When Brighton shocked the richest club in the world

The most beautiful thing about the beautiful game is that anyone can beat anyone. It’s 11 men versus 11 other men over 90 or 120 minutes and things don’t always go to plan – like when a homeless third tier side such as Brighton & Hove Albion beats the richest football club in the world Manchester City in the League Cup.

Brighton and City were having very contrasting 2008-09 seasons. Let’s start with City – on August 4th 2008, they were purchased for £210m by the Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour whose personal net worth was somewhere in the region of $4.9 billion.

That made Ciy the richest football club in the world overnight and in the month between the Abu Dhabi takeover and the transfer window closing, they splashed the cash on Vincent Kompany, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Pablo Zabaleta and broke the British transfer record to sign Brazilian superstar Robinho.

In 27 days of oil money ownership, City shelled out £54 million – more than the Albion had spent on players in their entire 107 year history up to that point.

As a result, City were expected to be challenging for silverware. Their first opportunity for a trophy in the Abu Dhabi era came in the League Cup. They’d open their campaign with what most people thought was a nice, gentle second round draw which brought them to Withdean.

As foe the Brighton’s 2008-09 season… well, Where do we start? There is no way of sugar coating it so why bother – this was, bar the last month under Russell Slade, one of the shittest campaigns the Albion have ever.

The return of Micky Adams, the man responsible for building the side that secured back-to-back titles six years previously and the belated start of construction work at Falmer had resulted in a wave of summer optimism flooding over the club.

But in true Brighton style, the Albion had made a start to the season which brought everyone back to earth with a very big bump.

There was evidently something different about this version of Adams compared to the bloke who upped sticks for the Leicester City assistant manager job in 2001.

Adams Version One was a no-nonsense disciplinarian who produced the fittest, most organised teams in the league. Adams Version Two was nothing like that.

Over the coming months, he’d go onto say “the players just need a hug” after a 1-0 defeat to Huddersfield. He’d try to justify losing to Leeds by telling supporters “we were playing THE Leeds United,” as if the side that would go onto lose a League One play off final were on a par with Barcelona.

Best of all was his fantastic meltdown live on BBC Southern Counties when Nathan Jones walked past after a defeat at Yeovil Town. “Here he is, Jonesy, just seen it mate…”

Even in the first six weeks of the season, before all that nonsense, you could tell that this wasn’t the Adams of old. Take the game before City rocked up at Withdean for example.

In one of the great Albion Cock Ups of the Century (which is an exhaustive list), Walsall had been in town and gone down to nine men inside of 33 minutes thanks to red cards for Rhys Weston and Netan Sansara. Despite having two less players on the pitch, the Saddlers remarkably took the lead on the stroke of half time through Dwayne Mattis.

Adams’ answer in the second half was to get the ball wide and throw constant crosses in the box, which Clayton Ince happily ate for breakfast.

So began one of the most repetitive halves of football you will ever see – Brighton get ball wide, Brighton cross, Ince catches, boots ball back to Brighton… Brighton get ball wide, Brighton cross, Ince catches, boots ball back to Brighton… Brighton get ball wide, Brighton cr… it was like a recurring dream and not a good one that involves Jennifer Lawrence, a private yacht and a lot of champagne.

On the same weekend that nine man Walsall were deservedly leaving Withdean with all three points, City were busy hitting six past Portsmouth in the Premier League.

Mark Hughes made six changes from his Manchester City that beat Pompey for the League Cup game against Brighton, but he was still able to name a quality lineup.

There was a young Kasper Schmeichel in goal, Zabaleta, Kompany, Stephen Ireland, Daniel Sturridge and £19m striker Jo. Put simply, they should have had more than enough to see off the likes of Andy Whing, Tommy Fraser and Doug Loft.

And yet they didn’t. Whether it was because City underestimated the Albion or because their highly paid players didn’t fancy getting changed in a Portakabin next to a squash court to play in front of 8,000 people at an athletics track with no roof, Brighton managed to take the game to the lottery of penalties.

A 100% record from the spot coupled with a brilliant Michel Kuipers save resulted in one of the biggest shocks in the 58 year history of the League Cup as Brighton eliminated oil-rich Manchester City.

Kuipers was outstanding all evening, giving a performance that was reminiscent of his brilliance during that march through the leagues under Adams first time around, Peter Taylor and Steve Coppell.

For all the money and talent in that City team, they were constantly thwarted by a bloke who used to cook dinners in the Dutch Marines.

Kuipers denied Sturridge, Ireland, Ched Evans and Jo during the 90 minutes to frustrate City. As the clock ticked into the 89th minute, the visitors had only one goal to show for their efforts, Jo selflessly crossing to Gelson Fernandes who finished via a deflection off Tommy Elphick just past the hour mark.

It looked like it might be enough though. Steven Thomson had hit a post in the first half but the Albion hadn’t been much in the way of an attacking threat.

That was until Glenn Murray made City pay for those missed chances in the final minute of normal time, finishing after Schmeichel made a hash of dealing with a Thomson effort.

City were shell shocked and the Albion seized the initiative. The equaliser was one of the great Withdean moments and five minutes into extra time things got even better when on-loan Preston North End winger Joe Anyinsah collected Steve Cook’s pass and hit a shot on the turn for 2-1.

In a season in which we signed so many pointless loan players – take five points if you remember Kevin Thornton, Al Bangura or Mikkel Andersen – Anyinsah was one of the more successful arrivals.

We even tried to sign him permanently in January. It’s a sign of what a shambles the 2008-09 campaign was that he opted to move to Carlisle United instead and nobody could argue with the decision.

Brighton’s lead was short lived, Ireland equalising 10 minutes later and so to penalties we went. David Livermore scored. Evans scored. Elphick scored. Elano scored. Murray scored. Kompany scored. Virgo scored.

Then Kuipers saved from Michael Ball and it was left to Matt Richards to convert to send the Albion through, which he duly did. Brighton had beaten the richest club in world Manchester City – the magic of the League Cup.

If you can’t celebrate that, then what can you celebrate? A pitch invasion duly followed, leading to one of the more surreal Withdean sights of a supporter in a wheelchair slowly making their way onto the pitch from the South East corner to join in the party, only to be turned around by the fun-police stewards and sent back to the disabled section.

Adams said afterwards, “City may be the richest club in the world, but I’m not going to crow about it because as a player and manager I’ve been on the end of these shocks and they happen.”

He was right. Four months later it was the Albion who suffered embarrassment when Luton Town – the bottom side in League Two – inflicted their own upset via penalties to knock us out of the Johnstone Paint Pot at the Southern Area Final stage.

That cost Adams his job after a pretty disastrous nine month spell and in came Slade to prevent relegation to League Two on the final day of the season.

The rest, as they say is history – from there, it’s only been up. Suppose City haven’t done too badly, either.

Albion: Michel Kuipers, Andy Whing, Adam El-Abd, Tommy Elphick, Matt Richards, Tommy Fraser, David Livermore, Steve Thomson, Doug Loft, Glenn Murray, Adam Virgo
Subs: Joe Anyinsah (Loft 68), Dean Cox (Fraser 74), Steve Cook (Whing 85), Gary Hart, Jake Robinson, Kane Wills, John Sullivan (unused).
Scorers: Murray 89, Anyinsah 95.

Manchester City: Kasper Schmeichel, Pablo Zabaleta, Richard Dunne, Tal Be-Haim, Michael Ball, Stephen Ireland, Michael Johnson, Gelson Fernandes, Daniel Sturridge, Jo.
Subs: Ched Evans (Sturridge 60), Felip Caicedo (Jo 91), Elano (Johnson 102), Shaleum Logan, Javier Garrido, Dietmar Hamann, Joe Hart (unused).
Scorers: Gelson 64, Ireland 108.

Attendance: 8,729.