Better luck next year, Bristol – the Seagulls soar back into the second tier

“That’s brave,” I remember thinking when first clocking the banner fluttering from the top tier of the Millennium Stadium as Bristol City faced Brighton & Hove Albion in the Division Two playoff final of 2004.

There it was, plain as day to see: ‘Better luck next year, Brighton’. Which didn’t seem to be so much tempting fate as poking it with a bloody big stick and daring it to conspire against you.

Sure, City were the favourites having finished five points better off than the Albion in the regular season. And any City fans who had watched the two legs of Brighton’s semi final would have felt pretty positive about their side’s chances.

Swindon Town had battered Mark McGhee’s side over 210 minutes of football. Brighton were only in Cardiff thanks to a mixture of a deflected Richard Carpenter goal, Adam Virgo’s desperate last-second header, Ben Roberts’ penalty saving brilliance and the cross bar which Swindon rattled on average once every 12 minutes.

City were also undefeated against the Albion in the 2003-04 season. The sides had drawn 0-0 at Ashton Gate in April. At Withdean in November, the visitors spoiled Mark McGhee’s first home league game in charge of Brighton by dishing out a 4-1 hammering.

All that evidence suggested there was quite the gulf between the two. So they had every right to be confident. But there is a difference between confidence and arrogance.

In the pubs and bars of the sunny Welsh capital before the game, those clad in red were predicting an easy win for their side. 3-0, 4-0, even 5-0 were the suggestions on the street.

But even if you are utterly convinced of your own team’s superiority, why would you risk looking incredibly stupid by hanging up a cocky ‘Better luck next year, Brighton’ banner before the game?

Unfurl it when your side are three goals ahead with 10 left to play, not before the teams have even set foot on the pitch. Otherwise you risk ending up with a serious amount of egg on face.

Which is exactly what happened 90 glorious minutes later. Those Robins fans who had boldly predicted a cakewalk for their side were scuttling away from the Millennium Stadium with their tails between their legs.

Brighton & Hove Albion were heading for the Championship while Bristol City were left to reflect on losing a playoff final they thought was won before a ball had been kicked. Better luck next year, Bristol.

Sunday 30th May was one of the great days in Albion history. Brighton rarely do cup finals and big occasions, as our appalling record in the playoffs shows.

Five times the Albion have entered the end-of-season lottery, and four times we’ve had our hearts broken. McGhee’s men and their success in 2004 remains the only occasion the Albion have won promotion through the system.

Which means that when days like a playoff final come, you have to savour them. Over 27,000 Brighton supporters did, nearly four times the number who could watch the Albion play home games at Withdean at the time.

The playoff final caught the imagination of the City of Brighton & Hove and Sussex as a whole. Many of those who made the trip over the Severn Bridge were seeing the Albion for the first time, having never previously fancied sitting in a temporary stand with no roof miles away from the pitch while the rain fell and the wind howled.

Some were watching their first match since the Goldstone closed its doors seven years earlier. They had lapsed with the prospect of a 150 mile round trip to ‘home’ games at Gillingham, discovering better things to do with their weekends than spend them at Withdean.

Dick Knight understood the potential of a one-off game of such magnitude in terms of connecting with the wider Sussex footballing public once again.

Cardiff wasn’t just a playoff final for Brighton – it was an opportunity to turn people into Seagulls supporters after a decade in which becoming an Albion fan was about as appealing as eating a bat in Wuhan.

Which is perhaps why the whole day felt so special. Before the Bristol City playoff final, Brighton hadn’t had more than 7,000 supporters cheering them on at a game since 1997.

You had to go back to 1992 to find an Albion crowd numbering 15,000 or more. Over 20,000 Albion fans last watched a game in 1988.

As for 27,000, well not even top Division One football brought those sort of numbers to the Goldstone. The sea of blue and white that swirled around the Millennium Stadium was unlike anything we had seen for a generation.

Controversial opinion, but Cardiff was also the perfect place for a playoff final. Miles better than Wembley. The stadium’s location slap bang in the middle of the city centre meant that you could breeze through a plethora of wonderful Welsh watering holes and never stray too far from the turnstiles.

Compare that to Wembley. Our most recent great day out as Brighton fans came in the FA Cup Semi Final, where the only drinking establishment available around the venue was taken over by the Albion, who then charged supporters £15 to use it.

Half of the magic of the playoff final was the day itself. The fantastic welcome in Cardiff, the extraordinary scenes of seeing quadruple the amount of people supporting Brighton as was commonplace. It probably wouldn’t seem as special now when the Amex is filled to the brim every week, but back then it was mesmerising.

McGhee predicted as much before the game. “When the teams come out and the noise erupts then, for the people of Brighton who have not had that experience at a decent stadium, it will be really something new for them. It’s going to be a magnificent day and when they walk into that stadium, it will just take their breath away.”

The Amex of course was still a long way off. John Prescott was yet to decide whether to give the stadium the green light – it would in fact be another 18 months before he did, and then that verdict was quashed on a technicality – and Knight decided that one of the biggest matches in the Football League calendar provided the perfect platform for publicising the cause and ramping up the pressure on Prescott.

With Sky Sports beaming the game into homes up and down the country, it was the ultimate propaganda tool for Knight and the Falmer campaign team.

27,000 Albion fans were in Cardiff and only a maximum of 7,000 of those could watch the team every week. This proved that Brighton the city needed Falmer as much as the football team.

And so whilst Bristol City used a banner to show off their arrogance by wishing Brighton better luck next year, the Albion organised for hundreds of messages of support begging for a new stadium to be displayed from their sections of the Millennium Stadium for the playoff final. I think they call that ‘levels’.

For McGhee and the Brighton players, the pubs in Cardiff and the “Mr Prescott, give us a stadium” campaign were none of their concern – they arrived at the Millennium Stadium with only one thing on their mind – winning an immediate return to the second tier.

McGhee’s pre-game team talk has become the stuff of legend. He wrote two lists – one of stadiums in the second tier and one of stadiums in the third. Which of those venues would the players rather be playing at in the 2004-05 season?

The game itself was never likely to be a classic. McGhee set his Brighton side up in a regimented 4-4-2. The aim was always to keep a clean sheet, something that Roberts and his back four of Virgo, Danny Cullip, Guy Butters and Dan Harding did with astonishing frequency.

Before the playoff semi final second leg, they had recorded a club-record six shutouts in a row. Brighton knew that if they could keep them out at one end, then there was every chance that Knight would poach one at the other.

An outstanding defence and Division Two’s top scorer. Maybe Bristol City shouldn’t have been quite so confident.

Efforts on goal were rarer than hen’s teeth over the 90 minutes. Knight rattled the bar with a free kick after Nathan Jones had been felled and a curling free kick from City’s Tommy Doherty which lifted a little too high over Roberts’ goal were the only chances of note in the first half.

The second half was even more devoid of action. City had plenty of possession, but they could find no way though the Albion’s two banks of four. The midfield of Gary Hart, Charlie Oatway, Carpenter and Jones were almost as steadfast as the defence.

Extra time and the possibility of penalties were looming large as the game entered its final 15 minutes. One man who clearly didn’t fancy another 30 minutes was Chris Iwelumo, who suddenly sparked into life after an unusually quiet game.

He flashed a header from a cross from substitute John Piercy just off target. Then with seven minutes left, Iwelumo bundled his way into the box.

As he drew back his leg and prepared to pull the trigger, City defender Danny Coles produced a clumsy tackle to send Iwelumo to the ground.

Did the big striker make the most of it? Yes. Was it a penalty? Also yes. There was a wait of what felt like a century before referee Richard Beeby pointed to the spot.

Brighton now had the chance to win the game with just 360 seconds plus stoppages remaining. Talk about a high-pressure situation. The Albion had Knight in their ranks though.

Say what you want about the pint-sized centre forward, but one thing you could never accuse him of was not having bottle. Up he stepped, Brighton’s whole 2003-04 season coming down to this one kick.

Knight began his run up, paused, shuffled… and slotted his penalty just out of the reach of Steve Phillips. People say when they watch back Gordon Smith’s miss from the 1983 FA Cup Final they are still convinced he is about to score; it’s the opposite with that Knight penalty.

Even when you have watched the ball hit the back of the net a thousand times, that halt in his run up always makes it look like he is about to miss. But he never does. He converts, sprints away to the Brighton fans, rips off his shirt and soaks up the moment.

Six agonising minutes later and the final whistle blew. Ian Crocker’s words on Sky are to this day some of the best Albion-related commentary going.

“They’ve got what they hoped for. They’ve got what they prayed for. They’ve got what they came for. Brighton are promoted to the First Division. Up, up and away.”

While Bristol City slunk home, Rocking All Over The World by Status Quo blared out at the Millennium Stadium as the Brighton players, McGhee and Dick Knight paraded the playoff final trophy in front of the Albion support.

Quite why Status Quo was playing is almost as big a mystery as to why a Bristol City fan thought a ‘Better luck next year Brighton’ banner was a good idea at a playoff final.

The Albion had never had a link with the band or the song before and haven’t since. And yet for some reason there it was, now forever associated with one of Brighton’s greatest days.

After the Albion mugged Swindon in the semi finals, McGhee offered to buy his opposite number Andy King a point. There was no such gesture or apology reserved for City manager and former Brighton favourite Danny Wilson.

“They never hurt us and I cannot remember any critical saves that Ben Roberts had to make,” McGhee said afterwards.

“You have to accept limitations and we can only play a certain way. We know Bristol City are a better passing team than us and that at times they would keep the ball and we would have to be disciplined and not go rushing out.”

“I was satisfied throughout the game we would get a chance, which we did with the penalty, and I’m delighted. To be a part of a day like this is incredible – as good as anything you will ever experience in football.”

Chairman Knight had the final world. “I feel so proud to be chairman. The fans have been brilliant and the team even better, they fought hard and deserved to win the game.”

“Nothing can surpass this. It is a match for the fans and they deserve to be enjoying it as much as they are. I just hope John Prescott realises just how much this means to the people of Brighton.”

The Albion were on their way to the Championship. And all that campaigning for a stadium of our own would be worth it when the Amex opened seven years later.

Turned out that Brighton didn’t need any luck. But thanks all the same, Bristol City.