A SUMMARY OF 2011/12

We'll be up at Blackpool tomorrow; why not purchase the new issue of TSLR for the long journey home? In fact, at a solitary £1, if it was me and I hadn't read the thing at least 6 times, I would buy another copy for the journey home because it's unlikely you will be bringing your copy from last weeks game in your bumbag.

Phew.

We've also been busy doing some other writing, and yes, you might be surprised that we are invited to write for other people, but it does happen!

One of the best blogs out there, described by The Guardian as "an excellent compendium for the Football League fan" - The Seventy Two - asked us to pen a bit about about our c-razy season (so far), and pen we did.

Read it HERE if you're a lover, not a hater.

Guest pieces for other respected oracles are on the way, plus something for a not so respected oracle too.  We'll keep you posted.

CONTROL, TOUCH, FINISH, CELEBRATION

As keen TSLR watchers will know, the latest issue - TSLR038 released at Falmer against Portsmouth on Saturday - featured its usual illustration on the back cover. As all of you should know, we have artistically nodded towards the Albion on the back cover since our 2008 launch (we even allowed our regular artist the front cover spot last season). In all cases between TSLR001 and TSLR037, this has been carried out by the German sounding, Brighton born Miles Lauterwasser whose blog you can find here.

However, the increasingly expensive Lauterwasser was unavailable to submit a picture for TSLR038 as he was entering a proper art competition (hark at him!).  In a pub in Leeds the other week we were shown some artwork on an iPhone that knocked our socks off. Fast forward a couple of weeks and the above illustration was sent to us by the wonderful James Walker (who remarkably stands very close to half of TSLR in Falmer's norf stand) and this is this image that adorns the back cover this month.

The 'control, touch, finish, celebration' headline for this post was Walker's explanation of the four stages of the incredible Lewis Dunk own goal at Liverpool back in February. Massive thanks to him for what is an inspiring piece of text to accompany an excellent image, replicated here in colour - on the back page of the mag in black and white only.

Whilst flogging fanzines on Saturday, someone suggested Albion fans would never want to relive moments like one of the Anfield own goals. In response I detailed how moments like these are exactly why fanzines exist. Where on earth would TSLR be had it not been for the Colin Hawkins own goal diving header and his two minute sending off cameo that took place in our very first season? And as for Fran Sandaza...

James hasn't yet created himself a blog to flog pictures like his 'four stages' piece so if you have any desire to purchase a print of this in black and white or colour - or if you have any future requests - drop us a line tslr@hotmail.co.uk or contact us through Twitter and we'll get you in contact with Walker.

EXCLUSIVE: GUS POYET'S TACTICS REVEALED

One part-time selling TSLRite has been loitering with intent around Falmer's internal organs recently and passed on this massive expose for TSLR to bring to the masses (well, to the couple of people who log on to this blog). This photo was taken of the tactics board just after the game against Portsmouth on Saturday. No wonder the Chelsea and Tottenham vultures are circling when Gus Poyet has such incredible tactical insight.

WHERE WE SELL TSLR AT THE AMEX

We sell it here.

TSLR038 OUT FOR THE POMPEY MATCH

Like noddy Albion demi-god Michel Kuipers, The Seagull Love Review is perennially let down by it's distribution. Poor old co-editor @swiftenburg and his faithful Papa are out there at the Amex each home game, swamped by the ever growing locust-like programme-peddlers, trying to flog a few fanzines to the apathetic masses. Big love to those two, and the other friends and family who help out for no reward.

Another NSC post has again attracted our attention to the issue with more fans asking where they can get one of our near-mythical publications.  We'll have a good think about this little problem over the summer.

Well here's hoping for a bit of visibility this Saturday as TSLR038, the confusingly 36th issue of the only Albion fanzine, will be released for our faux derby with a team from Hampshire.

To quote some of the sub-headers on the cover, here's some of the action in this months 'zine;

- Comedefending: The return of the own goal
- Flairmageddon: The four horsemen descend, and yet no mention of Fran Sandaza
- Pay Up Pompey: LOL Fratton Park ... Oh, no, sorry
- El-Abd: Two of our writers talk like an Egyptian
- Ticket Touts: Albion haven't attracted ticket touts for 30 years. Here's the lowdown on the Amex black market.

Still £1, which is probably the cheapest thing you can buy at our gleaming stadium, though, as pointed out by one critical buyer on the delightful message board the "last issue didn't make me chuckle or even smile wistfully".

:(

IF ONLY I HAD A CONSOLE

Now we know there are probably rules preventing us from publishing this photee*. However this snap taken on our recent visit to Elland Road simply had to be shown to the world. For years, I have travelled the country watching the Albion - you could say I've grown up watching them, if indeed I have grown up at all. Just like the little lad pictured. The difference being just in thing, he was given a handheld console to get him through the dreary bits.

At the time I wanted to lean over to the lad and suggest that watching the Albion doesn't get much better than it is at the moment (although I admit in the first half against Leeds the players weren't great, the crowd was shockingly quiet and the stewarding insistence that all sat down was particularly annoying) and he should really watch the game. But I was too hungover and it looked like his dad could probably beat me up if he so wished so I thought better of it.

The point is this: I don't blame the kid for playing on a console, nor do I blame his parents for allowing him to do so. In fact, there were many times I was at an Albion match and wished I had one. But I do think that, had I been allowed to play on a console, I may now be a better, more balanced individual with something in my life more than just the Albion. But I worry I wouldn't care enough about the Seagulls - to the point where I may not have bawled my eyes out at Walsall last season.

*In fact, the PCC - not that we know who regulates blogs but we like to think of ourselves as proper media so we'll claim the PCC - stipulate the following in italics (with our non italised justification included for legal/attempted comic reasons):

6. Children

i) Young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion. (we were in Leeds in a Saturday)

ii) A child under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents. (no issues were covered in the taking of this photo)

iii) Pupils must not be approached or photographed at school without the permission of the school authorities. (again, no school trip we don't think)

iv) Minors must not be paid for material involving children’s welfare, nor parents or guardians for

material about their children or wards, unless it is clearly in the child's interest. (paid? TSLR is hardly in a position to pay anyone. Just ask our contributors. Or the club?)

v) Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as sole justification for publication (seems as if we're off the hook after all)

"GET OFF MY BACK, PLEADS SOCCER STAR"

Leafing through the TSLR Towers filing cabinet stuffed full of articles, newspaper cuttings, photographs and scraps of dreams that never quite made it into an article for the fanzine, I stumbled across a bunch of Night Final cuttings from the early 1990s. A time when this thing called the Internet was just a twinkle in an eye. A time when football wasn't monitored by several blogs rehashing the same story published on the Evening Argus website. A time when football was rarely allowed onto the front pages. A time when Albion players couldn't tell you they were going to Nando's through Twitter as neither existed. A time when a super injunction was a wrestling move.

I've always wanted to write an article for TSLR from the point of view of Robert Codner circa 1993. In fact, it was one of the main reasons I was so adament we should produce a fanzine in the first place - back in 2008 when TSLR was born. This diary-style column would have been all about Codner's time in prison following his driving and drug misdemeanors, echoed in a small way by Gonzo Reyes recently (maybe the past isn't so different after all). But, the fact I only found four Argus articles on Codner's Lewes visit plus a slight concern over libel charges meant the diary never got written.

There were two schools of thought over Robert Codner. One was that he was an amazing player, a career wasted at Albion and teams of an even lower ilk because he was one step ahead of the rest of the team - a party-lad in the days when footballers could barely afford to be. Or he was rubbish, always out of sync with the other players and he had no interest in improving - continuing as a party-lad in the days when footballers could barely afford to be. The truth? Well, I like to think the former but many felt it was the latter. There was one game at the Goldstone around 1992 when he played amazingly all over the pitch but every time he got near to the opposing goal, he would blaze over. On reflection, perhaps he was just as high as a kite - it would explain the high energy levels and his erratic behaviour every time he got excited.

I liked Codner, but I was 8 at the time and crime didn't make me dislike Albion players then. Accusations of crime and the subsequent perception of Albion players is something we might all have to address again soon but more on that another time. In a front page photocopied from the 15 December 1993 Argus (Night Final), Codner made the front page again. It read:

"Albion captain Robert Codner today pleaded 'stop putting me down and let me play football'. The call came after police said they will not prosecute him for his part in a fight when an air stewardess was punched in the face."

Our very own Marlon King it seems. The article not only references that he was facing trial on cocaine charges at the time but has a quote from the 'soccer star' himself that smacks of an irrational paranoia symptomatic of a white powder abuser. Codner said:

"In the six years I have been here (Brighton) I've had nothing but bad publicity. It has turned people against me. All I want people to do is leave me alone to do what I do best and that is play football."

Being a footballer with drug problems in 1993 must have been a pretty lonely experience. In another Argus cutting from around the same period Codders blamed his lack of a lawyer on a lack of funding. And he did end up in Lewes prison for Christmas - that article includes a picture of the dastardly David Bellotti who failed to get bail for Codner despite being chairman of the Sussex Police Authority at the time. The club must have funded a lawyer though, as the report on the trial mentions how a wafer thin defence of blaming train signal failure and lateness for a 'crucial contract meeting with former Albion manager Barry Lloyd' meant he was forced to drive. Wafer thin simply because Lloyd was never a manager in the true sense of the word.

An interview with Codner when in prison was the only other Argus cutting I could find on the story. Written by what must have been a rather fresh-faced Andy Naylor - you know, the one who has gone on to bigger and better things at the, er, Evening Argus. But the scoop was there, Codner - two weeks into his sentence - had not been visited by anyone at the club.

At the end of the day Des, I did love Robert Codner. He was a maverick ahead of his time (his current job is as a player agent apparently so that has to put me off him slightly) who played in some genuinely brilliant Albion sides. Well, the best we had for a while anyway. The thing with his crime was that it didn't hurt anybody. Maybe him. Driving whilst disqualified (twice) is bad and speeding should be warned against but it was no Eubank moment - Codner didn't kill anyone. Or physically hurt anyone. He just clearly had some issues, a pair of classy legs and, in all probabilty, a very sore nose.

When Googling Robert Codner, I found this awesome blog on that 1990-91 season. Well worth a read as you listen to BBC Sussex this afternoon.

If you have any further details on Codner, let us know tslr@hotmail.co.uk or @tslr

WORLD CUP WINNER POSES WITH TSLR

The weekend just gone marked a seminal moment in the history of The Seagull Love Review. Of course Albion fans will remember it as the weekend when we broke FA Cup history in conceding a lot of own goals during a single match but here we did have something to celebrate. Former TSLR contributor and Irish obsessive Glory Boy hooked us up with a ticket to watch a film as part of the 5th European Documentary Film Festival at the Italian Cultural Institute in London which featured a Q&A with 1982 World Cup winning and goalscoring (not to mention celebrating) as well as Irish assistant managing legend, Marco Tardelli (pictured above grappling his favourite fanzine).
A stylish Italian documentary made by a couple of achitects - The Rimet Trophy - was shown and took the audience through the lifespan of the original World Cup trophy. Way back from its French inception in 1930 through various tournaments and WWII right up until its mysterious theft in Brazil in 1983 - a bad year for Brazil seeing as it was the same year that Garrincha died, as the film reliably informed us. The film itself covered many events we all know and love (with subtitles mind, we are highbrow here at TSLR Towers), skipping over some incidents quickly and without explanation (the West Germans being on drugs in 1954 was glossed over, we want to hear more on that!) whilst giving excessive detail on the trophy's disappearance in London. Overall, as a football fan, you should know everything that was in the film but it was very slickly made and contained some fabulous footage even we hadn't encountered before.
Its biggest fault? Well, it featured a Q&A with an Italian who won the World Cup trophy in its current form. The Jules Rimet original had been retired in the hands of Brazil after the 1970 tournament. But that's just pedantic, right? The Q&A was a largely hilarious affair being as it was in Italian - the interpreter, bless her, had her heavy breath in our ears throughout and spent three questions talking to nobody after flicking off her device. In fact, there's some of the answers in more detail on this Forza Italian Football blog here. But that was less important by that stage, we were too busy wondering how we would collar the great Tardelli afterwards for a photo standing proudly waving the latest issue in front of our lens.
On one question, he suggested that he was actually impressed with the way English players, management and fans accept decisions made by the officials compared with Italy - Italians must be horrendous for that to be the case. After the answers and an assessment of his daughter as wife material (it didn't really matter what she looked like to be honest) we moved in and convinced him to pose. Ideally we wanted him to hold two copies aloft a la that 1982 celebration but his entourage of Mafiosa prevented us from engaging too fully.

And that was that, we left Tardelli to enjoy the sycophantic Italian contingent (well, we weren't that sycophantic - it's not like he played for the Albion or anything) and his impending Bunga Bunga party. Rumour had it that Silvio Berlusconi was waiting in the basement with a host of underage prostitutes. We left safe in the knowledge that a man whose hands touched the World Cup have now touched TSLR. And his celebration a year before wither TSLR editor was born has, in some way, touched us all.

Of course, he was only the second best player to appear at the 1982 World Cup:

VALENTINES DAY GIFT?

What with Valentines day coming up and most of you attending the sold-out home game with Millwall as opposed to a romantic meal with your better half, we thought we'd check out the club shop and source the top gifts for your loved ones. Apologies for the sort of sexism that would make Poyet blush but these gifts are soley for the ladiez.

We've gone for the money shot at number one. Featuring a t-shirt currently residing in the bargain basement of the club shop, unforrunately you won't get the Gullys Girl thrown in. We thought that this one could be a bit risky with the prominant Donatello's logo on the front, it's sort of like 'here's what you could've won'.

Next up, and it's a beauty from the oft-derided jewellery counter at the club shop. Somewhere there's a load of old Dick Knight era bling waiting to melted down but our merchandise gurus where quick to order in new logo stock for the start of the season. Some might say this gold/silver effort would make Jimmy Saville shirk but this is still en vogue in Saltdean.

 Your WAG's trips to the Holmebush with the kids on a Saturday afternoon are all fine and dandy but add that Albion touch by getting her to stick this up in the back of her Suzuki Swift. Though the colloquial meaing of the term Baby Seagull is quite clear in these parts, there is a chance there could actually be a baby seagull in your exhaust during the winged-beasts silly season and in those circumstances we recommend you call the RSPCA.

This is just the worst. We're not convinced about pink merchandise for female fans, it could be seen as a little backwards in these times of equality; Yes, women are plentiful at our community stadium and we reject the old stereotyping of traditional white, working-class male crowds, but we will ask you to wear the replica kit in baby pink.

Girlz like make-up right? This is what we've been told anyway, and the club haven't missed a trick here. Admittedly the colour range is a little limiting but we hear that primary colours are all the rage in that there London. If your petite amie rejects this gesture then you can use the kit for your own face and attract the attention of the ESPN cameras at Anfield on Saturday. Win, win.

INSIDE THE NEW ISSUE

Thought we'd show you some revealing shots of the fanzine - TSLR037 - which is being released at Leeds United tomorrow.

It's a great issue, 32 pages of great writing and a few laughs for £1. Inside we have the usual regulars; Mendoza, Marco Van Bastard, Meade's Ball, Midfield Diamond, Carter etc.

We also have some bigger articles from Bitter and Twisted who talks us through his thoughts on the homophobia in football isssue, and a debut from European Football Weekend's Danny who treats us to an extended review of our away win at London Road last month.

To give your peepers a break from the weighty monologues we have a great contribution from Stewart Weir's photo archive and some really cool artwork from Lewes FC's designer David Shepperd.

See you at Elland Road!