Brighton v Everton: History & head-to-head of Seagulls v Toffees

Everton are the longest serving top flight club in English football history, having spent 114 years in the top division – Brighton have so far completed eight, meaning that there have been just 17 league meetings between the two sides.

Despite that infrequency, it is a fixture that has previously given birth to an Albion legend and one that saw one of all the time greats scores his last goal as a permanent Brighton player.

Let us start with the goodbye, which was none other than Peter Ward. It was a secret worst kept than Jimmy Saville that Brian Clough and Nottingham Forest were interested in Ward at the start of the 1980-81 season and whether it affected the strikers form we will never know, but he failed to score in the first 10 games of the campaign.

That was until Everton arrived at the Goldstone for a Tuesday night fixture on October 7th 1980. The Toffees ran out 3-1 winners but Ward finally broke his duck for the season.

It turned out to be the last goal he scored as a permanent Albion player as he was off to the City Ground a few weeks afterwards.

Coming the other way a season later was Arsenal midfielder Steve Gatting. Gatting had spent all his life as a midfielder, yet a defensive crisis brought about due to Gary Stevens being out injured saw him make his debut “out of position” at centre back.

He did so well there in the Seagulls’ 1-1 draw away at Everton on September 12th 1981 that he ended up spending the next 10 seasons as a defender, going onto play 369 games “out of position” until he left Brighton for Charlton Athletic a decade later.

Ward’s farewell and Gatting’s hello took place in two of the 15 league meetings between the Albion and Everton, all of which have come in the top flight.

Brighton have won just three of those. The first took place in February 1982, a 3-1 victory at the Goldstone thanks to goals from Tony Grealish, Gerry Ryan and Steve Foster.

That success against Everton left Brighton in eighth place in the Division One table and dreaming of UEFA Cup football for the first time in their history.

The Seagulls stayed in that lofty position for another month until a run of just two wins in the final 14 games of the season saw Mike Bailey’s slide slip to 13th, which to this day remains our highest ever finish.

Brighton & Hove Albion’s second league win over Everton arrived in December 2018 and it too was followed by a spectacular loss of form which ultimately resulted in one of the best managers in the club’s history losing his job.

When Jurgen Locadia scored the only goal of the game at the Amex, it left Chris Hughton’s side sitting pretty some 12 points above the relegation zone.

Who could have predicted then that we would win just two more games in the next five months, need to rely on Crystal Palace to beat Cardiff City to keep us in the Premier League and that Hughton would be sacked come the end of the campaign as a result?

Brighton’s most recent victory over Everton came in October 2019 and remains the biggest result positively impacted by VAR that Brighton have had.

So bad in fact was the decision taken by the video referee to award the Albion a penalty that the Premier League felt the need to apologise for it afterwards.

The incident occurred when Michael Keane accidentally trod on the foot of Aaron Connolly. Nobody in the Amex noticed. Not one person. There was no appeal, no outcry, only Connolly went to ground but that was enough for VAR to give a penalty for an innocuous coming together which no sane individual would ever think was worthy of a spot kick.

Brighton were 2-1 down at that point and heading towards another defeat. Victory meanwhile would have given the Toffees their first away win of the season under Marco Silva and a much-needed boost to their confidence. Neal Maupay scored the resulting penalty and the game was turned on its head with Brighton going onto win 3-2.

Silva was sacked a few months later whilst Graham Potter was soon signing a new six-year deal as Brighton manager. Had VAR not existed, things could have been very different both on that day at the Amex and in the aftermath.

Away from the league, there have been three meetings in the FA Cup, all of which came before VAR. In fact, they were before World War II.

Brighton may not be known for pulling off cup shocks these days, but it was a different story in the 1920s when our finest win against Everton – and one of the biggest upsets that the Albion have ever produced in their history – came in the second round of the competition.

The top flight visitors to the Goldstone were considered one of the most entertaining teams of the decade but they had no answer to an Albion side who scored five times in a 5-2 win.

Tommy Cook helped himself to a hat-trick with the other goals coming from Wally Little and Andy Neil. It was a result that was described as “sending shock waves around the country”.