Day 8: August 6th

After a long day of travel into London yesterday to see the Fulham FC match, the kids were up bright and early to fuel up for another long day of sight seeing along the coast and attending the Brighton & Hove Albion vs Athletico Madrid game.
At 10:30am we boarded the bus to make the 45 minute drive to the Seven Sisters Cliff Walk.

The Seven Sisters are a series of chalk cliffs that run along the English Channel. We started our walk at Beachy Head in East Sussex which has the highest chalk sea cliff. Just the bus ride out to the Cliffs posed spectacular coastal views of small towns and sheep fields.

The entire group of boys and girls set out together along the Cliffs enjoying the spectacular views. It felt great to walk and enjoy the amazing weather, another day of sun and blue skies!, after a day couped up on the bus and in the stands for a game.

Every player reacted with amazement at the scenery. There is nothing comparable on the East Coast, and they scrambled to take pictures and selfies. Anyone with height issues stayed back from the edge, but I think the stress level of the Sports Tours Europe and SUSC staff was on high alert keeping everyone safe. More than once, the staff mentioned coming back to visit again when young lives weren't being looked after to truly enjoy the Cliffs 😀

The two hour hike ended at Burlington Gap Beach.

 Everyone finished their lunches, used the restrooms and reboarded the bus for the 20 minute ride to the the Amex Stadium, home of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club. The American Express Community Stadium is located in the village of Falmer and was completed in 2011. This is the first season that the stadium will host Premier League games as the club was promoted from the Championship after last season.

Tonight is a pre season friendly match against Athletico Madrid. After a long walk the kids were excited to settle into their seats and watch some of their idols play. But first everyone stopped for some pre game nourishment. More of the kids were open to trying the meat pies this time. A choice of steak and ale, chicken gammon and leeks or vegetarian gave a choice for everyone.

But many still stuck with home favorites like hamburgers and hot dogs or just sweets.

Back in our seats we settled in for the game.

The game was tight for the first forty minutes with no score until Madrid's Nico Gaitan fired a hard struck 30 yard shot that the Brighton keeper Maty Ryan misread and fumbled it into the net. Both teams made some changes after halftime and at 61 minutes Brighton took advantage of a free kick and new signing Pascal Gross scored on a deflected free kick. However 5 minutes later Fernando Torres headed in a cross to put Athletico back in the lead. In the 76th minute Brighton scored their own header goal from Steve Sidwell once again tying the score at 2 all. But with three minutes left in the game Athletico Madrid took the 3-2 lead for the win. Griezmann's initial close range shot was saved by Ryan but the rebound was slotted home by Lucas Hernandez. All in all a competitive, high scoring game making it fun to watch.

Tomorrow everyone is back on the fields. In the morning the younger girls and boys at Lancing College have a training session before headed back over to the Amex Stadium for a stadium tour and a trip into the club shop.
The older girls and boys over at Ardingly College also have a morning training session with the afternoon visit to the Amex Stadium. The older girls teams have another round of games in the evening to be played at Ardingly College.