Barber responds to ‘second tier’ Amex extension claim
Brighton chief executive Paul Barber has laid out his plans for the Amex Stadium for the foreseeable future. It’s been one of the highlights of the season to see fans back at Falmer after the recent lockdown.
Next season will be Brighton’s 12th at the Amex Stadium and, despite a poor run of recent results, Graham Potter’s Brighton will almost certainly be in the top flight once more.
The club continue to work on making improvements to the stadium and there has been talk on social media of adding a second tier of seating to the North Stand.
Currently, the The North Stand has 2,688 seats. The West Stand is three-tiered which holds 11,833 fans, including 14 executive boxes. The East Stand (including the Family Stand and the premium fans’ 1901 Club) holds 13,654 fans.
Writing in his programme notes ahead of Brighton’s clash against Tottenham, Barber wrote: “Following on from excellent season-ticket renewals of 90 per cent for 2022/23, our 1901 Club already sold out for the next four years, the removal of COVID restrictions, and the recent second-place finish in the Premier League’s annual fan experience survey, we will be turning our attention back to our plans to further improve matchday facilities for fans at the Amex.
“Contrary to social media speculation, these plans do not include a second tier of seating in the North Stand – as nice as this would be, it isn’t physically possible! And neither do our plans include a new hospitality lounge above the current North Stand seating.
“Instead, our focus will be on creating better facilities for all fans in the stadium’s external areas to include a more varied food and drink offering, covered space, facilities for both pre-match and post-match entertainment, and external toilets – all designed to encourage earlier arrival at the stadium and later departures which, in turn, should help smooth congestion before and after matches.
“We are also looking at developing some very exciting new West Stand hospitality options, which will further slightly increase our stadium capacity to improve the range of facilities we can offer to fans on matchdays and on non-matchdays where, in a post-COVID world, we will be focusing on working with our partners Sodexo to rebuild our non-matchday events business.”
Meanwhile, Brighton and Hove Albion chairman Tony Bloom already celebrated a winner ahead of Albion’s clash against Tottenham at the Amex Stadium.
Meanwhile, Albion owner Tony Bloom said he was ‘so proud’ as his race horse Energumene triumphed in the day’s big race at Cheltenham Festival.
Energumene, ridden by Paul Townend, crossed the line ahead of Shishkin in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
“It was brilliant,” Bloom said, speaking to the BBC. “In the end it was easy but I’m sure there will be many great races between us and Shishkin over the years.
“The rain has really helped us and when Shishkin and Chacun Pour Soi fell it was ours to lose. Great credit to Paul Townend and Willie Mullins.”
It was a sweet moment for Bloom as Shishkin had previously got the better of his charge in their first meeting in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot. winning by a length.
This time however Energumene produced a smooth ride from start to finish. Funambule Sivola finished a distant second with Envoi Allen a considerable way back in third.
Willie Mullins – winning the race for the first time – said: “We just thought we got the tactics completely wrong at Ascot so the plan today was to follow Shishkin.
“The problem Paul then had was you could see after two fences Shishkin wasn’t handling the ground so it then became a case of when was Paul going to forget about Shishkin and ride the race. Nico was wise in pulling Shishkin up, you could clearly see he hated the ground.
“I was disappointed to see Chacun Pour Soi go out of the race. I was gutted for Patrick (Mullins) because he appeared to be loving it. He might have given him a race. At every stage, Energumene seemed to be cantering and these conditions suit him.
“He has more speed than we thought, at Ascot we felt after the race we should have waited rather than make all.”
‘Our focus will be on creating better facilities for all fans’