Don't be taken aback by Micky's return
IT'S AN often-used saying that nothing should surprise you in football. And Micky Adams' return to Albion doesn't surprise me. I heard mutterings as far back as Boxing Day that all was not well in the dressing room.
Obviously, worse was to follow with the FA Cup exit against Mansfield — the same Mansfield who will play league fixtures at Lewes and Eastbourne next year.
A mixed bag of transfer-window acquisitions, one of whom has already departed the club, Shane McFaul, might have papered over the cracks, but mutterings became whispers, and whispers became somebody very close to chairman Dick Knight telling me in February that there would be a change of manager at the end of the season.
Obviously, if I printed or broadcast everything I was told, I would end up with lots of column inches and air time, but I would probably be in the high court every week.
Sometimes, you have to sit tight and while Dean Wilkins, now demoted to coach, wasn't one my favourite Albion managers to have worked with, to speculate over his position at that point was a road down which I was not prepared to go.
Market forces have dominated the reasons for this appointment. Despite attractive financial inducements, season ticket sales for next season are the lowest since the club returned to Sussex from exile in Gillingham. When it comes to finances, bums on seats is the name of the game. And there's no better man to put an Albion bum on a seat than Micky Adams.
I should not have favourites but I do. And I make no secret of the fact that Adams, with his ability and personality, is my favourite ever Brighton manager in 35 years of supporting the club.
But I am not alone in that. He is a legend among Albion fans to the point that if one caught him in bed with his wife, he'd probably tuck him in.
Excuse the cliche, but today is the dawning of a new era. The back-to-back titles of 2001 and 2002 were not completely Adams' work. He won the first but merely laid the foundation for the second because by October, he'd left for the Premiership with Leicester City.
How ironical that he will find himself lining up against them next season.
harty@tiscali.co.uk
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Weather for Worthing
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -5 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: -5 C to 1 C
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Wind direction: North east
