After this result I feel strangely disappointed. This had to be viewed as 2 points dropped seeing as we are at home...Not that I expect us to beat everyone at home but I do expect us to do teams of Coventry's standard. Also, following how we upped our performance levels during the game against Sheffield United, I had hoped to see us take care of City today...

The zippy attacking football that we have seen in the past 2 games was there but not showing it's head as much as I would have liked. At the time I put it down to us not really getting going but on reflection this was probably owed more to Sheffield United's play. They had done their homework on us and were also a typical Neil Warnock team. They were organised, knew how to stop us and basically kicked and bullied their way around the pitch...Nothing wrong with that and well done for playing to their strenghts. As a Warnock side, this was to be expected but they added a new dimension to their game as well as they committed countless handballs. I lost count on the number of handball appeals we had and ok, some may have been more in hope than anything but most were blatant. There were even a couple right infront of the referee and he still failed to spot them...

How was that for entertainment?? A cracking game and a deserved result all round.

One thing we needed to see was whether or not the attacking play and movement we saw at home to Plymouth was not a one off. It is now clear that it was not but it took time to for us to demonstrate this.

Leeds came at us right from the off and battered us for the first 10-15mins. We were being over-run they were getting in behind us with worrying ease. Lewis in particluar was very good and some of his passing was incisive. Although he had the only option of receiving the ball from the middle of the park as the service from the left-back behind was poor. Harding's passing was of great amusement to the travelling Albion fans as he often skewed the ball out of play....

David Healy must have had a bit of reverse déjà vu on Saturday. The team full of expensive signings who were supposed to easily beat a team of journeymen professionals were struggling to make any sort of impact and were behind, in this case by 2-0. Unfortunately, he went and ruined it all by scoring two goals to equalise and then it finished 3-3 in the end, but what a great game it was...

After winning 2-0 against an extremely poor Plymouth, McGhee is hoping the two week break has been enough time for the players to prepare themselves for the game, while also having important time to rest.

McGhee is expected to throw everything he has at the Leeds team, warning them that their defence will face a 'severe work-out from his strikers'....

Another month is over, but how many people have visited the site? Which page has been the most popular? How have people found the site? What browser have people used? Find out all the answers to these questions, and a lot more in our August statistics update now online...

I have this evening returned from a meeting to confirm a March for Falmer along Brighton sea-front on Monday, 26th September to coincide with the Labour Party Conference which is in Brighton again this year....

Fans have been eagerly awaiting any last minute news of signings, as today is the last day that the transfer window remains open...

Talksport this morning made an announcement that John Prescott, the Deputy PM, would be announcing his decision at a conference soon. They indicated that it could be made at the Labour Party Conference which will be taking place next month, however the government does not make any formal announcements on these decisions at party conferences. We also know that the confirmation will initially be in the form of a letter sent to all interested parties...

Well, well, not only do we bag the first win of the season but also win by 2 clear for the first time since we played at The Racecourse...Oh and we played well.

Although I was not in attendance, the reports I had back from
Deepdale on Saturday were encouraging. This meant that with just the enforced change of Gary Hart for Jason Dodd, I was pleased Mark McGhee kept the same team. At Preston there was apparently a vibe of it starting to come together. This has been highlighted today by our obvious improvement in defence as PNE gave Ipswich a good hammering at Portman Road...

One of the most exhilarating Albion performances in recent years seems too high an accolade to accord Albion's 2-0 Bank Holiday Monday triumph over Plymouth.

But few of the Withdean faithful could recall the last time we played with such high quality passing and movement and Mark McGhee confessed he'd not seen so many chances created in his time at the club.

Shrewsbury are almost bottom of League 2, Brighton are two leagues higher - the outcome of tonight's game... Shrewsbury 3 - 2 Brighton! McCammon was the first scorer of the game, after just 17 minutes, but Town's Mark Stallard soon brought the game level again in the 22nd minute. With the game coming to a close, Jake Robinson (on for Kazim in the second half) scored to the relief of the Brighton crowd - but this was not the end! With just seconds on the clock, Shrewsbury made another come-back ensuring the game went into extra time! Shrewsbury got the first and only goal of extra time just after the start - ending the game in disappointment for McGhee, the players, and the fans who had made the trip. Serious changes need to be made if we are even going to have a chance of staying up this season...

The pedantic assistant referee who held up the start of the 2nd half because the net behind Hull goalkeeper Boaz Myhill wasn't secure could have spared us all the wait.

There was a touch of irony that in such a magnificent sporting arena as the KC Stadium such a basic thing as a potentially leaky net was a problem. But, of course, the Albion's 2nd half endeadvour was all to no avail and the ball never went near the offending piece of net!

Yesterday, Brighton visited Hull in a pretty confident mood that we would come out with at least one point. These hopes were soon dashed - Hulls France scored on the 40th minute, and Burgess, who has been out for 18 months, scored just minutes from the final whistle giving The Tigers their first win of the season.

We will have more reaction from the match soon...

Hull are one of the new boys on the block - gaining promotion from League One after finishing second with 86 points. However, this does show and their start to the Championship has seem them draw two and lose one. However, compared with ourselves who have also lost one and drawn two, they are not doing bad....

Continuing their campaign for a new stadium, Brighton & Hove Albion supporters will be delivering a giant 4’ by 3’ postcard to the Deputy Prime Minister’s Constituency HQ on Saturday 20 August at 12.30pm...

Entertaining but ultimately miserable and frustrating would be one succinct way of describing the 2-2 draw with Crewe.

The game is all about opinions and McGhee made it clear in a post-match radio interview that the fans should trust him to make the right decisions.
We do Mark - most of the time - but, sorry if it offends, the Crewe game turned on the substitutions - Dario Gradi got his right; you got yours wrong...

Not happy. We had a game today there for the taking but ended up scraping a draw. There was even talk around me, as the game progressed that we might actually win a game by more than one goal.

So, a game we were so comfortable in for 70mins resulted in us desperate for a point...

McGhee was not too pleased after the Reading game, saying we lacked 'Cutting Edge' and has warned the team they must improve if they are to see three points this weekend. "In comparison with the Derby game, it was a poor performance. We were excellent at Derby" said McGhee....

Well after our good performance on Saturday I am sure we all felt that progression from last season had been made. On the evidence of tonight then that theory can be put to bed. I do not want to get all doom and gloom but the almost limp display was a little hard to take after the Derby game...

Sometimes, my son observed, you just have to accept you've been beaten by a better team. It was a fair summary of Albion's performance against Reading: we didn't play badly, but Reading were superior in all departments. In particular, Sidwell and Harper simply ran the game from the centre
of their midfield. As we know from his brief spell with us, Sidwell is a quality player. But he has stepped up a gear from a couple of years ago and last night easily wore the crown of "best player outside the Premiership"...

Reading took all six points from us last season, and we cannot let them have another easy ride!

Last season, Reading narrowly missed out on a playoff place on the last day of the season after having quite a bad second half to their season. After the new year, they found wins hard to come by, however we still gave them another three points!

From: DERBY COUNTY

We've now got one more point than at this time last year and one point more than we did from the corresponding fixture last season, so things are looking bright for 2005/2006.

With four new faces in the team we looked well organised, difficult to break down and had the occasional chance to snatch the game. Jason Dodd showed all of his premiership quality and didn't put a foot wrong or waste the ball at any time. Paul McShane started a little nervously but grew in confidence throughout the game and looked very comfortable by the end. Colin Kazim-Richards had a little trouble shining against the Derby defence and won little in the air but he showed a lot of tenacity, put himself about a bit and looked a good prospect...

Well, here we go again. It is great to know that I am once again the supporter of a one-man team...That man is Jason Dodd!! Is there nothing he doesn't do? He took nearly set-piece, throw-in, as well as a composed defensive performance...he probably makes the tea and drives the team coach as well.

It was good having Dodd there as he was a calming influence on the defence and made some intelligent passes. You can see him looking up and thinking when he has the ball...

Welcome to the first day of the new season! If you haven't left yet for Derby - go now!

Travel Alert:

There is major delays on the M25 between Junction 10 and 11 after an earlier incident (Overturned lorry).

One lane is shut on the M23 at Gatwick, this is also causing delays...

Everyone is getting ready for the new Championship season, and Brighton is no different. On Saturday we take on Derby at Pride Park.

The Rams have a new manager, Phil Brown, who believes his teams 'heroes will rise!' Last season, Derby finished fourth getting into the playoff's, however didn't manage to get into the final and onto the Premiership....

On Wednesday, The Argus newspaper reported that McGhee was due to get three new players into the team ready for our trip to Derby. However, with Blayney still absent from the team has McGhee missed out on his Hat Trick ahead of the new season?

Yesterday, Manchester United defender McShane signed for the team, and will today train with the team after travelling to Brighton last night, kick starting his career with The Albion at Pride Park. Although we have only signed his on a loan basis, this is until December...

With the new season now just 3 days away, Flying High is ready to launch an exciting new service which will enable fans at matches the chance to give those unable to get to the game live updates using a mix of both images and text by simply sending an MMS message on your mobile phone.

You can participate simply by sending a picture from your mobile phone over email or MMS to flyinghigh.bhafc@buzznet.com...

Fans were eagerly awaiting the release of tickets for the Kerry Mayo testimonial after news that Peter Ward and Bobby Zamora would be featuring - however... latest news is that it has been put on hold - until July 2006...

The team gained a much needed confidence boost on Monday night, just five days before the start of the new season. However, it was mostly down to the reserves that the Albion came out at the end with an excellent 5-0 score line... 

If anyone is available for around an hour this Thursday, 4th August, in the Brighton area, roughly noon to 1pm or 1.30, and would like to take part in an above-board, properly organised publicity stunt for Falmer, then please email me...

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It has been a busy month on Flying High - A total of 2294 unique visitors have accessed the site a total of 4791 times, and looked at 10,674 pages in total. This month also saw the site receive its 70,000th visitor!

There is lots of interesting facts and figures in this months site stats update. Click to find out more...