luck losing several key players during one match, and proven wrong refereeing decisions in another, and just missed out AGAIN!!
UPDATE 2017......WE'VE DONE IT!!!! AUTOMATIC PROMOTION TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE!!!!! After all the aforementioned struggles. Amazing.....in 1997 we also were, on the last match of the season, within 1 goal of going out of the Football League altogether, but we got that goal in the 2nd half, away to Hereford United, and stayed in.
WITHDEAN - THE PREVIOUS TEMPORARY HOME . 1
FAN ZONE TIME
BRASS BAND PLAYING BEFORE FIRST LEAGUE MATCH AT THE AMEX