In the year that we make it 100 years at Brunton Park we face an opponent today that has had a rather less relaxed time of it as far as a home venue is concerned. Going back to the start, 1898 saw a club called Brighton United playing for a couple of years in the Southern League at the County Ground before they folded. Brighton and Hove Rangers then being founded in 1900 who played at Surrenden Field, Home Farm, Withdean.
That club collapsed too in 1901 and in June that year Brighton and Hove Albion were formed. Although they did have a short spell as Brighton and Hove United, presumably down to former Brighton United manager John Jackson who was instrumental in setting up the new club. Games were played at the County Ground and on a pitch off Dyke Road until a clash in fixtures in February 1902 saw the Albion request the use of the Goldstone.
To confuse matters further it was yet another club that was using the Goldstone first. Hove FC, founded in 1901, having taken out a three year lease on a flat piece of land at Goldstone Bottom that earlier had been used as a hockey pitch. In the summer of 1902, with Hove's attendances not proving enough to cover their rental costs of half the gate receipts above £200 each season, the two clubs struck up a groundsharing arrangement for two seasons.
Hove eventually moving on to Hove Park at the end of their original three year lease, to leave Brighton and Hove Albion alone at the Goldstone. The rental costs deal with Hove FC having been struck up with local bread factory owner Alderman John Clark who leased Goldstone Farm from the Stanford Estate. Clark's part of the bargain being spending £600 at the venue on building a fence, turnstiles, gates, a 400 capacity stand, dressing rooms and toilets.
In the absence of Hove FC, Albion continued their contract with Clark, a former director of Brighton United, until 1926. That year seeing Albion chairman Charles Brown buy out Clark from his last five years of the lease with the Stanford Estate, the club now owning the ground on a 99 year contract with an option to buy. The only stipulation in the deal being that Albion were not allowed to build on the eastern side of the ground as it would obscure the view from Clark's house.
Life remained the same at the Goldstone Ground for numerous years, with regular ground improvements being made along the way until July 1995. That month seeing the Brighton Argus run a story saying that the ground had been sold by the board, consisting of Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti, with an initial plan to ground share with Portsmouth for a season being mooted.
The fans understandably outraged that they had not been informed of the plans beyond that to move to Waterhall and that a no profit from a sale clause had been removed from the club's constitution. That clause later being re-instated after a Football Association inquiry. With debts of over £4million at the club that had to be paid off by June 1996, the ground was sold for £7million, to be sold in less than two years later for a £16 million profit with planning permission for a retail park.
The initial buyer was Chartwell Land plc, renamed from Woolworth Properties in 1988, the property holding and development arm of Woolworth Holdings, which would later become Kingfisher plc. Chartwell eventually negotiating a deal in late April 1996 for a one year lease back on the Goldstone with only five minutes left on the midday deadline, the last game at the ground being a 1-0 win over Doncaster on the 26th of April 1997.
For the following two seasons Brighton fans endured a 140 mile round trip for home games as they groundshared at Gillingham's Priestfield Stadium, until they moved into their present home of the Withdean Stadium before the 1999-00 campaign. The start of the 2011-12 season, moved back a year due to changes in planning legislation, scheduled to be the time that Albion switch to their new home of Falmer where they hope to stay for a long time to come.
With Falmer first having been identified as a stadium location as far back as 1998, it shows you how long the legal road has been before work eventually started on the £60 million ground in mid-December last year. Planning permission having been given by the unitary authority of Brighton and Hove in June 2002, only for five years of legal wrangling to mean that the government would grant formal planning permission in July 2007. A story we can go over next season if we are both still in the same division.
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