Last Bongo In Brighton
DJ Format’s sample heavy track from 2000, whose title was a play on the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Last Bongo In Belgium”, but didn’t use that track for one of the many samples. It did sample Muppets, so is doubly appropriate for today.
It was a strange feeling on Saturday with not being at a game. I didn’t make the trip to Wigan, the first competitive match I’ve missed this season and the first since the Newport game back on Easter Monday. Watching the live text on the BBC website and having FSS news on isn’t the same. Going to games is addictive. There was never an intention to be going to away games when we first got season tickets for the 2021–22 season, but it gets under your skin and is an itch which needs scratching more regularly now. The addictive nature I have is kicking in for something else now.
We went and got our tickets for tonight’s game on Wednesday evening. And I got drawn into the plethora of choices of merchandise out in the club shop. My pre-season kit envy for the black training kit with the red trident up the back was sated, and I just about managed to resist buying one of every different item and limited myself to two pieces (both black, and Helen got two as well, both red), but I can see it only being a temporary reprieve for my wallet, especially as the away and third kits aren’t even in stock yet.
Amusingly the club had also found a load of cardboard clackers somewhere and were giving them away. I didn’t take one, the chant from the Cambridge game the previous Saturday of “stick your clackers up your arse” was still fresh in my mind.
Having gotten our own tickets, we then needed to sort two more out once they went on general sale on the Thursday. Getting those two tickets was painful. Brighton’s website is more painful to buy tickets from than our own. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to buy two fucking tickets. I just about stopped myself from throwing my laptop through the window during the process.
I was quite happily going to get the park and ride to the ground from my office in Hove as for the last couple of years, the car park at my office has been open for parking, with buses from outside it to the stadium for Brighton games. Only for my smug assurance to be shattered when I found out that my office is not a park and ride site for Brighton games this season. I had to hurriedly try and get places on one of the coaches from Crawley instead.
Anyway, the away game I missed was our first defeat of the season. A 1–0 loss in a game in which we dominated in all statistical categories apart from the one that matters — goals. And even the one Wigan scored wasn’t on target, with the free header going wide before hitting Joy Mukena’s head and deflecting in. I got around to watching the highlights of the game on FSS and what a biased crock of shit they were. Anyone watching them would have thought Wigan dominated the game. They only included five of our fourteen shots, and none of the three we had on target. Wankers.
So, after playing the under 21s last week, it is the Brighton & Hove Albion full side this evening. Although hopefully not that full strength a side after their impressive unbeaten start to the Premiership season, with them being one of the sides with two wins out of two. Outside of the Sussex Senior Cup, the only previous meeting between the sides was a third round FA Cup tie back in 1992 which Brighton won 5–0.
There were four coaches making the trip and we were on the ‘Jeremy Kelly’ one bringing up the rear of the convoy behind Jay Williams, Harry Forster, and Ronan Darcy. Having rushed straight from work I hadn’t looked on social media during the day and therefore missed that the away and third kits were now on sale. Something for Friday then.
We hadn’t even got inside the ground when the issues started. The sniffer dog singled Nathan out for a more thorough check. And I got pulled aside because I had a camera. Which they wanted to take off me. I had read the ground rules before going and they don’t allow video cameras or DLSR ones, but mine is neither. They did let me in with it, but only after taking pictures of my ticket and my driver’s license and threatening to throw me out of the stadium if I took the camera out of its bag.
Once inside the stadium it is cashless because they like to find additional ways to be cunts. I was looking for a programme. The stewards told me to go to a food outlet for it. I did and asked for a programme only to be told they don’t sell Cobra! I spelt the word programme out and was still met with blank looks before a colleague pointed me to the next food outlet. Who pointed me back to the first one. At outlet four I finally got one.
I used to moan about the quality of our own when we had one, but the Brighton one was truly shit. A single sheet of paper folded three times to give a laughable “16” pages, but in the kind of fold out poster style you’d get from an eighties Smash Hits pull out.
The atmosphere in the concourse is electric, and the Crawley fans are really bringing the noise. And I correctly identify and introduce myself to Sooty from the forum.
Brighton are in their Tesco carrier bag shirts and white shorts, we’re all in red. Being low down behind the goal is a totally different perspective from which to watch the game. Even with my glasses on I can’t see the far end in great detail.
We have early possession, but BHA have the first chance, poked past Jojo Wollacott but cleared well before it gets near the goal line. The follow up shot from twenty yards out is just high and wide.
There are a couple of early Jay Williams fouls and he gets a talking to / warning from the ref, and his second victim has to be subbed.
A long ball is crossed by Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, and we win a corner. Which we work to the other side and a cross / shot is turned in and celebrations start, but the flag is up for offside.
On 15 minutes, Williams foul number three sees the inevitable yellow card. From the free kick BHA get a cross in and the header is in the net, but the offside flag was up well before the cross.
We have possession in their box but don’t pull the trigger at all, just keep passing it across the area, and a spell of decent possession only has a blocked shot to show for it.
Armando Junior Quinirta gets a cross in and its turned behind for a corner. We work a shot, well saved, we keep the ball and across to Ronan Darcy and his shot is well saved and Josh Flint’s long throw is cleared.
At the back Wollacott passes it straight to a striker but Joy Mukena makes a great tackle to rescue it. We clear long and Armando gets taken out on the edge of the area. The cross finds a Crawley head but it goes wide.
BHA break, the ball is played through to a suspiciously offside looking striker and Wollacott gets hands on it, but it still finds its way into the bottom corner and it’s 0–1.
Toby Mullarkey gets a yellow for a tug back at halfway. RHM gets into the box, but his cross is cleared. Flint long throw cleared and cross back in hits the top of the bar and goes behind.
BHA attack and the shot is straight at Wollacott. RHM is taken out in attack which sees a booking for a BHA player. Free kick is 35 yards out, crossed over, headed back, and cleared for a corner which is cleared for a throw. They break, stopped by Jeremy Kelly. There are three minutes of added time. Darcy finds RHM, but cleared off his toes before a shot, work it back in and get a corner. Some concerted pressure and only scrambling defence prevents an equaliser before the half time whistle goes with the score at 0–1.
We start brightly in the second half, Darcy gets to the byline and his cross evades everyone in the box, BHA break and score from nothing and it’s 0–2.
Heads don’t drop though. We work it down the left and a RHM cross is poked out for a corner. It is worked across the box and then put out for another corner. Short, then played to back post and Mullarkey shoots across goal and wide.
BHA break at pace again, a shot is saved for a corner. Cleared and RHM gets ball out wide, cuts into box and appears to be brought down, but nothing given. Darcy wins ball and it deflects off a defender and goes out for a … goal kick. Stevie fucking Wonder has taken over as ref.
We make some substitutions with RHM, Max Alexander, and Williams off for Ade Adeyemo, Panutche Camara, and Charlie Barker on.
Armando is taken out on right wing, and it brings a booking. BHA clear and break again and force another Wollacott save. A blatant unpunished foul see BHA in the area again, but the ball is cleared off the line. Twice. And a third time for a corner.
We break and Adeyemo feeds Darcy and his cross is headed just wide by Camara. Adeyemo surges down the right, and into the box, but the final effort isn’t quite on target for a shot or close enough to anyone for a cross and it goes wide. The next attack sees the same players link up down the right this time, and Darcy’s ball is fizzed across the six-yard box, but no one can get on the end of it, and it goes out on the other side for a throw. We win it back and work it down the left, Kelly lofts a ball into the box and Armando’s header is blocked at close range by the keeper. It is all Crawley attacks at the minute, and on the next one Darcy goes down in the box after a push to the chest, but the ref just raises his eyebrows at him.
It’s Darcy’s last action as he is replaced by Jack Roles. A Flint long throw is flicked on, and then headed out to the edge of the area, and the shot comes in, but it is a comfortable save for the BHA keeper. We win a free kick on the left-hand side in line with the edge of the area, and have a bit more pressure, only for BHA to break and win a corner. It’s played to the near post and headed in and it’s now 0–3.
Almost immediately BHA win the ball back thirty yards out from a blatant ungiven foul, they are two on one with the keeper and slot the ball in and it is 0–4. They announce the BHA man of the match, but there is no announcement of the crowd numbers. Roles dives into a challenge in the middle of the field and is shown a straight red for his troubles and we are down to ten men for the five minutes of added time. Armando is played in on the left and from thirty yards out over near the sideline shoots after the ref has blown for offside, and his shot hits the post, not that it would have counted.
The full-time whistle goes, and it is a 0–4 loss, and we are out of the Carabao Cup. The score makes it sound a lot worse than it was. We gave Premiership opposition plenty of problems, the main differences being their sheer pace, which we struggled with at times, and clinical finishing (and a worrying return to not taking a shot on and looking for a sideways pass instead).
They put the crowd up on the board at the end as being 19,165, and there were over 3,100 tickets sold by Crawley, and the noise was immense, out singing (and I use the word singing loosely) the home support (and I use the word support just as loosely) throughout the game, even after the final whistle and a 0–4 loss.
It wasn’t a downbeat coach journey back. We go again on Saturday with a home game in the league against Barnsley.
Come on you reds.
Originally published on my own website (without the pictures) at the link below.
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