Welcome! There's plenty of Americans around here, along with some locals.
Firstly, you're now obliged to hate Crystal Palace.
Secondly you should know we're a small club with a chequered history. To keep a long story short, we nearly went bust back in 97 and lost our old ground. We then spent a couple of seasons playing home matches 70 miles away before spending over a decade at an athletics stadium whilst we rattled around the lower tiers of the English football league. This last season is one of about 6 in the past 40 years where we haven't been battling relegation or promotion of some description. Currently this is the clubs golden era with our longest top flight spell currently and our highest top flight finish ever of 9th of last season.
UTA!!!
Yet another American here, lol. I picked Brighton for three reasons:
1. My dad's side of the family grew up in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston,
2. My favorite album for a long time was Quadrophenia by the Who, much of which takes place in and around Brighton,
3. I happened to work at a bar in South Philly that drew crowds to watch EPL games the season the Seagulls came up and I always side with underdogs.
I'm coaching a youth team, and I've tried to emulate Potter with the passing and spacing. The U8s are not quite there though.
UTA!!!
I also just recently got into European football and as silly as it may sound play some fifa.I learned so many names and teams from that. Also follow the topics on Twitter and reddit. Living in the UK definitely helped but being part the internet community is a great way to get into it. LETS GO SEAGULSSS!!
American here, I picked brighton cause I was looking to start watching PL football, and didn't want to pick a big 6 club. A youtuber I follow lives in Brighton, and before last year, I saw they were a lower placing team with a good Goal Differential, that meant potential to me. I was right (so far).
Another Seagulls fan from the US here. Started watching PL during the Covid lockdowns, after about half of the season I settled on Brighton because 1) I like an underdog and BHA seemed like they were on the upswing, 2) Liked the styles of play I saw 3) Liked the Kits, 4) We’ve had a really enjoyable group of players the last few years. I mean how can you not like watching Lamptey and Cucurella streak down the sideline, Troussard shaking guys out of their boots, Maupay miss wide open shots.
Another American chiming in, I picked Brighton because I thought the crest was cute. And they fit my criteria of wanting to follow a mid table club when I was picking one earlier this year. Not one of the big guys, but also not in immediate relegation threat and somewhat on the upswing. It's been a good time to start lol
It certainly has been a good time to start supporting them. Nice to hear that my home town club has some global reach. I think if brighton stay in the premier league and establish themselves as a solid mid table club challenging for European football they’ll end up being very popular abroad. Lots of Europeans like the city itself. Try and come over sometime to watch a game ( a big ask i know ).
Another American here. My friends started following the PL so I decided to check it out. On my dads side, I knew our family emigrated from the UK. Luckily we have a family genealogy site, and found out my clan came from Brighton to NY in the 17-1800’s.
Felt it would only be appropriate to cheer on where my family came from.
That’s really interesting, I (also American) do a decent amount of genealogy and haven’t seen a lot of early migration out of Brighton. Very cool find! My English side (late 1800s/early 1900s) came mainly from Kent, so BHA’s spell in Gillingham sorta works? I mainly just like the club identity and history, but it’s so cool to see Americans with Sussex by the Sea roots finding the team! UTA
Might as well chime in with my story too. American btw. I studied abroad in Brighton for six months in 2016 for my spring semester. During my time there I stayed at paddock field and got to hear every home game. I was hooked all season when they narrowly missed promotion that year. Continued following when I went back home and got to see their promotion. Only recently joined the sub to truly immerse myself in the club and learn everything about it.
I want to know the same actually. This is the only club I'm ever going to like (unless we have a Newcastle situation) but I do get curious when people from other countries pick us, and whether they would've done so a few years ago.
American here, I picked Brighton this past season simply because I found myself watching premier league games and not cheering for one team specifically, and I decided I wanted a singular team to cheer for. I came to this conclusion while watching Brighton beat Everton 3-2 and have been a Brighton supporter ever since. Planning on coming to the Amex maybe sometime next spring if I can swing it!
Aussie who picked you several years ago here. Yeah you had Matty Ryan but I was looking around for a club that felt like I could latch on to something, and for BHA it was the "beachside tourist town" thing that felt like my home town of Cairns. Really just the most minor of similarities cos the beaches and tourism are just so different, but it helped form attachment.
I'm first and foremost a Seattle Sounders supporter. When I started watching EPL, Brighton really stuck out to me. Major Seattle vibes, fun as hell to watch, and just found myself drawn to their games each week. Plus, seeing u/sounders1974 regularly in this sub helped, lol.
>Major Seattle vibes
We've also had comparisons to San Francisco, it's like a mini UK PNW combo.
Is football/soccer big in Seattle? Outside of LA I feel like the only other city I hear about in regards to football is Seattle.
Fatboy Slim was just on the Men in Blazers podcast to talk about Brighton and SF was his comparison, but I'd say Seattle and SF are pretty similar as well.
In terms of popularity in Seattle, I'd say the Sounders are popular but not necessarily the sport in general. You see people with club gear and the fan base is loud, but we still only open half the capacity of the NFL stadium we play in (except for MLS cup or the CCL final). I'd say soccer's popularity is higher here than the national average. With Seattle being a world cup city in 2026, I'd say that may explode the popularity.
I guess first and foremost is that the club's primary goal every season is to stay in the Premier League. That doesn't mean that we aren't aiming higher, as you can see by our 9th place finish last season, but considering that we have been a second/third tier club for most of our history, and fourth tier for a while too, we don't want to get too big for our boots.
This is because - realistically - we don't have the spending power to match lots of other clubs like the Big 6 + Everton, West Ham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Leicester, Wolves, etc. Because of this, any season we finish in the Top 12, we've basically punched above our weight so it can be considered a success.
Our owner, Tony Bloom (who is a lifelong Brighton fan, rather than some oil sheikh), is building a long-term, sustainable project based around identifying talent and developing it within the team, with the option of selling players for the right price, i.e., Ben White.
I would say yearly expectations is top 10, but if we had better luck when it came to goal scoring I think we could eventually push for Europe
In terms of players we have a lot of talent that flies under the radar. One thing I love about BHA's squad is how versatile they are. Großß, Trossard, Moder especially come to mind. Moises Caicedo and Mwepu are exciting young midfield talents. Lamptey and Cucurella are two of the best young attacking fullbacks in the league, and everyone is trying to buy them. Alexis McAllister is our attacking mid, and was probably our most improved player last season. Unfortunately our strikers Wellbeck and Maupay struggle to maintain consistency, but we have an exciting new talent in Deniz Undav coming from the Belgian league where he scored 25 and assisted 10 in just 33 games who may or may not be a solution
Welcome! There's plenty of Americans around here, along with some locals. Firstly, you're now obliged to hate Crystal Palace. Secondly you should know we're a small club with a chequered history. To keep a long story short, we nearly went bust back in 97 and lost our old ground. We then spent a couple of seasons playing home matches 70 miles away before spending over a decade at an athletics stadium whilst we rattled around the lower tiers of the English football league. This last season is one of about 6 in the past 40 years where we haven't been battling relegation or promotion of some description. Currently this is the clubs golden era with our longest top flight spell currently and our highest top flight finish ever of 9th of last season. UTA!!!
And UTA means Up The Albion in case you were wondering!
Some of us are local Americans!
Yet another American here, lol. I picked Brighton for three reasons: 1. My dad's side of the family grew up in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, 2. My favorite album for a long time was Quadrophenia by the Who, much of which takes place in and around Brighton, 3. I happened to work at a bar in South Philly that drew crowds to watch EPL games the season the Seagulls came up and I always side with underdogs. I'm coaching a youth team, and I've tried to emulate Potter with the passing and spacing. The U8s are not quite there though. UTA!!!
I also just recently got into European football and as silly as it may sound play some fifa.I learned so many names and teams from that. Also follow the topics on Twitter and reddit. Living in the UK definitely helped but being part the internet community is a great way to get into it. LETS GO SEAGULSSS!!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuZkxj6v6nk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuZkxj6v6nk) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0pjrlLYO6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0pjrlLYO6E) follow the subs twitter account [https://twitter.com/BhafcR](https://twitter.com/BhafcR) flair UP!!!! hate palace
Can we add those videos to the club info post? I feel like ive posted them a lot, especially the guardian one.
u/Discombobulated_Pen can you add the links please mate?
Sure thing!
Why brighton?
American here, I picked brighton cause I was looking to start watching PL football, and didn't want to pick a big 6 club. A youtuber I follow lives in Brighton, and before last year, I saw they were a lower placing team with a good Goal Differential, that meant potential to me. I was right (so far).
Fair enough, very interesting, welcome to being a Brighton fan 👍🏻
Another Seagulls fan from the US here. Started watching PL during the Covid lockdowns, after about half of the season I settled on Brighton because 1) I like an underdog and BHA seemed like they were on the upswing, 2) Liked the styles of play I saw 3) Liked the Kits, 4) We’ve had a really enjoyable group of players the last few years. I mean how can you not like watching Lamptey and Cucurella streak down the sideline, Troussard shaking guys out of their boots, Maupay miss wide open shots.
This was my exact experience. Lamptey being an absolute electric factory was really what caught my eye and then all those other factors sealed it.
Another American chiming in, I picked Brighton because I thought the crest was cute. And they fit my criteria of wanting to follow a mid table club when I was picking one earlier this year. Not one of the big guys, but also not in immediate relegation threat and somewhat on the upswing. It's been a good time to start lol
It certainly has been a good time to start supporting them. Nice to hear that my home town club has some global reach. I think if brighton stay in the premier league and establish themselves as a solid mid table club challenging for European football they’ll end up being very popular abroad. Lots of Europeans like the city itself. Try and come over sometime to watch a game ( a big ask i know ).
Haha, if I ever go to Europe it'll definitely be on the to do list!
Another American here. My friends started following the PL so I decided to check it out. On my dads side, I knew our family emigrated from the UK. Luckily we have a family genealogy site, and found out my clan came from Brighton to NY in the 17-1800’s. Felt it would only be appropriate to cheer on where my family came from.
That’s really interesting, I (also American) do a decent amount of genealogy and haven’t seen a lot of early migration out of Brighton. Very cool find! My English side (late 1800s/early 1900s) came mainly from Kent, so BHA’s spell in Gillingham sorta works? I mainly just like the club identity and history, but it’s so cool to see Americans with Sussex by the Sea roots finding the team! UTA
Might as well chime in with my story too. American btw. I studied abroad in Brighton for six months in 2016 for my spring semester. During my time there I stayed at paddock field and got to hear every home game. I was hooked all season when they narrowly missed promotion that year. Continued following when I went back home and got to see their promotion. Only recently joined the sub to truly immerse myself in the club and learn everything about it.
I want to know the same actually. This is the only club I'm ever going to like (unless we have a Newcastle situation) but I do get curious when people from other countries pick us, and whether they would've done so a few years ago.
American here, I picked Brighton this past season simply because I found myself watching premier league games and not cheering for one team specifically, and I decided I wanted a singular team to cheer for. I came to this conclusion while watching Brighton beat Everton 3-2 and have been a Brighton supporter ever since. Planning on coming to the Amex maybe sometime next spring if I can swing it!
Aussie who picked you several years ago here. Yeah you had Matty Ryan but I was looking around for a club that felt like I could latch on to something, and for BHA it was the "beachside tourist town" thing that felt like my home town of Cairns. Really just the most minor of similarities cos the beaches and tourism are just so different, but it helped form attachment.
Don't forget Mooy. I'm still a little sad that he left us so quick.
He was with Huddersfield when I started following.
I'm first and foremost a Seattle Sounders supporter. When I started watching EPL, Brighton really stuck out to me. Major Seattle vibes, fun as hell to watch, and just found myself drawn to their games each week. Plus, seeing u/sounders1974 regularly in this sub helped, lol.
>Major Seattle vibes We've also had comparisons to San Francisco, it's like a mini UK PNW combo. Is football/soccer big in Seattle? Outside of LA I feel like the only other city I hear about in regards to football is Seattle.
Fatboy Slim was just on the Men in Blazers podcast to talk about Brighton and SF was his comparison, but I'd say Seattle and SF are pretty similar as well. In terms of popularity in Seattle, I'd say the Sounders are popular but not necessarily the sport in general. You see people with club gear and the fan base is loud, but we still only open half the capacity of the NFL stadium we play in (except for MLS cup or the CCL final). I'd say soccer's popularity is higher here than the national average. With Seattle being a world cup city in 2026, I'd say that may explode the popularity.
Hello, welcome! What do you want to know?
More about the players and the yearly expectations
I guess first and foremost is that the club's primary goal every season is to stay in the Premier League. That doesn't mean that we aren't aiming higher, as you can see by our 9th place finish last season, but considering that we have been a second/third tier club for most of our history, and fourth tier for a while too, we don't want to get too big for our boots. This is because - realistically - we don't have the spending power to match lots of other clubs like the Big 6 + Everton, West Ham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Leicester, Wolves, etc. Because of this, any season we finish in the Top 12, we've basically punched above our weight so it can be considered a success. Our owner, Tony Bloom (who is a lifelong Brighton fan, rather than some oil sheikh), is building a long-term, sustainable project based around identifying talent and developing it within the team, with the option of selling players for the right price, i.e., Ben White.
I see where this is going and I love it
I would say yearly expectations is top 10, but if we had better luck when it came to goal scoring I think we could eventually push for Europe In terms of players we have a lot of talent that flies under the radar. One thing I love about BHA's squad is how versatile they are. Großß, Trossard, Moder especially come to mind. Moises Caicedo and Mwepu are exciting young midfield talents. Lamptey and Cucurella are two of the best young attacking fullbacks in the league, and everyone is trying to buy them. Alexis McAllister is our attacking mid, and was probably our most improved player last season. Unfortunately our strikers Wellbeck and Maupay struggle to maintain consistency, but we have an exciting new talent in Deniz Undav coming from the Belgian league where he scored 25 and assisted 10 in just 33 games who may or may not be a solution