Yet again our visit to Brighton and Hove Albion is in midweek, but if you’re going down to Sussex rather than watching the beamback at Elland Road, then read on.

At last summer’s Fans’ Parliament a Brighton fan told me that she’d heard that the police keep asking the League to make sure this fixture is always on a weekday, which might explain that it’s on a Tuesday night for the second season in a row.

It's a long story how Brighton came to be playing in their new stadium at Falmer. The Goldstone Ground had been Brighton's home since 1902, but by the 1990s it had fallen into a state of some disrepair and it would have taken a lot of work to bring it up to the standards demanded by the Taylor Report. Instead, the owner of Focus DIY had the bright idea of selling the ground for his own gain and bought his place on the board for just over £50!

The Goldstone ground was sold for £7 million by the club and then re-sold again shortly afterwards for £22 million! So hard-up Brighton had to play their home games at Gillingham for two years, before returning to the only available site in the town in 1999 and spending £2m to bring a council-owned athletics stadium at Withdean up to Football League standard.

After a long drawn out battle, the Club finally received planning permission in July 2007 for a new stadium at Falmer, which is a village on the northern edge of Brighton close to the University of Sussex. The move was fiercely resisted by the residents, who thought it would spoil the character of the village, but the club finally got the nod after a public enquiry. The new stadium cost £93m, and now goes under the snappy name of ‘The American Express Community Stadium’.

To get there by car you need to take the M23 and then the A23, until you reach the junction with the A27. You then take this road towards Lewes, and after around four miles you will reach the stadium on your right hand side. But there is no parking at the stadium for away fans (although coaches and minibuses will be allowed to park providing that they have been pre-booked with the Club) and there is a large no parking zone in force around the area of the stadium on matchdays.

So the club are trying to encourage fans to use the Park & Ride services. These run from three different locations, and the easiest one for away fans is Mill Road, just off the A23/A27 junction. It runs from 5.30pm for evening kick offs, and on the return journey the last buses leave the stadium up to 90 minutes after the end of the game. Vehicles must be removed no later than two hours after the game has ended.

As there have been reports of long waits on the buses back to the park & ride car parks, it might be a better idea to park in Lewes and get the train from there. The nearest railway station is Falmer, which is right next to the stadium, and it’s on the line heading east from Brighton towards Lewes. There is a train from the main Brighton station approximately every ten minutes, but all the same there have been reports of overcrowding on the trains, with fans having a long wait to get onto the station after the game.

Another option is to get a bus from the centre of Brighton, on route number 25, 28 or 29. Local transport is included within the price of your match ticket, and it covers an area stretching as far north as Haywards Heath, so if you’re coming from London on the train you only need to buy a ticket to Hayawards Heath.

There aren’t many pubs close to the stadium, only the Swan Inn in Falmer village. So you might need to stop for a pint or two in Brighton itself, with one decent option being the CAMRA- recommended Evening Star, which is on Surrey Street near the main railway station. They usually sell booze within the stadium and the bars are open after the game. So you can wait behind while all the traffic dies down, and they also show the times of the trains on the screens so that you know when you need to leave. And there’s always the ‘Brewers Arms’ in Lewes, the Brighton and South Downs CAMRA pub of the year, which is right by the castle in the centre of town.

The usual away fans allocation is 3,300 in the South East corner and part of the of the East & South Stands lower tiers, but for this game we’ve only got 2,300 seats out of a total capacity of 30,250. Presumably this is because it’s harder to get there for a midweek game we still had 500 tickets available as of 8am this morning, and they will still be on sale on the night. You will need to take your season ticket or membership card to prove you’re eligible to buy one.

As you would expect from a new stadium, the view and leg room are both good, and we also get padded seats! Another plus is that the concourse is wide enough to prevent overcrowding and there is also a good selection of food by football ground standards. And the price of all this luxury is £38 for adults in the East stand and £32 in the south stand and south-east corner, with concessions available in both sections.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com , where most of the contributors are less than impressed with the transport and parking arrangements.

Photo: Action Images

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