The ball’s still in the air

Here is the 18th of 24 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained Glass Window 1 for background. A lively soccer match is underway. In the foreground, a large black-and-white football dominates; to the right, the leg and foot of a player in blue shorts and striped socks is shown in motion, suggesting a kick. Behind the ball and player, a crowd of supporters fills the background, represented in bright blocks of colour - yellow, red, blue, green, and brown - with raised arms and cheering stances, creating the sense of excitement in a stadium atmosphere. The overall style is bold and simplified, with clear outlines and vivid colours.

A limerick starter

A striker with socks blue and white, 

Kicked a ball with incredible might. 

The crowd gave a roar, 

As it sailed to the score, 

And victory gleamed in the light.

The ball’s still in the air (with apologies to Nick Hornby) 

I was standing on Brighton Beach, staring up at this stained-glass window in one of those seafront cafés, the kind that smells of chip fat even after it’s closed. It showed a football frozen in mid-flight, with a crowd behind it looking like they’d just seen God, or at least Peter Ward in his prime. The socks on the kicker were the clincher: blue and white hoops, the Seagulls’ stripes.

And suddenly I was back there, twelve years old, thinking Brighton & Hove Albion were going to change my life. Dad took me to the Goldstone Ground and I saw Gerry Ryan run down the wing like he’d been shot out of a cannon. That was it. I was hooked for good. But football - especially Brighton football - is like the sea here: it looks glorious when the sun’s on it, but most of the time it just drags you under and leaves you coughing up salt.

On the beach that morning, you could almost hear the echoes of promotion parties and relegation heartbreak. I’d been through them all, right down to the protests when we nearly lost the club. We stood outside with banners, shouting until our throats cracked, while inside men in suits plotted how to flog the ground for a Sainsbury’s. It felt hopeless. And yet here we still are, with a stadium on the edge of town, European nights, a place at the grown-ups’ table.

Looking back at that window, I realised why it hit me so hard. The crowd in the glass isn’t celebrating a goal. They’re waiting. The ball’s still in the air, and anything could happen: joy, despair, a dodgy referee’s whistle. It’s Brighton Beach in a nutshell. You sit on the shingle, you watch the horizon, and you think: maybe today the tide turns. Or maybe it just keeps rolling in and out, same as ever.

I finished my tea, wiped the crumbs from my lap, and thought about the next game. It’s ridiculous, really, this endless faith in a team, like waiting for a miracle on a beach that’s seen more storms than summers. But if you’re a Seagull, you don’t stop flying. You can’t.

E-scooters for the seafront

Brighton Beach’s long seafront cycle lane may soon get a lot busier. Brighton & Hove City Council has agreed to apply for government approval to run an e-scooter trial, a move that could soon bring rental scooters to the city’s seafront. At a cabinet meeting on 16 October, councillors voted to seek Department for Transport consent for a scheme that would add up to 300 e-scooters to the existing Beryl bike-share programme. The cabinet report explicitly mentions that the council will ‘prioritise locations on the seafront and seek to maximise convenience for commuters with central sites near car parks, stations and bus stops.’ If successful, the trial would launch in April 2026, with a public consultation and full financial review to be completed before rollout. 

The plan is part of what transport experts call ‘micromobility’ - small, lightweight vehicles such as bikes, e-bikes and scooters designed for short urban journeys. According to the CoMoUK Annual Shared Micromobility Report, more than 40 million journeys were made on shared bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters in the UK in 2023, with around one in five scooter trips replacing a car journey. The Council argues that giving residents and visitors a regulated hire option could cut emissions, reduce traffic, and displace the use of illegal private scooters.

Under the scheme, up to 75 scooters would be introduced each week until the full fleet is in place. The operating zone would be smaller than the bike-share area, excluding the Undercliff and private land without consent. Thirty new parking bays are proposed, located along the seafront and at transport hubs, to prevent obstruction on pavements. Charges would be higher than for e-bikes, with an unlock fee and per-minute rate. Safety measures include speed caps, no-go zones, possible curfews between midnight and 5am on weekends, licence checks, helmet promotion and access audits of parking sites to protect disabled users.

The council report reminds councillors that privately owned e-scooters remain illegal to use on public roads and pavements except as part of authorised trials. The document then notes that many people are already using them around Brighton despite the ban, creating safety concerns and enforcement difficulties (see Brighton and Hove Police on Facebook). The trial is pitched as a way to provide a safe, regulated alternative, with proper insurance, speed limits, and parking controls - and to reduce demand for illegal private scooters. Moreover, the report highlights that most scooter collisions involve private machines, with hire schemes showing a far better safety record. Data from other trials suggests that e-scooters not only replace car journeys but can also complement public transport, making them an important tool for cutting congestion in busy coastal areas.

The application deadline is 21 October, with a decision expected in January 2026. A three-month mobilisation would then precede the launch. The scooters will be funded and owned by Beryl, and the Council anticipates no additional budget costs, with any surplus offsetting existing borrowing on the bike-share scheme.

Remembering the Wheel

This week 14 years ago today - on Monday 24 October to coincide with school half-term - the Brighton Wheel formally began turning on Dalton’s Bastion, east of the Palace Pier. The privately funded, 45-metre transportable wheel - variously branded the ‘Brighton O’, the ‘Wheel of Excellence’ and simply the ‘Brighton Wheel’ - was promoted by Paramount Attractions and cost about £6m. 

Temporary planning permission, granted in April 2011, allowed operation until May 2016 and set opening hours from 10am to late evening in the East Cliff conservation area. A Highway Licence followed in August; the German-built R50-SP wheel, fresh from service at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, was shipped to Brighton in September while foundations were laid at the seafront site.

Construction saw the partial removal and later reinstatement requirement for listed railings above the site, and sparked local debate about overlooking and heritage impact balanced against economic benefits. The finished installation had 35 standard gondolas plus a VIP pod, a stated 12-minute, three-revolution ride cycle, and typical operating hours of 10am-11pm. Promoters projected about 250,000 riders a year and said around 30 jobs would be created.

Operationally, the Wheel settled quickly into the visitor landscape as a mid-priced panoramic ride east of the pier. But its permission was explicitly time-limited and linked to plans for the i360 ‘vertical pier’ on the west seafront. (See i360 stranded sky high - with sky-high debts).
In 2015 the council rejected a request to extend the Wheel’s stay, and so it made its final rotations on 8 May 2016. Dismantling beginning that same week. The structure was advertised for sale and then put into storage, with no confirmed buyer announced locally. After closure, the site at Dalton’s Bastion was repurposed for a permanent seafront zip-wire (see The windy stairs.)

A large fairground wheel did, however, make a brief comeback: a similar but different structure was hired for the Brighton Christmas Festival in late 2021 and set up on the Old Steine. But it was the Brighton Wheel on Madeira Drive that has left an imprint on the city’s seafront story. More details can be found at Wikipedia and the Brighton Toy Museum. A defunct Brighton Wheel Facebook page can still be visited (and is the source of the night time image above). A time-lapse series of photographs of the The Rise And Fall Of The Brighton Wheel can be found on Jason Arnopps’ website.

Brighton Beach Scumbags

This day in 1991, Steven Berkoff’s play Brighton Beach Scumbags opened at the Sallis Benney Theatre in Brighton. Directed by George Dillon, it was the inaugural production for the Brighton-based Theatre Events team and quickly gained notoriety for its raw depiction of two East End couples on a seaside outing. The play’s unflinching treatment of casual homophobia, class prejudice and sexual tension caused a stir in the city, while its setting gave Brighton audiences a distorted mirror of their own seafront culture.

Berkoff, born in Stepney in 1937, trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and went on to build a reputation as one of the most distinctive and provocative voices in British theatre. After working in repertory, he founded the London Theatre Group in the 1960s and began writing and performing plays marked by a visceral physicality and a confrontational use of language. Works such as East (1975), West (1980) and Greek (1980) established him as both playwright and performer, while his career on screen brought memorable roles in films such as A Clockwork Orange, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop. His stage adaptations of Kafka and his Shakespeare productions have also drawn international acclaim.

Brighton, though, was not just a convenient setting for Scumbags. Berkoff’s own early memories of the town were affectionate. In his memoir Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent (JR Books, 2010) he writes: ‘Now that the war was over we were able to travel and get around a bit. One day Dad rented a car to take us all on a trip to|Brighton and as it drew past the pavilion, I was gobsmacked at my first glance of the deep blue sea; it was also a perfect summer’s day. We were booked into a pleasant, cheap-and-cheerful B&B and the landlords, a young woman and her husband, looked after us really well - so much so that we all wanted to stay a few more days while Dad went back to Luton since he probably had to work (you never knew with him). We walked everywhere in an idyllic post-war [Brighton] played ‘housy-housy’ on the pier and took the miniature Volk’s railway to Black Rock swimming pool. It was a marvellous lido and this was a blissful time in a typical English summer. (Just above Black Rock is the so-elegant Lewes Crescent, where 40 years hence I would be sitting on my own balcony, watching the sunset from the first-floor flat of a splendid Regency house.)’

That mixture of nostalgia and confrontation runs through Brighton Beach Scumbags, premiered on 23 October 1991 (and revived in 2009 by Loft Theatre). The characters revel in their trips to the beach while simultaneously turning it into a stage for crude outbursts, prejudices and fears. A synopsis of the play can be found at the RDG website. The following extract, from Plays 2 (Faber, 1994), captures the tone:

DINAH: Oh yeah, before you come we had a drink ‘cause we always went there you know, always made a bee-line ‘cause you could sit outside, when we courted Derek and I would drink there . . . got the train from Victoria, a quid return, a quid, went swimming by Black Rock, by the cliffs, lovely it was . . . it was then . . .

DEREK: Oh it was a treat, definitely a treat, walk to Rotters, Rottingdean, tea and scones, jam and butter and cream.

DINAH: Sat outside, it was a bit Continental, or we had a plate of fish and chips.

DEREK: Yeah, and we swam cause we loved swimmin then until one day we saw that turd swimmin in the water, well I could never get in there again . . . never.

DINAH: Horrid!

DEREK: Never!

DINAH: Just horrid.

DEREK: I did say at the time that it was probably an isolated turd, not a fucking sign like of sewage seepage, probably a one-off turd by some little bastard who couldn’t hold it, but I never got in there again.

DINAH: Horrid, it just floated past my ear.

DEREK: Before that we’d love a swim, just let the waves grab you and throw you abaht a bit, love it that, triffic, a wave would pick you up like a dog wiv a bone and bung you down again on the shingle, cor didnarf sting at time but it was handsome, then we’d got for a tandoori in the Lanes, triffic place, did a right handsome prawn vindaloo!

Seahorse on fire

A fire broke out at The Seahorse on Brighton seafront in the early hours of this morning. According to Brighton and Hove News, crews from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called at 00.16 to reports of a blaze in a bin-store beside the venue. Two engines from Preston Circus attended and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a hose-reel jet to bring the flames under control, with the incident declared over by 00.45. No casualties were reported. 

Sussex Police were also on the scene and an investigation is under way into whether the blaze was started deliberately. The Seahorse, situated in the King’s Road Arches next to the i360, is one of the most prominent restaurant and events spaces on Brighton’s seafront. 

The building dates from 1951 when it was constructed as part of the Festival of Britain redevelopment of the promenade. It was long known as Alfresco, run by the Colasurdo family from 1996 until 2018, when the lease was sold to the City Pub Company - see Coapt. After refurbishment it traded for a time as the Brighton Beach Club before being rebranded as The Seahorse, offering a restaurant and bar over two levels with a large terrace and panoramic sea views.

The incident was brought under control quickly, limiting damage to the external store. With police treating the blaze as suspicious, the outcome of the investigation will be closely watched by other seafront businesses.

Two years of decadence

And there they were by the Brighton wall, under the rust-green iron of the boardwalk, sprawled out in the million-year pebbles, shoes kicked off like wreckage, tangled together the way kids do when the night before still hums in their blood. The mural above them, some half-face phantom in faded paint, eyes wide with knowing, words bleeding below - Two Years of Decadence - like a prophecy, like a joke, like a sentence we’re all already serving.

And the girl - she wasn’t tangled, no - she leaned off to the side, back against the cold flint wall, listening to her secret music, head tilted to the wide sea nobody could see from here, the sea that keeps time with all the broken beats of the city. She was cool, black coat wrapped around her, headscarf tight, like she’d been here forever, like she knew all the stories the gulls scream and the iron forgets.

It was all there: the damp stink of stone, the sound of a vans clattering above, the faint taste of salt and fried oil drifting from the pier, and the silence between kids who don’t need words, just bodies and the breathing hush of the sea nearby. Decadence? Hell, decadence is just the name the world gives you when you’re young and don’t care and you love too hard to bother about tomorrow.

And the mural - who painted it, who left it to fade? Maybe some kid from a different decade, maybe a dreamer who saw the same wreckage and thought: this is worth marking, this deserves a shrine. Two years, two minutes, two beats of the heart. All the same. The waves will come in and erase it anyway, like everything else.

(Written by ChatGPT in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac.)

Yoga, breath, and spines aligned

For those who like their yoga al fresco, Brighton’s beach offers a mix of weekly classes and one-off events along the seafront, from Hove Lawns to east of Brighton Pier. Local operators list regular outdoor sessions during fair weather, typically switching indoors or cancelling when wind and rain close in. One provider’s current schedule shows Monday morning flows on the pebbles behind the Meeting Point Café, a Thursday evening session on Hove Lawns opposite Brunswick Square, and additional park or seafront slots mid-week. A separate sunrise strand runs weekly through the summer at Rockwater in Hove, with a fallback to the indoor lodge if conditions turn. 

The city’s volunteer-led scene also includes an annual ‘Yoga on the Beach’ day beside the i360, featuring back-to-back classes from local teachers and suggested-donation pricing to raise funds for community wellbeing projects. Tourism listings continue to flag beach and outdoor yoga as a Brighton staple, and commercial platforms are advertising 2025 dates and times, suggesting steady demand for sea-air sessions as autumn sets in. See Brighton Yoga, Studio iO, Brighton Natural Health Foundation; and here’s a ditty to pass the time, by ChatGPT.

Yoga on the pebbles

On Brighton’s stones, the mats are spread,
A stretch of spines, a lift of head.
Gulls keep off - know the score,
Those spiky fences guard this shore.

The pebbles jab, but none complain,
They breathe it out, release the pain.
The sea rolls in with measured tone,
A metronome of waves on stone.

Cobra rises, shoulders tall,
A chorus line along the wall.
The water bottles gleam in rows,
As steadfast as the students’ pose.

The sea rolls in, a patient guide,
It hums its mantra, tide by tide.
So Brighton’s beach becomes a shrine,
For yoga, breath, and spines aligned.