Goldstone Ground memories

[RobTheRover]

The club have asked if we could get a few comments from supporters who were at the last ever game at the Goldstone Ground for a piece they are looking to do ahead of this weekend's season-opener against Brighton.

I wasnt there so cant comment but, to those that were, if you would care to reminisce about the day and what it meant that would be great.

Maybe you were struck by the relative plights of the two clubs, or the fight to avoid the drop, or was it just the tension of the day which stays with you?

Please, post away below......

[Muttley]

I copped off with a bird in a nightclub opposite Brighton Pavilion and got a shag...is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

[I-was-there1976]

we were sat at the back of the away stand and throughout the game Brighton fans were throwing bananas at Darren Moore. At the final whistle their fans came charging at ours looking for trouble and then it all turned a bit gay and everyone started being lovey dovey.

I remember the \"fabulous\" Brighton fans for throwing bananas mainly.

Lovely bunch (not the bananas)

[Capmeister]

Remember massive riot police cordon round the ground. Had to show your ticket to em bout 100yards from the ground to get thru, just like World Cup match. I guess Brighton want good memories but they were pretty awful fans. Anti-racism wasnt that well enforced back then and the abusive Moore got was appalling. Moore got taken off for his own safety, I reckon. My memory is a little hazy about the score. I think Brighton scored to win 1-0 from a corner which probably prevented some nasty scenes at the end. The riot police were well tooled up at the end. Good job too as all the Brighton fans came over to the away end. Some Donny fans had a flag about Donny and Brighton and started cheering Brighton and that diffused things.

[Rios]

I have to agree with the above, it wasn't the happy clappy lovein that the Brighton fans seem to remember.  I recall being tense going down, there being a massive police presence and we got off the coach and decided it might be better just to go straight in the ground.  So we joined the queue at 1.30!

I also remember being slightly angry at the players carrying the sign around the pitch which was abviously a ploy by Richardson, but that was to come to the fore the next season.  Strange that it was that incident that started the friendly relations between our two sets of fans.

We were stuck in the corner at the back of quite possibly the unsafest stand I've ever been in and sort of hoped we didn't score as any celebrations could have seen us going through the wooden planks.  Have to say I was also pretty relieved that they scored as we were already safe and it meant a peaceful end to proceedings.  In fact things were so tense at one point in the first half some of our fans started singing Millwall songs to try and put the Brighton fans off... it didn't work!  lol

All in all, I'm looking forward to this Saturday's game far more than I was the one at the Goldstone Ground!

[vaya]

Remember the atmosphere, remember the toilets being an inch deep in piss, two Brighton fans in the front row of the away end revealing their shirts about five minutes into the game, remember bricking it slightly at the final whistle as about 10,000 Birghton fans seemed to swarm on the pitch and straight towards the away end.

Any tension did seem to melt away once everyone was on the pitch though and the looting started - I thought I was doing well with a seat (still at home) and bits of pitch, but people were getting back on the coaches with advertising hoardings, corner flags, signs. The local radio commentary had to break off at one point as someone starting spraying liberated fire extinguishers through the window at them.

[PACMAN]

Remember it well, big Darren Moore got sent off, the R'sonist had the nerve to sit on the bench during the game and tense doesn't do it justice. There was an obvious foul on our keeper for their goal but the referee bottled it (in fairness I don't think he'd have got out of the ground alive had he disallowed it).
I was there commentating for Rob Arrowsmith (a totally blind guy for those who don't know him) and I remember at the end when the Brighton fans came on the pitch thinking \"how the **** am I going to get both me and him out of here\". Then a ripple of noise emerged from the Rovers fans that Hereford had lost at Leyton Orient meaning that we were safe and they still had a chance to avoid the drop as long as they didn't lose at Hereford on the last day of the season. Everyone started singing \"we are staying up\" and it was like someone had flicked a switch and the atmosphere changed completely.
The Brighton fans started to walk through the police cordon surrounding us inviting us onto the pitch to join them and the rest is history but they have always been a result I've looked out for ever since and I'm really chuffed that Falmer became a reality for them!!
I can still recall seeing fans walking away from the Goldstone with clumps of turf being carried away on advertising hoardings, one guy had seats under his arms and a toilet seat round his neck. Good on them I say, wish we'd done the same to Belle Vue rather go out with a whimper!!!!!:rtid:

[scuzzer]

I'm another with similar memories to most of those above. I'm pretty sure it was Darren Moore and Ian Baird that were sent off for fighting very early on, which just wound up an already fever pitch bunch of lunatics in the home end.

It's without doubt the most intimidated i've ever been in a stadium and i wondered how the hell we were going to get out - until they scored! Then it all turned into the Brighton Donny 'love in' that we're expecting to see again on Saturday.

The player banner thing was done as the Brighton fans had invaded the pitch at a number of hime games that season causing delays to games and the management were shitting themselves that the players might become targets.

All in all it was an experience that i'll never forget, in the end i was really glad i'd gone but there were times before and during the game that i wondered what the hell i was doing there!

Looking forward to Saturday and Saturday night on the lash down there!

[MrFrost]

I got £300 for my Goldstone Ground seat on eBay. Had some turf as well. Dunno what happened to that.

[nightporter]

I remember selling a spare ticket for £60, being piss wet through, bricking it and a bloke carrying  a plank with 3 seats on it out the ground.

[BarnbyDunnyRover]

I remember it the same as most others 16 of us travelled down in a minibus we were in a pub about a 10 minute walk from the goldstone both sets of fans were singing songs & enjoying some banter then the closer it got to kick off we got the felling it was going to turn nasty we made our way to the ground i remember getting interviewed by gary stevens on skysports he asked \"what do you thinks going to happen\"i think i replied we will get the shit kicked out of us if we dont get beat!!inside the ground i remember been in the corner behind the goal with a decent number of rovers fans remember darren moore getting sent off but dont remember the bananna incident?& for the first time supporting rovers i wasnt upset when we lost 1-0 as it meant Brighton still had a chance of staying up & less chance of us getting filled in....& as others have stayted it all became a bit of a \"love in\" fans shakeing hands & exchanging scarfes.....im sure it will be a great day on saturday im really looking forward to it & carnt wait for the mighty Rovers to come away from East Sussex with some new friends but more important than that is that we come away with the 3 points!!!

[Mike_F]

I remember getting off the coach with police lined up either side of us. Brighton fans were leaning through the cordon offering £60, £70 or £80 a ticket as they got more desperate. We were ushered to the end of a lane down by the away end with police checking tickets before allowing access to it and a fairly noisy contingent of Rovers were singing \"Why are we waiting\" as they stood around the turnstiles, overlooked by poeple in thier back gardens on a raised level adjacent. I don't remember much of the game other than the Darren Moore banana incident and the goal. Then it was pretty hairy at the end as the home fans charged towards the row of riot police in front of the away end. I broke a couple of seats off for myslef as the dismantling started but somehow lost them on the way out.

Sitting on the coach listening to coverage on 5 live the reporter said \"The Brighton fans are walking off with bits of the stadium; Seats, turf, advertising boards - in fact they've taken just about everything but the toilet seats.\" I glanced out of the window at this point and saw a bloke with a bog seat round his neck.

On the journey back I heard \"Around the World\" by Daft Punk for the first time and thought it was the worst song I'd ever heard. I've since grown to love it. Jonathan on the seat in front of me spent the entire journey fast asleep with his head periodically thudding into the coach window. The surviving braincells have been dealt with in the interceding years with several gallons of vodka.

[VivaRovers]

Anyone else looking forward to seeing how these get edited down for whatever use it was the club had in mind?

[scuzzer]

Was just thinking the same Viva - 'the Doncaster faithful who made the long trip to that last game at the Goldstone were in fear for their lives from the baying local mob until the team thought it best to gift the Seagulls a goal' or words to that effect!

[Jonathan]

I remember getting off the coach with police lined up either side of us. Brighton fans were leaning through the cordon offering £60, £70 or £80 a ticket as they got more desperate. We were ushered to the end of a lane down by the away end with police checking tickets before allowing access to it and a fairly noisy contingent of Rovers were singing \"Why are we waiting\" as they stood around the turnstiles, overlooked by poeple in thier back gardens on a raised level adjacent. I don't remember much of the game other than the Darren Moore banana incident and the goal. Then it was pretty hairy at the end as the home fans charged towards the row of riot police in front of the away end. I broke a couple of seats off for myslef as the dismantling started but somehow lost them on the way out.

Sitting on the coach listening to coverage on 5 live the reporter said \"The Brighton fans are walking off with bits of the stadium; Seats, turf, advertising boards - in fact they've taken just about everything but the toilet seats.\" I glanced out of the window at this point and saw a bloke with a bog seat round his neck.

On the journey back I heard \"Around the World\" by Daft Punk for the first time and thought it was the worst song I'd ever heard. I've since grown to love it. Jonathan on the seat in front of me spent the entire journey fast asleep with his head periodically thudding into the coach window. The surviving braincells have been dealt with in the interceding years with several gallons of vodka.

That's one of my lasting memories too.

I remember travelling down to the game on the coach with my dad and immediately being offered £80 for my ticket as I stepped off. It's probably more money than I would have ever had in my hand at the time, but I recall thinking we've not travelled all this way only to miss the game. We had a walk round the ground then it was through the turnstiles early doors.

The match itself is a bit of a blur, the Darren Moore incident stirred things up to boiling point, and as the tension built during the game I recall some of the most angry looking people I've ever clapped eyes on in the Brighton stand to my right. No doubt at all it was the most initmidating atmosphere I'd experienced which made the scenes after the game all the more special.

I'd never witnessed such camaraderie between two sets of rival fans and as it happens the bond became closer due to the shared experiences the two clubs suffered at the hands of corrupt owners and benefactors. I remember the Brighton fans welcoming us onto the pitch and seeing people swapping shirts, embracing, laughing and joking where 20 minutes earlier there'd been cut throat gestures! I've always respected Brighton as a club since those days, not least for the remarkable assistance they gave to us in our efforts to oust Richardson. There are people much better placed to reminisce about those times as I was more of a bystander, but it's an amazing twist of fate that we go to Brighton as the first opponents in the fantastic new stadium as we were the last lot to see out the Goldstone in a far removed setting.

[The Red Baron]

Funnily enough, I don't remember being particularly scared. I do remember being p*ssed off by the fact we were losing to one of the poorest teams I'd ever seen (I was to see worse the following season- i.e. Rovers.) At the end there was a sense of relief that results meant were safe from relegation, and I felt able to join in the eventual party mood.

I don't remember the racist abuse that Darren Moore was subjected to (although I believe he was.) I did think that the Brighton players targeted him as he and Colin Cramb were clearly our best players. Both Moore and Baird clearly had to walk after the punch-up, but Brighton got the better of that one as Baird was nothing more than a thug.

I was greatly amused by the sight of people walking home carrying various fixtures and fittings from the stadium. I think that was the highlight of the day for me.

[King Barnes]

I can recall it being a pretty tense affair for most of the match - it was only after the goal and at the end when things became a bit calmer.
Can remember mingling on the pitch with Brighton fans as they grabbed hold of whatever they could as memories of the Goldstone Ground - seats, advertising hoardings, bits of turf etc.
I pocketed a bit of turf myself from the penalty area, brought it back to Doncaster and planted it in the front garden. It lived on for another 13 years or so until the garden was repaved. It always stood out as being a slightly different colour to the rest of the grass - happy memories!