Adrian Thorne hits five to fire Brighton to promotion against Watford

A 20-year-old striker scoring five times in only his seventh game of professional football to fire his hometown club to promotion to the second tier of English football for the first ever time. It sounds far-fetched for even Roy of the Rovers. But it’s exactly what happened to Adrian Thorne when Brighton beat Watford 6-0 in 1958.

For 57 years, Brighton and Hove Albion had little to shout about. The Charity Shield win over Aston Villa in 1910 had seen the Seagulls crowned unofficial champions of England, but other than that it had been a footballing history of mediocrity, spent in the Southern League between 1901 and 1920 and then Division Three South from 1920 onwards.

Getting out of Division Three South and reaching the dizzy heights of Division Two was notoriously difficult. Only the champions won promotion in those days, giving clubs a 1/24 chance of joining the second tier, where clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Fulham and Liverpool plied their trade.

Brighton had come close before, but they’d never quite been able to get over the line. Two years previously, the Albion had finished one point behind champions Leyton Orient. In 1954, three points kept them from the top spot taken by Ipswich Town. In 1937 and 1938, the gap was five.

Wednesday 30th April 1958 presented Brighton with the chance to make history. It had been a hectic month with nine matches crammed into four weeks and the final four games of the season coming within eight days of each other.

On Thursday 23rd April, the Albion had drawn 2-2 at Port Vale. Saturday 25th saw a 1-0 win at Vicarage Road against a Watford outfit who they still had to face in their last fixture.

One point was required from the final two matches to secure promotion, but a 1-0 defeat at Brentford – who went to the top of the table as a result – meant that it all hinged on the return game against the Hornets. Draw or beat Watford and Brighton would displace the Bees and the Albion would be a Division Two side for the first time.

This being the pre-floodlight days at the Goldstone, the Wednesday evening fixture was set for a 6.15pm kick off. Given the magnitude of the game, workplaces and schools across Sussex shut early to allow people to converge on Hove.

A young Des Lynam was there, excused school for the afternoon. The sports presenter would later recall, “Six or seven of us caught the bus along to Hove to see Adrian Thorne score five of the six goals as the Albion moved into a whole new world of the Second Division.”

Des would have been 15 at the time, part of a crowd of 31,038 who set a new record for a league attendance at the Goldstone. The crush was such that children on the terraces were allowed onto the perimeter track.

People who couldn’t get in hung from lampposts and trees and the roofs of the factories and houses surrounding the Goldstone were crammed. Supporters sought any kind of vantage point for what they hoped what be a famous evening.

For their part, Watford had other ideas. That defeat four days earlier at the hands of the Albion at Vicarage Road had been harsh in the extreme on the Hornets.

They had been much the better side over the course of the 90 minutes, to the point that Brighton manager Billy Lane left his seat and returned to the dressing room before the final whistle, unable to take any more.

Lane’s early departure meant that he missed Denis Foreman slam home an undeserved winner in the final seconds after following up a Frankie Howard shot which had hit the bar.

According to Foreman, Lane had a face like thunder when the Albion returned to the changing room after the game. The Albion boss was ready to tear into his players for blowing their promotion chances, only to be told that they had in fact won 1-0.

The closeness of that previous meeting and the fact Watford would be out for revenge for the manner of their defeat pointed to a nervy evening being in store for Brighton – which it might well have been, had Adrian Thorne not gone berserk with his five goal haul to single handedly hammer Watford.

Thorne had been spotted by the Albion playing in the Sussex County League as a 17-year-old for Brighton Old Grammarians at the nearby Greyhound Stadium, signing for the Seagulls in August 1954.

He’d attended the Brighton, Hove & Sussex Grammar School on Dyke Road – now BHASVIC – played for Brighton Boys and represented Sussex at youth level, so a more Brighton-born-and-bred footballer you’d struggle to find.

Thorne cut his teeth in the reserves before fulfilling his two years of mandatory national service. It was actually while he was in the Army that he made his Brighton debut in January 1958, making the short trip from his base in Colchester to Southend, where he scored in a 2-0 Albion win at Roots Hall.

Appearances were sporadic for Thorne over the next four months until injury ruled out Dave Sexton for the final three games of the season. Lane turned to Thorne to fill the void and the rest, as they say, is history.

The excellent Goldstone Wrap website has the Daily Mirror’s full match report from the Watford game. Reporter George Harley can take up the story from here.

“The 31,038 crowd – thousands more were locked out – went wild with joy when Thorne scored the first after five minutes with his RIGHT foot. They went even wilder when he got the second after eight minutes from a perfect Howard centre with his HEAD. They were absolutely delirious with delight when he crashed in the third a minute later with his LEFT FOOT.”

Just nine minutes had been played and Adrian Thorne had pretty much won the game for Brighton against Watford. His hat-trick officially came in at an astonishing four minutes.

Brighton were rampant now. Skipper Glen Wilson added a fourth from the penalty spot with 35 minutes played and Thorne then notched his personal fourth and Brighton’s fifth with the goal of the game, a swerving 30 yard run which was ended with a thumping effort.

This was all too much for the Goldstone crowd to take and as the half time whistle blew with the Albion 5-0 up, the crowd surged onto the pitch to mob their goal scoring hero.

Among all the mayhem, Adrian Thorne had to be given a police escort from the pitch as the Brighton and Watford players tried to escape the joyous chaos. And there were still 45 minutes left to play.

The pitch was eventually cleared and the second half was a much more subdued affair. Only one more Albion goal was to come, Thorne hooking home a Wilson free kick a minute from time. He joined Jack Doran in the exclusive club of players to have scored five times in a single game for Brighton.

The scenes at the full time whistle were nearly as mad as those at the interval. Caps and scarfs littered the ground, newspapers and programmes were flung into the air and supporters danced on the pitch.

Brighton’s players appeared to the adulation of the crowd. An hour after the final whistle, the Goldstone was still half full with people on the pitch. Lane meanwhile locked himself in his office, contemplating the achievements of him and his team.

Brighton were a second division club for the first in their 57 year history. And in Thorne, it looked like the Albion had stumbled across a homegrown striker of the type that could go onto secure legendary status with his boyhood club.

Unfortunately, it never quite worked out like that for Thorne. Despite finishing the 1960-61 Division Two season as top scorer with 14 and having a strike rate of 44 goals from 84 appearances which compares with some of the very best strikers in Brighton history, he was never really given a proper chance to establish himself.

Eventually, Thorne grew tired of having to settle for three months in the team followed by three months out of it and so he handed in a transfer request, moving to Plymouth Argyle in the summer of 1961 for £8000 before going onto play for Exeter City with some success.

His contribution to one of Brighton’s most famous days will never be forgotten however – Adrian Thorne, the man who hit five to fire Brighton to promotion against Watford.