The launch of a new Brighton & Hove Albion book to feature a feast of football food

A NEW best-selling Brighton & Hove Albion paperback is set for a formal launch at two Sussex venues later this month and it also promises to be a gourmet feast of football food.

Death in Grimsby – 50 Years Following Brighton & Hove Albion was written, edited and published by Albion fan Nic Outterside, and given a soft launch in May among friends and fellow fans.

It quickly became a best seller and stands at Number 2 in the Amazon Football Reference sales chart and at Number 3 in their Most Wished For chart.

The book’s formal launch, with personal signings and special guests, will take place at two venues in Brighton and Worthing on the eve of the Albion’s first home game of the 2019/20 season against West Ham on 17 August.

The first launch event is from 7pm on Thursday 15 August at the Caxton Arms, North Gardens, Brighton. The second event is from 6pm on Friday 16 August at the Castle Ale House, Newland Road, Worthing.

And both evenings will feature free samples of football food from around the UK.

One of the most popular features of Death in Grimsby are the sections entitled Who Ate All the Pies, which look at the diverse array of food and drink available at different football grounds.

So Nic has arranged samples of unique foods from Barnsley, Berwick Rangers, Birmingham City, Huddersfield Town, Leeds United, Preston North End, Wolves and Wrexham.

These include Scotch pies, Welsh cakes, Yorkshire meat and potato pies, Lancashire butter pies, Birmingham flapjack, Barnsley pork pies, genuine Wolverhampton pork crackling and take-home sachets of Bovril!

“I wanted the launch to be a little different from the usual and the way to book buyers and a football fans’ hearts is clearly through their stomachs,” joked Nic.

“So I hope that those who attend the launch events will also sample a bit of genuine football fayre.”

Death in Grimsby charts Nic’s passion for his far from ordinary home town club for more than half a century. Among 50,000 words and 115 images it is a collection of personal stories which will resonate with every football supporter, no matter which club they may follow.

Death in Grimsby – 50 Years Following Brighton & Hove Albion is available as a large format paperback priced at £10.49 with FREE UK delivery from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1095979752/

A Kindle e-book edition of the book is also available for £3.00 at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Grimsby-Following-Brighton-Albion-ebook/dp/B07T4VMJRQ/

 

Death in Grimsby – 50 Years Following Brighton & Hove Albion is now published worldwide in paperback

Burning cows at Carlisle, Meeting Ernie Wise in Leeds, Joking with Gazza in Glasgow, Bribing Match Stewards in Birmingham, a standing ovation at Doncaster and Death in Grimsby

BRIGHTON & Hove Albion FC were founded in 1901 and for all but six seasons of their 118 year existence have played their football in the lower divisions of the Football League.

A stunning new book Death in Grimsby charts one man’s passion for his far from ordinary home town club over 50 of those years.

Among 50,000 words and 115 images Death in Grimsby is a collection of personal stories which will resonate with every football supporter, no matter which club they may follow.

“I have been following my beloved Brighton & Hove Albion since I was a very small kid, and like a fan of any club, whether that be Arsenal, Accrington Stanley, Aston Villa or Alloa Athletic, once you are hooked you are well and truly hooked,” explains author Nic Outterside.

“My passion was conceived on a sunny Saturday afternoon in September 1967 when I was just 11 years old, as I stood wide-eyed at the front of the North Stand of the Goldstone Ground watching these huge men battle for a crisp, white football on the green turf before me.

“It is a passion which has never dimmed with greying hair, crows’ feet etched lines and a free bus pass just three years away.”

Death in Grimsby is a collection of short stories which charts the first 50 years that Nic supported his beloved Albion, starting with that first game at the Goldstone in 1967 and finishing with a match against Wolves at Molineux in April 2017, when his club all but mathematically secured promotion to the promised land of the Premier League.

Each chapter is a separate story related to 21 different matches and events, including Nic’s first night game against Portsmouth in 1969, a record 8-2 defeat against Bristol Rovers in 1973, winning promotion to the old League Division One in 1979, an FA Cup Final in 1983, Football League survival against Hereford United in 1997 and much more.

These are knitted together with many personal recollections such as meeting Ernie Wise in Leeds, trying to explain the Foot and Mouth Disease funeral pyres to his young daughters before a match against Carlisle United in 2001, interviewing the England legend Paul Gascoigne, bribing match stewards with slices of home-made flapjack at Birmingham City and being hospitalised with hypothermia after a game at Grimsby.

“I hope the reader finds something to inspire them, laugh at, wince with or cry… and recapture their own memories of a game which as the great Bill Shankly said: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that,”” adds Nic.

Death in Grimsby – 50 Years Following Brighton & Hove Albion is available in paperback from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1095979752/
£10.49 Large Format paperback with FREE UK delivery

Other ways to order and purchase the book will be announced in June 2019.

The full launch with book signings will take place at venues (TBC) in Brighton and Hove during week beginning 5 August prior to the start of the 2019/20 Premier League season.

A Kindle e-book edition of the book will also be available later in the summer of 2019.

Notes:

1. Nic Outterside is an award-winning editor, journalist and author. Among more than a dozen awards to his name are North of England Daily Journalist of the Year, Scottish Weekly Journalist of the Year, Scottish Daily Journalist of the Year and a special national award for investigative journalism. He was twice editor of Weekly Newspaper of the Year. In 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in written journalism.
2. Death in Grimsby is his seventh published book.
3. For interviews or further information Nic can be contacted by email on seagullnic@gmail.com

 

Half a century following the Albion

This season I am celebrating 50 years supporting the Albion. Now with our first season in the Premier League almost finished, I thought it might be a time for a snapshot of 10 of my personal highs and lows following our team over that half century.

 

2 September 1967

The Goldstone Ground

League Division 3

B&HA 1 Bury 0

My first Albion game. I witnessed in boyish awe a 1-0 home win against Bury in front of a bustling 13,413 crowd with Kit Napier scoring the only goal. Two weeks later I was back to watch us lose by the same score to Torquay. But I was already hooked!

 

13 August 1969

The Goldstone Ground

League Cup 2nd Round

B&HA 1 Portsmouth 0

My first night game against 2nd Division giants and fierce rivals Pompey. Standing in the middle of a packed North Stand I sucked in the pungent air of cigarette smoke and testosterone. On the pitch Alex Dawson scored our winner and Kit Napier had his shirt ripped off his back by Pompey full-back Eoin Hand as he raced towards their goal.

 

1 December 1973

The Goldstone Ground

League Division 3

B&HA 2 Bristol Rovers 8

Brian Clough had just been appointed manager and Albion euphoria was at a new height… but it didn’t last long! Hot on the heels of a 4-0 defeat against Walton and Hersham in the FA Cup, we faced high-flying Bristol Rovers. Smash and Grab strikers Bruce Bannister and Alan Warboys did the damage; and 44 years later I have not since witnessed such an Albion humiliation.

 

5 May 1979

St James Park

League Division 2

Newcastle United 1 B&HA 3

I wrote about this game extensively in TAM#4. What else is there to say, except I was there, and prior to the promotion clinching win against Wigan last month, this was my most exciting moment, supporting the Albion.

 

29 November 1980

Elland Road

League Division 1

Leeds United 1 B&HA 0

I hate Leeds United and I hate Elland Road. I have so many bad memories of the place, including almost being maimed for life as Leeds thugs hurled house bricks at me and friends after a Newcastle United v Bolton League Cup replay in 1976. This game was little different as we were huddled in caged open terracing and spent the whole game trying to dodge coins and other metal objects being thrown at us by Leeds supporters.

 

10 November 1981

Oakwell

League Cup 3rd Round

Barnsley 4 B&HA 1

I was teaching in Barnsley and my 5th form class persuaded me into to going to the game and standing with the home supporters. Gatting scored for us in the second minute and I jumped around like a demented monkey. I was soon put in my place by the surrounding Barnsley supporters and the four goals which followed. I had to put up with ridicule from my pupils until well after Christmas.

 

3 May 1997

Edgar Street

League Division 4

Hereford United 1 B&HA 1

I had lived near Hereford for seven years during the 1980s and knew the town and the Edgar Street ground well; so by hook and crook I managed to get a ticket. At half time we were staring oblivion fully in the face. And we all know what happened next. The defining moment as an Albion supporter.

 

21 April 2001

Brunton Park

League Division 4

Carlisle United 0 B&HA 0

The first and only game I ever took my two daughters to. Basking in sunshine and with hundreds of blue and white balloons we watched and ate crisps as the Albion held out for drab goalless draw and promotion out of the bottom division for the first time since before Bellotti and Archer! Two years later was the last time I ever saw my daughters.

 

14 February 2004

Blundell Park

League Division 2

Grimsby Town 2 B&HA 1

This was the day we delivered a huge Valentine’s card to John Prescott’s office in Hull as part of the Falmer for All campaign. I then drove across the Humber Bridge for a routine league game against Grimsby. It was cold and wet and with no parking close to the ground I was already soaked to the skin by the time I had walked five streets and bought my first Bovril. We lost thanks to two goalkeeping howlers by our young third choice keeper Stuart Jones. This was the match where I came closest to dying of hypothermia!

 

7 January 2012

FA Cup 3rd Round

The Amex

B&HA 1 Wrexham 1

This game – and the replay at the Racecourse – will always stay with me. I developed a close bond with Wrexham FC during their battle against their asset stripping owners in 2004-05 and as a result ended up living in the town for eight years. The love and bond between the two clubs endured, and after our promotion was secured last month, I was showered with ‘well-done’ and ‘thanks’ messages from Wrexham supporters.