PREMIER LEAGUE PROMOTION
Blooming good news for Brighton
The Premier League’s newly promoted Seagulls have truly taken flight
London — Tony Bloom is a feared presence at any poker table but on Monday, the biggest wager of this renowned gambler, the £200m investment in Brighton, paid off with their promotion to the Premier League. The Seagulls have truly taken flight rising to a level that 20 years ago would have been deemed fantastical as they found themselves in dire straits like a character out of Charles Dickens’s novels, without a home and penniless. They only avoided relegation from the Football League on the last day of the 1996-97 season and were forced to play in Gillingham, 112km away from their home town, for the next two years after their old Goldstone Ground was sold to pay off debts. However, having reached their nadir they wallowed in lower league mediocrity until Bloom came along in 2009, and with a wave of his chequebook he transformed the then League One club’s fortunes on and off the pitch. Bloom, despite his reputation as a poker player, is also a keen businessman and bears strong ties t...
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