02Feb

Empty Selhurst seats a baffling sight

by Jason H

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What a strange derby it was at Selhurst Park on Tuesday. A game more hotly anticipated by Brighton fans than the forthcoming trip to Anfield, or any other ground, this should be a complete sell-out any day of the week, a stadium in tumult, fans bound in mutual antipathy as these bitterest of rivals come together.

Stir in Glenn Murray and Paul McShane wearing red and blue, and a powerful desire to make amends for the home defeat by the old enemy earlier this season, and the recipe was there for a derby classic. What we had instead was a strangely flat first half, and a game played out in front of a shockingly low crowd.

Such was the surprise at the home fans’ failure to fill their sections that there was, whisper it, intelligent, reasoned and even civil debate on the matter between online Albion and Palace fans in the days which followed. What happened?

The atmosphere picked up considerably in the second half, as two extremely dubious penalties stirred things up a bit, and there was the usual enforced march around the Norwood streets afterwards as the police kept the support apart through weight of numbers, horses and eight-foot metal street barriers. But after partially restoring the pride wounded so greviously at the Amex with a 1-1 draw, which leaves us unbeaten still in 2012, the most powerful memory of the night for many of us was the sight of blocks of empty seats in the main stand, and behind one goal.

Palace fans offered several reasons – the recent League Cup semi-final games left finances tight for many people. Tickets are expensive for a stadium which is showing its age on two sides in particular. The style of football under Freedman, while effective, is quite defensive. There was also serious disorder in town, and trouble outside the stadium, at the corresponding fixture in Brighton earlier in the season. Perhaps all these factors combined to produce the low attendance, something I never expected to see in a Brighton/Palace derby.

Anyway – moving on, the games don’t get any easier. Leicester at home this weekend, a club which invested still further on the playing side during the transfer window, is yet another very difficult game.

The welcome sight of Craig Noone (in civvies, having made his way to the ground of his own volition) saluting the Albion fans at Selhurst, the club having fought off Cardiff’s attentions, and the knowledge that Reading’s bid for Craig Mackail-Smith was also turned down, have meant that Albion had a pretty good transfer window as well, the baffling loaning of Hoskins to Sheffield United aside.

With that Anfield appointment coming up, and sitting nicely just two points off the play-off zone, 2012 is proving to be a good year so far.

Posted by Brighton fan Jason Heaver