Before the disappointing home defeat to Everton, Brighton officially opened the new Dick’s Bar at the Amex. And we use the word bar in the loosest possible terms.
For those unaware as to who Dick Knight is, without him there would be no Brighton & Hove Albion. In 1997, he fronted the consortium which managed to oust Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti from the club.
Archer, Stanley and Bellotti had sold the Goldstone Ground with no new home planned for the Albion to move into.
Prior to doing so, they changed the club’s rules which stated no individuals could profit should Brighton go out of business. Any money left in the club at the time was supposed to be given to sporting causes in Sussex.
With said rules changed, if the Albion went out of business because they were, say homeless for example, the remaining directors could pocket any remaining money themselves. Say, a couple of million each from the sale of the Goldstone.
Knight led a long and often painful battle to wrest control from Archer, Stanley and Bellotti. And when he eventually took over, it was as chairman of a football club set to play home games a 150 mile round trip away in Gillingham.
Having saved Brighton from the trio determined to kill the club to line their own pockets, Knight now had to get the Albion back to Sussex. Otherwise, the club still would die.
After two years in exile and another battle against the residents of Westdene, Brighton took up temporary residence at Withdean Stadium.
Now for the third and final fight to secure long-term survival. A permanent home. From plans for a new stadium at Falmer being drawn up in 1999 to all the hurdles being cleared for permission to be granted in August 2007, Knight was chairman of Brighton through an eight year battle for the Amex.
It included two public inquiries, numerous appeals, a case in the high court and went right to the top of government.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears made the decisions to green light the stadium after those two separate public inquiries.
The battle to get the Amex built cost millions. Through it all, Brighton continued to play at a rented athletics track in front of average crowds just shy of 7,000.
For Knight and his fellow board members to not only have kept Brighton afloat, but secure three promotions between 2001 and 2004 and bring Championship football to the Theatre of Trees was extraordinary.
Tony Bloom entered the story in an official capacity when taking over as chairman from Knight in 2009. Bloom had been pumping cash into the club for some time before that.
When Brighton needed somebody to cough up £100 million to build the Amex just a couple of years after the credit crunch, Bloom was the man. Knight won what must have seemed at times a hopeless battle for a new stadium. Bloom then signed the cheques.
Bloom and Knight not liking each other is not exactly news. Still, the Amex opened in 2011 with a suitable tribute to Brighton saviour Knight – Dick’s Bar.
It might have felt more like an airport lounge than a proper football pub. But it at least meant there was a fitting tribute to the man without whom there would be no stadium.
Located next to the club shop, thousands and thousands of Brighton fans would walk past Dick’s Bar at every home game.
The sign above the door was enough to remind Albion supporters of every generation of the role that Dick bloke played in keeping the Albion alive.
Now though, Dick’s is gone. Removed to make room for a bigger club shop and hospitality areas above the North Stand.
Its replacement is the new Fanzone being built outside the Amex. The facility will be more like Boxpark at Wembley than the airport lounge style of the old Dick’s.
And it will be called The Terrace. A wholly imaginative name with absolutely zero connection to the Albion. You have 124 years of Brighton history to pick through, from the Goldstone to the Amex, and you end up with The Terrace.
It would appear that with Dick’s closing, the initial plan was to remove any mention of Knight. John Baine was one of the leading fans in the battle to save the club and had several poems on the walls of Dick’s bar.
He posted on North Stand Chat: “From my perspective this is what happened. I heard Dick’s was closing, with no consultation with anyone (even those whose work was featured there, I guess they may have told the Fan Advisory Board, if they did the latter didn’t advise anyone else) and the plan was to put everything in the museum.”
“I was very angry, rang the club and said the artwork and poems were not museum pieces but living history for future generations to see and they should be in the North Stand. The plan was changed: there they are.”
“The bar was constructed in a few weeks. I agree it is nowhere near good enough, but better than nothing, and we should press for improvements, which are eminently possible.”
And so after that, we come to the opening of the new Dick’s Bar. Which is not a bar at all. It is just a sign over an existing concourse hatch in the North Stand with a couple of paintinga of Knight and John’s poem stuck on the wall.
The fact the club hastily reversed their decision to remove Dick’s entirely at least offers encouragement they might be open to doing more in the future.
Alan Mullery has a lounge named after him for being the first Brighton manager to win promotion to the top flight of English football.
Bloom’s grandfather, Harry, has HB’s Restaurant after being deputy chairman to Mike Bamber in the the 1970s.
Even Bruno has his own restaurant. Despite slithering off to Stamford Bridge with Glow Up Graham Potter and the rest.
Hopefully, the new Dick’s Bar is only a temporary measure until Brighton sign off a bigger, more fitting tribute to Knight at the Amex.
Like a proper lounge or statue which can be seen by everyone, ensuring the role Knight played remains visible to future Albion fans.
The bad blood between Bloom and Knight may have existed for 15 years and shows little sign of ever going away.
But surely the club can recognise that the man without whom there would be no Brighton for Bloom to own deserves better than a neon sign above a concourse hatch for his role in saving the Albion.