Here’s to you Michael Robinson, Brighton loves you more than you will know

Brighton & Hove Albion have had many great strikers down the years, but none scored goals at the highest level of the English game in a Seagulls shirt with the frequency of Michael Robinson.

19 Division One goals in the 1980-81 season. 11 Division One goals in 1981-82. Seven Division One goals in 1982-83. Robinson’s record of 37 goals in 133 top flight appearances over the course of three seasons leaves him ahead of anyone else.

His scoring feats were all the more remarkable given that Brighton were either struggling at the wrong end of the table under Alan Mullery and then Jimmy Melia or playing a defensive brand of football under Mike Bailey.

It never mattered what was going on with the team though. Robinson would still find a way to score, which makes it surprising that his name doesn’t crop up more when supporters are asked to name their favourite ever Brighton player or pick an all-time Albion XI.

His name would perhaps be top of the list had he not been so unselfish on Saturday 26th May 1983. As the 1983 FA Cup Final entered its 120th minute with Brighton and Manchester United locked at 2-2, Robinson found himself bearing down on the United goal with the ball at his feet.

After skipping past Gordon McQueen, he had just Gary Bailey in the Red Devils goal to beat. Rather than go for glory, Robinson squared to Gordon Smith to present his strike partner with an easier opportunity, practically an open goal.

Smith famously missed – or in reality, was denied by an excellent stop from the legs of Bailey – and Brighton were hammered 4-0 in the replay five days later.

How different could history have turned out if “And Smith must score…” had instead been “And Robinson shoots… Brighton have won the FA Cup.”

That the Albion were even in the position to contest an FA Cup final was because of Robinson’s goals. Without them, Brighton wouldn’t have won through five rounds to make it to Wembley. In fact, they’d have ceased to be a Division One club two years previously.

Robinson arrived in Sussex in the summer of 1980, a fresh faced 22-year-old who had struggled to score the goals that Manchester City were probably expecting when they made him the second most expensive English player of all time a year previously.

City boss Malcolm Allison had forked out an astonishing £756,000 for Robinson in 1979 following 13 Division Two goals in 36 appearances for Preston North End.

Robinson managed eight goals in his one season with City. While that might be a decent return for a young striker in his first top flight season, Allison and the Maine Road hierarchy clearly expected more for the ridiculous fee that they’d spent.

That presented Mullery with an opportunity to bring Robinson to the Goldstone. The Brighton boss paid a much more realistic £400,000 to City for the services of Robinson, an absolute bargain given what the striker delivered in his three years at the Goldstone.

Brighton spent most of Robinson’s first season hovering around the Division One relegation zone. In a 22 team league, they didn’t climb above 18th once for the six months between the final weekend in October and the end of the campaign.

With four games to go, the Albion sat 20th. Not even four wins would guarantee safety; Mullery and his players also needed other results to go their way if they were to survive in a congested bottom eight with most of the relegation candidates still to play each other.

Remarkably, the Albion won all four of those remaining fixtures having won just four in the previous 17. Crystal Palace were beaten 3-0 at Selhurst Park, Leicester City 2-1 at the Goldstone, Sunderland 2-1 at Roker Park and The Leeds United 2-0 at the Goldstone on the final day.

Robinson scored the openers in both the Leicester and Sunderland fixtures and the miracle happened as Brighton stayed up. Down instead went Palace, Leicester and Norwich.

Robinson’s league haul of 19 accounted for 35% of the Albion’s 54 goals in that 1980-81 season. Take those away and Brighton would have finished rock bottom of the table, their top flight adventure over after two campaigns.

Robinson was an obvious choice for Player of the Season but it wasn’t just his scoring feats that made him popular with the Goldstone faithful. He was one of those individuals who just seemed to love playing football, and it was infectious.

Watch him celebrate a goal and you’ll see a man smiling from ear to ear. He’d throw his arms in the air and run around grinning like a Cheshire cat. When he scored, he could made a Lottery winner look less amused than Queen Victoria.

Not that this passionate reaction to scoring was always a good thing. The 11th and final goal of Robinson’s 1981-82 season came at Elland Road against a Leeds side who had to win to avoid relegation in what was their penultimate game of the season.

Robinson gave Brighton a 1-0 lead, after which he gave a going down signal to the Leeds faithful. That nearly sparked carnage and violence of the sort rarely seen outside of a war zone.

Thankfully, the home side scored twice in second half injury time to win 2-1 and they lived to fight another day.

If you’re in any doubt about how brave/stupid that was from Robinson, Leeds were then relegated three days later at West Bromwich Albion and their fans marked the occasion by embarking on a riot so bad that it dismantled part of the away stand at the Hawthorns.

Robinson’s double figure return in 1981-82 came despite being absent through injury between December and February. He also found himself stifled by Bailey’s defensive, cautious approach as the Albion only scored 43 times on their way to a 13th placed finish.

Bailey was sacked as a result of his dour football in December 1982 with Brighton 18th in the table. Jimmy Melia and George Aitken took over and although the Albion ended the season bottom of the table, they were about to embark on that unforgettable FA Cup run.

Robinson top scored in the league with seven but just like the rest of this teammates, it was in the FA Cup that he thrived.

Jimmy Case may often be referred to as the man of the cup run for his goals against Liverpool in the fifth round, Norwich in the quarter final and Sheffield Wednesday in the semis, but Robinson was every bit as important.

He scored twice against Manchester City in round four. At Anfield, he teed up Gerry Ryan for the opener. And he scored the winner against Wednesday at Highbury, collecting and finishing the rebound after Bob Bolder in the Wednesday goal had saved his original effort.

Robinson’s reaction to scoring that one was probably his most exuberant celebration in a Brighton shirt. God knows what he would have done if he’d scored a 120th minute winner in an FA Cup Final, as he so nearly did.

Actually, we’ve got some idea. Michael Robinson was clearly too good to drop into Division Two with Brighton and with books needing to be balanced, he made a dream move to Liverpool to play for the team he’d supported as a boy in the summer of 1983.

In his one and only full season at Anfield, Robinson won the League title, the League Cup and the European Cup. He was an unused sub for the final of the latter at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico as Liverpool beat Roma on penalties but it clearly meant the world to him.

There’s a photo of him with the trophy, a radiant smile painted across his face. He was more excited than a child who’s accidentally been given speed on Christmas Eve.

What we’d have given to see him enjoying himself like that, holding the FA Cup aloft in Brighton blue on the hallowed Wembley turf.

Robinson left Liverpool seven months after their memorable night in Rome, moving to Queens Park Rangers and then onto Osasuna in Spain, where he became an honorary resident.

A serious knee injury ended Robinson’s career at the age of 30 and he took the unusual step of ripping up his Osasuna contract when it happened, refusing to take another paycheck from the club if he couldn’t play again.

Following retirement, Robinson became a hugely popular pundit in Spain. The Spanish loved him for his insightful and honest opinions and his own dedicated show became must-watch television, delivered in broken Spanish which only endeared him more to his adopted nation.

He even voiced the Ugly Sister in the Spanish language version of Shrek 2. Not many ex-Albion players have gone onto be a part of a major Hollywood movie franchise.

It’s for his footballing ability though that Michael Robinson will always be remembered by Brighton fans. His buccaneering style. His pace. His physicality. The way that no lost cause was ever a lost cause when he was chasing it. And his enthusiasm, which was intoxicating.

Is Robinson the greatest Albion striker of all time? When you look back at his career, how important his goals were and the level he scored them at, he surely has to be considered up there with Peter Ward, Bobby Zamora and Glenn Murray.

We’ll leave the last word to no lesser judge than Mullery. Speaking to Spencer Vignes for a feature about Michael Robinson in the official Brighton matchday programme in 2019, Mullery said, “With us, he scored on a regular basis and people like that are very few and far between.”

“In the five years I was at Brighton we went from the Third Division to the First Division with this kid Peter Ward scoring goals for fun.”

“But once we got in the big league, it changes completely. You had to get people who scored you goals. Michael was the player who got us those goals.”

Here’s to you Michael Robinson, Brighton loves you more than you will know.