Here We Go Again

Well, it all kicks off today... it's the start of the 2009/2010 football season.

My team, Brighton and Hove Albion start today with a home game against Walsall, but the main focus of the home fans will be trying to work out who's who on the pitch. The reason for this is a huge turnover in the playing staff since the end of the 2008/2009 season. 17 players were released or left at the end of what was a hugely disappointing year, and as a result we've seen a number of new additions to the squad during the summer.

So, the new players we've got to indentify are:

Liam Dickinson - a tall striker, signed for an undisclosed fee from Derby County
James Tunnicliffe - a tall central defender, signed for an undisclosed fee from Stockport County
Jake Wright - a young left back / central defender signed for an undisclosed fee from Crawley
Graeme Smith - A goalkeeper, signed on a bosman free transfer from Motherwell
Mark Wright - A midfielder / winger signed on a free transfer
Alan Navarro - Former MK Dons central mid-fielder, signed after a successful trial
Gary Dicker - Midfield - Signed on a free transfer from Stockport, after a successful loan spell last season
Andrew Crofts - Wide Midfielder - Signed on a free transfer.
Jamie Smith - Midfielder - former Palace youngster - signed after a successful trail.
Matt Thornhill - Creative Midfielder - signed on a 6 Month Loan from Nottingham Forest

Add to this the fact that Andrew Whing, last years player of the season signed a new contract, and Jim McNulty, who missed most of last season following a freak accident on the pitch (which led to him losing a kidney!) is on the way back, then it's all good news.

With 2 or 3 additions on the way, perhaps we can look forward to a successful season this time?

There is another reason to be cheerful down here in sunny Sussex (at least when it comes to football), and that is the new stadium at Falmer. It's going up pretty quickly now, as the picture below illustrates beautifully.

In fact there's a very addictive webcam setup to watch progress (updated every 15 minutes). It can be viewed here via the link at the end of this blog.

So, in summary, it has the potential to be a much better season than we've seen for a few, but as all football fans know, your own team has an almost imfinite capacity to let you down!

Laters

Kieron

Falmer Web Cam:

http://www.lobstervision.tv/bhafc/#