Brighton & Hove Albion’s top 10 EFL Trophy moments
Great excitement has gripped the Amex with the news that the Brighton & Hove Albion’s Under 23s will compete in the EFL Trophy for a fifth consecutive season in 2020-21.
When Brighton climbed out of the bottom two tiers of English football in 2011, one of the things we began to miss most about being a League One or League Two club was the chance to compete in this much-maligned competition.
What else other than the Johnstone’s Paint Pot could provide Kerry Mayo with the opportunity to score the winning penalty in a quarter final shoot out or be such an attractive proposition that it resulted in Boston United bringing a grand total of nine away fans to Withdean?
Thanks to the Football League’s decision to invite clubs with Category One Academies to take part alongside the 48 League One and Two teams who have no choice in the matter, Brighton have been given another opportunity to live the EFL Trophy dream again.
Brighton’s renewed acquaintance with the competition since 2016 has led to more fantastic memories. What other competition could take Tim Krul from being part of a Netherlands squad that finished fourth at a World Cup to playing against Stevenage away in front of 389 supporters inside of three years?
To celebrate the Albion’s continued involvement in this most ridiculous of competitions, we’ve put together our top 10 Brighton & Hove Albion EFL Trophy Moments. Hopefully, there will be more memories to be made this season.
10) Playing Cheltenham Town three times in 10 days: Brighton 4-1 Cheltenham, 14/11/07
It has often been said that if there is one mouthwatering fixture which Albion fans would happily watch over and over again, it is a clash with Cheltenham Town.
Well, dreams were realised when we ended up meeting the Robins three times in 10 days in November 2007. There was a 1-1 draw at Whaddon Road in the first round of the FA Cup on the 10th, Brighton won 4-1 at Withdean in the EFL Trophy four days later and six days after that, Dean Wilkins’ side triumphed 2-1 in the FA Cup replay. Good times.
9) Discovering the coldest toilet in the world: Shrewsbury Town 0-0 Brighton, 16/12/08
The Albion’s only visit so far to Shrewsbury Town’s New Meadow Stadium came in December 2008 and it led to us discovering what is now officially ranked as the coldest toilet in the world.
Someone in all their wisdom had decided to make the toilet out of pure stainless steel which, on a freezing night nine days before Christmas, rendered it colder than sitting on an iceberg.
Nobody was brave enough to try it for more than a couple of seconds, but we’d confidently predict anyone who did would have become frozen stuck. The fact that the Albion won on penalties with John Sullivan the hero became an afterthought on the journey home.
8) Virgo scores in extra time: Brighton 3-2 Fulham, 17/12/96
No, not that one. Eight years before Adam Virgo was scoring vital goals in extra time for Brighton, his pretty-much-forgotten brother James was doing the same, only in a slightly less important game.
Three days after Steve Gritt had led the Albion to a surprise victory over Hull City in his first game in charge, the new boss pulled off an even bigger shock by beating Division Three leaders Fulham 3-2 at the Goldstone in what was then known as the Auto Windscreen Shield.
Just over 1,000 were there to see the win which was delivered by Virgo’s golden goal in extra time – one of only two games that the Albion ever won via golden goal.
7) Russell Slade’s victorious return to Withdean: Brighton 0-2 Leyton Orient, 01/09/11
Without Russell Slade, who knows where Brighton would be. Relegation to League Two in 2009 would have meant no Gus Poyet. No Poyet means no Championship football for the first season at the Amex and all of a sudden, the modern day history of the Albion looks very different.
Slade’s first return to Withdean after his unceremonious sacking came as manager of Leyton Orient in the Paint Pot and he guided the O’s to a 2-0 win – with a certain Dean Cox scoring for Orient.
Slade received a great reception from the crowd afterwards and even threw his trademark baseball cap into the masses who had gathered behind the dugouts on the South Stand running track to pay tribute.
6) Micky Adams is sacked: Luton Town 1-1 Brighton,17/02/09
Luton Town were bottom of League Two and heading for the Conference when Brighton rocked up at Kenilworth Road for the second leg of the EFL Trophy Southern Section Final in 2009.
All the Albion had to do was defeat the club sitting 92nd out of 92 in the entire Football League and a trip to Wembley would be theirs.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen as Luton won on penalties to advance to the final. Some good did come from the embarrassment though as it resulted in the end of Micky Adams’s reign of horror.
Adams was sacked in the aftermath, paving the way for Slade to come in and pull off his great escape. While we missed Adams’ ludicrous comments about players needing a hug and playing The Leeds United, we certainly didn’t miss his management skills.
5) Tim Krul plays at Stevenage: Stevenage 3-1 Brighton, 07/11/17
The decision to allow Premier League Under 21 teams to play in the EFL Trophy means that all manner of big name players can find themselves going from the pinnacle of the game to turning out in a competitive match in front of one man and his dog.
Which is exactly what happened to Tim Krul. In 2014, Krul became the hero of a nation when he was thrown on by Louis van Gaal in the last minute of the Netherlands’ World Cup quarter final clash with Costa Rica as a penalty saving expert, going onto save two spot kicks in the resulting shoot out.
The Dutch finished fourth in Brazil and yet just three years later, Krul found himself shipping three goals in front of 389 supporters as Brighton lost 3-1 against the might of Stevenage.
4) Jake Robinson becomes the clubs youngest scorer: Brighton 2-0 Forest Green Rovers, 13/10/03
Brighton supporters have declared so many players who have progressed through the youth system as the next big thing that it is hard to keep up.
But with Jake Robinson, there was genuine hope that he could go onto become a star. Thrown into the first team at the tender age of 16, he made his home debut as a substitute against Forest Green Rovers in October 2003.
Within 30 minutes of his introduction, he added the second goal in a 2-0 win to become the club’s youngest ever goalscorer. He can now be found at Billercay Town. We think.
3) Kerry Mayo wins a penalty shoot out: Millwall 1-1 Brighton, 28/11/06
For some reason, nearly 900 Albion fans travelled to the Den in November 2006 for a Paint Pot Southern Quarter Final game between Millwall and Brighton. And those who went can proudly say they were there the day Kerry Mayo won a penalty shoot out for the Albion.
That the game even made it that far was something of a surprise. Guy Butters had seen red early on and it wasn’t until the 88th minute that the visitors netted their equaliser through Jake Robinson.
That sent the tie to spot kicks, where Wayne Henderson saved one and Millwall failed to hit the target with two more, leaving Mayo to step up and slot home the winning penalty.
2) Getting rich at Kenilworth Road: Luton Town 1-1 Brighton, 07/02/09
It is that dire evening in Luton again. Imagine you’ve just made a Wembley final via a tense penalty shoot out victory. How do you celebrate?
If you are Luton fans, you swarm onto the playing surface in a mass pitch invasion, head straight to where the away fans are housed and start pelting them with coins.
Luton as a place is the very epitome of “You’d have to pay me to go there.” Thanks to the generosity of those charming locals, we effectively were as those supporters wise enough to start scooping up the coins ended up making a tidy profit.
1) Boston United bring nine away fans: Brighton 2-0 Boston United, 17/10/06
Boston may be more northerly on the map than Nottingham, but that didn’t prevent them being in the southern half of the draw for the 2006-07 Football League Trophy.
The result? A first round meeting for the Pilgrims with the Albion and a 380 mile round trip on a Tuesday night to one of the worst grounds in the league.
We can only salute the nine United fans who made the journey to Withdean and were just told to sit in the South Stand among the 1,740 Seagulls supporters who had bothered to turn up. They must have been insane.
