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So, my first visit to the Withdean, aka 'the Theatre Of Trees' (Seagull Love Review fanzine). Does any stadium in Britain have a more poncey, less Old Football location than this? On one side, idyllic ancient woodland. On the other, the leafy stockbroker suburb of Preston Park.
Whoever said the crowd would be quiet was spot-on. (It was a pretty low turnout anyway, for the first competitive fixture of the season. I'd estimate 2,500 of whom 200 were Barnet.) Maybe it's something to do with the population of Brighton being made up of so many newcomers, carpetbaggers, transients, people like me in other words. Too many people who didn't grow up here, and who are spectators rather than supporters. The late summer sunlight didn't help: goals were met with cricket claps rather than roars. (Well, apart from one small posse of lunatics in the cheap seats who acted the way that people who don't go to football matches think football supporters always act.)
The loudest cheer, tellingly, came for the half-time news that Crystal Palace were 1-0 down to Hereford. The second-loudest was for the name of Adam Virgo, apparently something of a cult hero, starting his second spell at Brighton after spells on loan here there and everywhere, and three years in the stiffs at Celtic.
The most consistent noise in the stands, however, came from a pair of middle-aged, matronly women sat directly behind me who, had I not turned around and had I not known that one of them is dead, I would have sworn were television's Two Fat Ladies. They spoke with the strident tones of a public school headmistress, issuing disapproving shouts like "Take your hands off him, he's ours!" and "Wash your mouth out, Lippy!". And, gazing at the goalkeeper in an uncharacteristically lust-fuelled moment, "That's such a lovely red on Michel's shirt."
What's the worse thing for someone who normally watches Big Red Football on telly to do? Complain about the poor standard at a lower-league match, or patronisingly praise it? You can't win. The reality is that Brighton were comfortably superior to Barnet, and never looked in any trouble after taking the lead within 120 seconds, although their complacency at the back would have been, and will be, punished by a strike force who actually know how to finish. (Barnet flashed the ball across the face of Brighton's goal several times, usually via Luke Medley or Albert Adomah whipping it in from the flanks, but nobody was ever there to do something with it.)
Michy Adams clearly likes his training ground set pieces: three of Albion's four goals came from, in order, an indirect free kick headed in, a corner headed in, and a direct free kick. Textbook.
It helped that Barnet's goalkeeper Rob Beckwith was hopeless, his mind clearly still somewhere on a beach in the Balearics. For the fourth goal (the direct free kick), he didn't even bother to dive. It was a genuine surprise when he came out for the second half.
In open play, the amount of hopeful aerial punts were doubly inexplicable: firstly because the high winds drastically reduced any chance of directing them, and secondly because this was one of the shortest, most Disney Seven Dwarfish matches I've ever seen. Brighton's Dean Cox - celebrating his 21st birthday today but it could as easily have been his 8th, so narrow was the gap between the top of his socks and the hem of his shorts - is the smallest professional footballer I've ever seen, and Barnet's Adam Birchall is probably the second-smallest.
After going in 4-0 up at half time (disappointingly, not the highest scoreline: Leeds were 5-0 up at Chester), the pattern of the second half was pretty inevitable. You guessed: Brighton sat back, Barnet came into it more, but there were no further goals. A bit of handbags near the end, with a sending-off on each side, and the sort of erratic and ineffectual refereeing which makes you appreciate the guys who do manage to maintain control.
Then we all melted away, politely and quietly, into the trees. This is a residential neighbourhood, after all...
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