“The 30 minutes are almost up Swindon fans, but you’re not there yet…”

The play offs. They’ve never been kind to the Albion. We have lost in one final and been knocked out in three semi finals. Only once have Brighton gone all the way to promotion via a play off, and even that nearly didn’t happen as Mother Nature raged before Swindon Town visited Withdean on Thursday May 20th 2004.

Is she a Swindon Town fan? She certainly did everything in her power to stop the Albion’s Division Two play off semi final second leg the Robins from taking place.

It’s almost like she knew what was to come – Adam Virgo in the 120th minute, Ben Roberts brilliance in the penalty shoot out, Mark McGhee being the quickest man on the planet before Usain Bolt came along – and was determined to prevent it.

How else could you explain a tropical storm more akin to the Amazon rain forest than the Withdean and Westdene Woods Local Nature Reserve raging above Brighton and Hove for two hours before kick off? There was torrential rain, there was thunder and there was fork lightning.

Withdean could cope with rain. The pneumonia that many of us suffered as a result of sitting in the South Stand every other Saturday for 12 winters was testament to that.

But this was rain on another level. Without the efforts of the ground staff who were out there forking and mopping the pitch, the surface could quite easily have ended up waterlogged.

An even more pressing issue was the lightning. The prospect of a supporter in the South Stand getting struck would have been highly concerning to the safety officer.

Especially given that it was only a year on from somebody getting set on fire when one of the famous Withdean Rocketman’s fireworks dropped into the stand during the previous season’s 4-0 home win over Watford.

The rumour of a postponement began rumbling around The Sportsman around an hour before kick off. If Mother Nature didn’t give up her electrical show in the next 30 minutes, then the game would be rearranged, presumably for the following day. Thankfully, she ceased and desisted around 45 minutes before kick off. That’s how close it came to not happening.

One way that they could have dried out the pitch if necessary would have been with all the hot air that Swindon manager Andy King was able to generate.

Not to put too finer point on it, but the chain-smoking Robins boss was a complete twat in the build up to both games, during them and then afterwards. That made the fact that the Albion in no way deserved to go through to the final at the Millennium Stadium even sweeter.

Before the first leg, King claimed, “We have got the best of the draw, I’d rather be going to Brighton than having to face Hartlepool or Bristol City in a local derby home and away. That would have been a bit of a lottery – that’s the game for Cardiff.”

Once King had finished counting those chickens before they’d hatched, he added, “On our day we are the best team in the Second Division. We haven’t had the consistency, individually or collectively, to be where Plymouth are but there have been that many people who’ve told me ‘you’re the best team we’ve played’.”

Despite having “the best of the draw” and being “the best team in the Second Division”, King’s Swindon lost the first leg of the play off semi final at the County Ground four days earlier, Richard Carpenter’s deflected first half effort proving to be enough to give Brighton the slenderest of 1-0 advantages.

It was a classic McGhee performance. Roberts had made some excellent saves on the way to recording a club-record equalling sixth consecutive clean sheet.

The back four of Virgo, Danny Cullip, Guy Butters and Dan Harding were rock solid. And there was an element of luck thrown in as Swindon’s talismanic forward Tommy Mooney hit the woodwork an average of once every seven minutes. Or at least that’s how it felt on a scorching hot day in Wiltshire.

All Brighton had to do four days later back on the south coast to book their place at the Millennium Stadium for the play off final was not concede against Swindon.

With McGhee in charge, the aforementioned back four and goalkeeper and Carpenter and Charlie Oatway kicking anything that moved in midfield, that was easily achievable, even if the Albion had one of their bad days.

This being the play offs, a bad day for the Albion is of course exactly what happened. In the first half, Roberts had to save from Sam Parkin, Matt Heywood and Mooney whilst an Andy Gurney free kick was deflected wide by Chris Iwelumo’s sizable head.

The second followed a similar pattern. Grant Smith, son of former Albion striker Gordon, fired just wide and Mooney hit a post. Brighton were dealt a severe blow when 26-goal top scorer Leon Knight was forced off with injury, McGhee replacing his leading striker with defender Adam Hinshelwood.

It’s the sort of move that makes you wish the ‘Amex generation’ of young Albion fans could have witnessed in order to see the complete meltdown that would have followed such negativity from a Brighton manager.

Remarkably, Hinshelwood had the Albion’s first shot on goal with a volley from a corner. As we entered the last 10 minutes, you began to think that Brighton were going to progress to a play off final despite having a combined total of three shots on goal and around 20% possession over 120 minutes of football against Swindon. Oh, and the cross bar was going to win the man-of-the-match award as well.

Then, disaster struck. Roberts made another fine save but this time the rebound dropped to Parkin who was able to stab home for 1-1.

Worse was to come seven minutes into extra time when Mooney played through Rory Fallon who dinked over Roberts. The game had turned on its head and suddenly, Swindon were beating Brighton 2-1 and were off to Cardiff for that play off final that King felt was “the one” against Bristol City.

For those who think this Brighton fans leaving early lark is a new phenomenon brought about by the transport nightmare of the Amex, this Swindon game serves as a reminder that it isn’t.

Even in a fixture this important with just one goal in it, people were leaving Withdean before the final whistle. Those who did were soon running back up Tongdean Lane and through the Withdean gates – you can rather brilliantly see them in the television coverage of the celebrations that were about to occur – thanks to arguably the greatest last minute goal in Brighton history.

The commentary from Sky Sport’s Ian Crocker is still spine tingling to this day. It sums up everything about the crazy idea that is the play offs, the heartache and joy they bring and best of all, the surprise that a Brighton side who had been so dire for approaching 210 minutes could finally muster a moment of quality when it mattered the most.

“The 30 minutes are almost up Swindon fans, but you’re not there yet…. in it goes …. oh it’s gone in! Brighton, in added on time, have snatched a goal through Virgo. Incredible! Once again, there is late, late, late drama in the play offs.”

From that point on, only one team was going to win on penalties. Swindon were broken physically and mentally. Withdean was rocking and the Albion had all the momentum, even without regular penalty taker Knight on the pitch for the shoot out.

The Albion scored all four of their spot kicks, Carpenter, Iwelumo, substitute John Piercy and Virgo all successfully converting past Rhys Evans.

Perhaps predictably given the luck he’d had over the entire tie, it was the unfortunate Mooney who missed first for Swindon. As he strode forward from the halfway line, the entire ground burst into an impromptu chant of “Hit the bar, hit the bar, hit the bar,” 6,000 Albion fans willing him to rattle the woodwork for the 127th time.

But it was Roberts rather than the bar which denied Mooney, the Albion number one diving to his right before outstretching his left arm into the air to make an outstanding save.

Every Swindon penalty taker from that point was given the “Hit the bar” song and it was their fifth taker Gurney who kind of listened, smashing against the post to send Brighton to Cardiff and a date with the red half of Bristol. Sorry Mr King, not quite the local derby you envisioned.

Naturally, a pitch invasion took place at the completion of the shoot out. This led to the fantastic sight of a panicked McGhee sprinting from the dugout to the players tunnel in the north west corner of the ground in a desperate attempt to try and avoid getting swarmed by the crowd. He was surprisingly quick for a bloke celebrating his 47th birthday that day.

The Albion boss was also gracious in defeat, telling Sky, “I thought we were absolutely dead and buried. We have mugged them but football is not always fair. I’m speechless because we’ve been absolutely hammered. Andy King must be devastated. I don’t know if I’ll have to apologise to him.”

Hopefully he didn’t. King was as classless as ever, saying, “Of all the semi-finalists, the worst two clubs got through to the final. We were unlucky in the first leg and we were desperately unlucky tonight.”

Unlucky maybe, but Brighton had beaten King. They’d beaten Swindon. They’d beaten Mother Nature and they’d go onto beat Bristol City in the final. Maybe the play offs aren’t so bad after all?