The history of Brighton v Bournemouth

Quite why everybody insists on calling Brighton v Bournemouth a “South Coast Derby” given that the two towns are 100 miles apart is beyond the supporters of both sides. And it isn’t even like there is a history of spicy encounters either to justify some sort of rivalry tag.

Not even Bournemouth inflicting some embarrassing moments on the Albion has managed to spark any beef. It was the Cherries who relegated Brighton into the Fourth Division for the first time when they triumphed 1-0 at Dean Court on Wednesday 8th May 1963, confirming back-to-back demotions from second tier all the way to fourth.

It was also Bournemouth who were the first club to visit the fully opened, new and improved Goldstone Ground in February 1949. The club were in the midst of spending the huge sum of £100,000 just four years after World War II had ended on reconstructing the stadium with the North West Terrace raised to accommodate an extra 2,000 spectators and the southern end of the East Terrace being completely rebuilt and combined with the central Chicken Run section to form a new enclosure.

A crowd of 20,859 packed in to try out the new facilities but they went home sorely disappointed as in a “typical Brighton” moment, the Albion marked the occasion by being hammered 6-1. Then there was last season’s 5-0 defeat at the Amex, Brighton’s heaviest home mauling for 36 years. The less said about that, the better.

One of the most ridiculous off-the-field moments in Albion history occurred against Bournemouth when Dick Knight decided to dedicate their visit to Withdean in September 2001 to celebrating the clubs 100th birthday.

There were celebrations on the pitch as Paul Watson and an own goal from a certain Eddie Howe gave the Albion a 2-1 win. Those were eclipsed at half time however when Mr Knight stood in the middle of the pitch and cut a giant birthday cake. We thought we’d imagined this, possibly through a bad mushroom trip, but it turns out it did actually happen. You just don’t get nonsense like that at the Albion anymore.

That was against the grain as generally, games with Bournemouth don’t tend to have much cheer. Our visit to Dean Court in 1995 was interrupted by the first pitch invasion against the sale of the Goldstone Ground, beamed into homes across the region as it was shown live on Meridian. That was the first time we exposed the asset stripping going on to the nation and although the invasion and disruption to the game was widley condemned at the time, in the long run it worked out pretty well.

One individual who won’t have fond memories of Bournemouth is Wayne Henderson. The Albion goalkeeper conspired to miss-control the ball and then slip over nothing in the last minute on New Years Day 2007, leaving Brett Pittman an open goal which he duly converted to give the Cherries a 1-0 win.

That represented the beginning of the end of Henderson’s Albion career. He was booed off by the majority of the crowd after coming over to clap the away support but started the next game, a 3-0 FA Cup defeat away at West Ham United. He was then dropped for Michel Kuipers before moving to Preston North End at the end of the January transfer window.