I was going to open with a rant about how the travel problems on Tuesday left me sprinting down Olympic Way to Wembley, only to miss the first ten minutes of the match. However, after reading that a Wales fan lost his life that night, the problems which I suffered have been put into perspective.
For fans of the bigger clubs, this international break has provided the opportunity to reflect on how well their teams have fared over the first few games of the season.
It might feel a bit weird for fans of Brighton and Hove Albion to hear their team described as one of “the bigger clubs”, having spent the last five seasons down in League One, and more than a decade in an athletics stadium. However, after joining the growing number of English clubs in concluding that it’s not a great idea to have eight lanes of running track between the fans and the pitch (only West Ham United seem to be thinking in the opposite direction), the South Coast club might just have to get used to tags of greatness. They’d like to hope so, at least.
After promotion last season, the club has moved into their swanky new American Express Community Stadium in Falmer, and blazed their way to the top of the table. Southampton sit just behind, giving the early Championship table a rather similar look to the final League One table last season. Can they stay there? Robbie Savage couldn’t think of a reason for them not to.
I admire what Gus Poyet has achieved with the Seagulls. I thought that the lure of playing Championship football in their new stadium would have been what he used to motivate the players last season, but it is a great feat to get the players to continue their form into the new season. I attended a discussion forum with him once, and he came across as intelligent, funny and just a generally nice guy. I’m with many others, I’m sure, when I expect to see him managing in the Premier League at some point in the future.
Brighton and Hove Albion fans will want to keep hold of him. After all, they couldn’t have wished for a better start.
There is one exception, however. There was a lot of interest in the first competitive match at the Amex. Football Focus chose to present their programme from there, rather than show off their new Salford studio. The fans were all given little flags to wave, too, with each displaying a brand new badge/crest/emblem/logo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The atmosphere built up to give a real sense of occasion. This was history. The only problem was that Billy Sharp, of the opposing Doncaster Rovers, nabbed the first competitive goal at the new stadium. That wasn’t in the script.
The home fans would have left happy, though, thanks to their side’s comeback. They will only feel a tinge of disappointment that that first goal didn’t go to one of their own.
The goal, itself, wasn’t the most spectacular. Though he couldn’t stop it, the goalkeeper did manage to take a lot of pace off the ball. It’s fair to say that it ended up trundling over the line. That got me thinking. What if the ball hadn’t got to the line? What if the ball had got to the line, but it wasn’t clear whether it had gone all the way over or not? Of course, these situations have come up many times before. An often controversial decision is made by the referee and the assistant, with a debate on goal-line technology following soon after by fans and pundits alike.
Sharp’s goal, however, was different. It was more than just a goal. It was a moment of history. So, what if it had been one of those controversial goals? What if the first ever competitive goal at Brighton and Hove Albion's new stadium had been something akin to that ‘ghost goal’ in that match between Watford and Reading a few years ago?
The moment of history would be tarnished. That’s not right. In years to come, people would look back with unease, and without having that certain attachment to the memory which such occasions should have provided.
When answering one of the questions at the forum, Gus Poyet said that he preferred football without video technology. He thought that debating refereeing decisions in the pub after the match is what makes the sport enjoyable. That debate, though, has moved away from whether the decisions were right or wrong, and onto whether it is time for technology or not.
That debate isn’t going to go away until it’s introduced. I enjoy watching football without the technology. I think that most other fans do. At the same time, I’m quite sure that I could cope if it was there.
Whatever the future holds, though, one thing that must not happen is for moments of history to be allowed to be corrupted.
