Brighton show value of owners who actually love their club
wenty years ago next month, 3,300 fans of the 91st club in the pyramid travelled to the club in 92nd position to see which would drop into non-League football. In a game that might be remembered as the battle of the cattle market, Brighton and Hove Albion survived after a 1-1 draw on goals scored, and Hereford United went down.
A second-half equaliser by Brighton’s Robbie Reinelt probably stopped the Seagulls folding, 14 years after their one and only FA Cup final appearance, against Manchester United. Brighton had been bottom of the lowest division from Oct 5 to April 26, until a run of 10 home wins in 12 under manager Steve Gritt lifted them to 91st, on the day their Goldstone Ground closed after 94 years.
The Hereford-Brighton fixture just happened to be timed that way. It set up a last-day duel between clubs in a shabby state. Brighton needed only a draw to stay up. There were pom-poms on the pitch before kick-off but also stones thrown at coaches carrying Brighton fans. Desperation pervaded the scene.
Perhaps the saddest thought about that day now is that two Albion-supporting stalwarts, Sarah Watts and Paul Whelch, have not lived to see Brighton’s near-certain promotion to the Premier League, which could come as soon as Monday, with the home game against Wigan.
Watts was secretary of the supporters’ club and a formidable campaigner against homophobia and other scourges. She died from a brain tumour in January 2015. Whelch, who campaigned for the club’s new stadium at Falmer and led litter-picking teams at the temporary ground at Withdean, died last week, aged 57. Both were among a core of Albion fans who helped Dick Knight, the charismatic former chairman, save the club, with campaigns against the previous owners and petitions and pressure to have a new home built in the city, especially during two seasons at Gillingham, 70 miles away.
The Brighton story is well known now. And since the fevered south coast days when the Goldstone was sold to property developers (who turned it into a dull retail park), many other clubs have faced similar ordeals.
Brighton are in no need of anyone’s sympathy now. They have a Premier League-ready stadium, a first-class academy at nearby Lancing and a stellar management team of Tony Bloom (owner), Paul Barber (chief executive) and Chris Hughton (manager) who somehow buried the disappointment of last season’s near-miss and made the team even stronger this time round.
Last May, Brighton ended up with 89 points but still missed out on automatic promotion, on a goal difference of two, to Middlesbrough, who finished second. Hughton’s team then fell apart in a Championship play-off semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday and stayed in the Championship, where Aston Villa, Norwich and Newcastle joined them as the three relegated teams.
It was Brighton’s third play-off defeat in four years. In between, they finished 20th (in 2014-15), before Hughton’s managerial skill began to raise them to where they are now – two points ahead of Newcastle at the top, and 12 clear of Huddersfield in the first play-off spot.
Barring an implosion of unimaginable proportions, the 30,303-seat Amex Stadium will be hosting Chelsea and Spurs next season, and Hughton will pick up the thread of a Premier League managerial career that broke when Norwich sacked him in 2014.
Those who remember the Edgar Street game in Hereford will have cause to remember a 20-year cycle from near extinction to Premier League status. And if we can draw any conclusion for the whole of football, it is that supporters can be happiest when their club is run by people who actually care about the club – or preferably love it; people who understand a club’s purpose as a repository of hopes and allegiances, often rooted in family.
In an age when many clubs are investment opportunities for speculators, or media companies with football teams attached, there is still a great deal to be said for owners who see themselves as custodians, as Knight and Bloom have. Bloom was probably not looking to torch a personal fortune for romantic reasons alone, but his primary motivation was to build from rubble, to create something that could look at itself proudly in the mirror. An example of that thinking would be the promotion bonus for all Brighton and Hove Albion staff, from cleaners to centre-forwards.
Without gambling huge sums on players or salaries, Bloom has pulled off a high-stakes game of backing the right kind of people to add a fierce human element to the promotion drive. At last it seems to have worked, with five games left.
Not all clubs ascend this way. Leicester City’s Thai owners were hardly Fox-loving East Midlanders with a lifelong urge to transform Gary Lineker’s home town. It happened first by accident (a speculative purchase), and then by good decisions. But when Brighton’s fans survived their stress attacks and saw Reinelt score the most important goal in the club’s history, they could be sure the Seagulls would never again fall prey to bad or devious owners. The force of scrutiny would be too great.
So Brighton’s rise began that day 20 years ago, paradoxically with Hereford’s fall, adjacent to the old cattle market where Albion fans wandered in the rain before kick-off, at once powerless and powerful.