Mark McGhee’s daylight robbery: West Ham 0-1 Brighton
Picture the scene. It is 5pm on a Saturday. A changing room full of professional footballers have just finished playing a game in England’s second tier, final score of West Ham 0-1 Brighton. There is no tactical debrief going on. No celebrations. Just laughter. 16 men, sitting around laughing that they have won a game of football.
That is what happened at Upton Park on November 13th 2004. Brighton went to Upton Park and despite the hosts having 17 shots and over 70 percent possession, it finished West Ham 0-1 Brighton. It was one of the most ridiculous games of football that an Albion side have ever been involved in.
The description from goal scorer Guy Butters of what happened that day has taken on cult status. Speaking some seven years after the event – a passage of time which still didn’t make what happened any more believable – the popular defender said:
“The first 10 minutes was the absolute Alamo. Coming off after the game, in the changing room everyone was just in fits of laughter. How did we win it?!”
To this day, that remains something of a mystery. The Hammers were aiming for promotion to the Premier League and had only been beaten once at home all season – by Championship leaders Wigan Athletic.
Brighton had lost their last three in a row, were 21st in the table as the 2004-05 season hurtled towards the halfway point and had just signed 38-year-old Steve Claridge from non-league Weymouth to boost their striking options. That is how desperate things were.
Claridge made his debut at Upton Park and for the first 20 minutes, he was a spectator. Marlon Harewood hit the post and the side netting as West Ham’s expensively assembled attacking line up laid siege to the goal of Michel Kuipers.
Wave after wave of claret and blue attacks crashed towards the Centenary Stand but a brilliant performance from the back three of Adam Hinshelwood, Danny Cullip and Butters kept them out.
This was the first time that Mark McGhee had gone with what he described as a 3-5-2 formation but ended up being 5-3-2 and then 9-0-1.
He had abandoned his favoured 4-4-2 in order to cram two extra players into central positions. At the same time, McGhee left arguably his two biggest attacking threats in Darren Currie and Leon Knight on the bench.
McGhee’s plan was for the Albion to defend and defend and defend their way to a point. The three central midfielders of Alexis Nicolas, Charlie Oatway and Richard Carpenter cannot have left their own half on more than a couple of occasions.
Wing backs Paul Reid and Dan Harding meanwhile were often left playing deeper than the central defenders.
It just seemed like a matter of time before West Ham scored. Aside from those two Harewood opportunities, Don Hutchinson fired over. Matthew Etherington was brilliantly denied by Kuipers.
Carl Fletcher was unable to keep an effort down. Nigel Reo-Coker shot across the face of goal. And Harewood couldn’t quite stretch to convert what was an open goal.
The longer the game went on, the more frustrated West Ham became. For all the chances they created – many of which you would expect an Under 9s team to finish – they had only tested Kuipers intermittently. Most of their efforts were off target.
In the 68th minute, Brighton shocked everyone by not only getting out of their own half, but actually managing to win a corner.
Carpenter took the set piece short to Claridge. Cue 2,646 shouts from the away end of “JUST GET THE ****ING BALL OVER.” Brighton fans have never liked short corners.
Claridge returned it to Carpenter and get it over is exactly what Chippy did. A brilliant cross arrived straight onto the head of Butters, who rose like a salmon rather than a 16 stone veteran to head past Stephen Bywater. West Ham 0-1 Brighton. How had this happened?
The visiting section erupted – and the scenes of jubilation were not just restricted to the away end. A meeting with one of the giants of the English game meant that there were hundreds of Albion supporters all over the home sections who had been unable to get tickets in the official travelling allocation.
There were unsavoury scenes when some of those supporters could not contain their delight at Butters’ miracle moments.
One Brighton supporter in the Main Stand was chased to the front by a couple of Hammers supporters who took exception to his celebrations.
The fighting was clearly contagious as soon the players were at it as well. A mass brawl involving virtually everyone on the pitch and several individuals from the benches was sparked when Adam Virgo tried to remove the legs of Hayden Mullins via a horror tackle.
Mullins did not like that. The two began fighting and before you knew it, 22 other men were involved and throwing punches. Both Mullins and Virgo saw red.
If anything, that seemed to help the Albion. It certainly rattled West Ham. The only answer Alan Pardew appeared to have being to begin tossing hopeful aerial balls into the box.
Something which suited Butters and Cullip far more than the incisive passing football the Hammers had thrown together in that opening third of the game.
Pardew said afterwards: “We’ve had 17 efforts on goal. They only had one real chance, so for them to win makes this a disappointing result for us. At the end of it all it wasn’t our day.”
Mullins, once he had calmed down from his boxing match with Virgo and subsequent dismissal, added: “They held out and held out and held out – then they nicked it.”
Neither was able to see the funny side, unlike the Albion players. A changing room full of second tier professional footballers laughing that they had won a game of football.
Picture the scene.
