American
Express
Community
Stadium,
Brighton
v Leeds United, Championship League
Friday, September 23rd 2011, 7.45pm
By
Paul Dickinson
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With
only six of the current 92 grounds left to do,
this weekend provided the perfect opportunity to
get 2 more ticked off - watching my team at
Brighton on the Friday evening and then staying
over for Aldershot v Crawley the following day.
Having
seen Leeds play many times at the Goldstone (which
I loved) and at Withdean (which I didn't), I was
looking forward to my 1st visit to the Amex
Stadium
As I
was meeting friends prior to the game, I parked my
car at Hove train station and a 5 minute train
journey saw me in Brighton. Its a place I know
well and is great for an away fan, with loads of
bars and eating establishments to suit all tastes.
All
being real ale drinkers, we went to the Lord
Nelson Inn & the Basketmakers Arms - both
within 5 minutes walk from the train station and
the latter having a particularly good range of
different beers on.
It
was then a quick walk back to the station to
catch the train upto Falmer - where a queuing
system was put into place in order to avoid
congestion on the platform.
After
chatting with some Brighton fans on the way there,
we arrived at the ground 10 minutes later and 1st
impressions are impressive, a great building
design surrounded by countryside is certainly
eye-catching. The away end is at the far side of
the stadium from the train station and can be
approached around either side stand.
Once
inside, the concourses were heaving with a
sold-out away allocation, so I didn't even both
trying to get food or drink.
I
have to say that my impressions of inside the
stadium were less positive - there is one
fantastic triple decker stand to the left of the
away fans but the other 3 stands are far smaller
and with spaces in each corner , where seats can
be added in the future if necessary. However, the
atmosphere was fantastic from both sets of fans
and it was a classic game - with Leeds being 2-0
up at half time, then 3-2 down before scoring an
injury time equaliser.
Having
heard reports of long queues to get back into
Brighton afterwards, I walked to the top of
the away end just prior to the final
whistle and then walked quickly round to the train
station. There are 2 separate queues - one for
Brighton and one for Lewes - and even though I was
there quickly, it still took me 20 minutes to get
onto a train and I heard later tales of Leeds fans
not getting back into Brighton until 11.15pm. I was surprised by this - if you
encourage fans to use public transport then you
must have sufficient plans in place to cater for
the subsequent demand.
That
apart though, it was a great night out and all my
bad memories of Withdean have now disappeared!
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