Brighton 1-0 Chesterfield: Albion beat Cheaterfield to secure Division 3 title

A points deduction is not the way you want to win your first piece of silverware for 36 years. By beating Chesterfield 1-0 on Tuesday 1st May 2001, Brighton & Hove Albion ensured that nobody could ever doubt their right to be Division Three champions.

Throughout the 2000-01 season, Brighton had been stalking Chesterfield at the top of the table. A slow start to the campaign – with fans even demanding Micky Adams be sacked after a 2-0 home defeat to Kidderminster Harriers – allowed the Spireites to build up a sizable lead after they flew out of the traps from the off.

When the Albion had lost 1-0 at Saltergate in October, Chesterfield were seven points ahead. Chesterfield were originally meant to visit Withdean on Saturday 24th March, by which point the gap was 10, although Brighton did have two games in hand.

The weather Gods clearly had a sneaky trick up their sleeve in getting that March meeting postponed. The match was rearranged for the final week of the season, meaning that if the Albion could close in on the side who had led the way from day one, there was a slim chance that the destination of the championship could be decided at Withdean.

Brighton had to win it, both for themselves and the rest of Division Three. In January, the FA had swept on Saltergate unexpectedly to investigate financial irregularities.

Owner Darren Brown was a crook who ended up in prison and his illegal ways of operating designed to help Chesterfield to gain an advantage were now firmly in the sights of the governing body.

So was Brown that it was his farcical reign which led to the FA to introduce the first Fit and Proper Persons Test for football club owners.

Three percent of gate receipts from every Football League club went into a central fund at the time for redistribution around the game. Chesterfield were underreporting their crowds, often declaring attendances of around 4,000 when the reality was 7,000 – 8,000 were turning out to watch Nicky Law’s table toppers.

To help with their fabrication of attendances, Chesterfield disconnected three turnstiles linked to the computer which recorded crowd figures.

These turnstiles all accepted cash-on-the-day, meaning that there was no trace of how many people came through them nor of the money taken. It simply did not exist.

That was only the tip of the iceberg. Charges were brought against Brown and Chesterfield regarding illegal payments paid to players in brown envelopes after matches with bonuses alleged to be worth up to £600 each. That money was said to have come directly from the disconnected turnstiles.

The transfer of Luke Beckett was arguably the most infamous bit of creative accounting that earned Chesterfield the moniker of Cheaterfield.

Beckett was signed from Chester City in the summer of 2000 with a tribunal setting a fee of £150,000. Such fees are decided by factors including player worth determined by weekly wages, so when Chesterfield presented evidence at an appeal showing that Beckett was only on £500 per week and had received a £21,000 signing on fee, the amount due to Chester dropped to £20,000.

It later emerged that Beckett had two contracts – his tribunal one and his real one. In actual fact, he was earning £1,000 a week and had received a £54,000 signing on fee. Beckett’s 18 goals that season were one of the reasons Chesterfield had led the way for so long.

The fraud became so serious that Derbyshire Police eventually got involved. Whilst the long arm of the law were looking to lock Brown up – with some lovely accusations of witness intimidation thrown in – the 23 other teams in Division Three wanted justice on the pitch for Chesterfield proving more crooked then their town’s famous spire.

A nine point deduction was handed down before Chesterfield rocked up at Withdean, which meant the Albion had actually been crowned champions when beating Macclesfield Town 4-1 three days earlier – providing of course an appeal due to be held in London the day after Brighton 1-0 Chesterfield did not overturn the deduction. The likelihood seemed that the deduction would be increased if anything due to being too lenient.

Nobody wanted to win the title that way though. Chesterfield could always point to the asterisk and the number nine next to their name and say “We would have won it without our points deduction”.

Which is why Brighton 1-0 Chesterfield was so important. The Albion’s win took them five clear of Chesterfield with the Spireites only having one game to play before the nine points were taken away.

Brighton were therefore champions regardless of the fate suffered by Chesterfield for getting caught trying to cheat their way to the title.

Adams was a professional before the game, writing in his programme notes: “Putting aside the off field problems at Saltergate, great credit must go to Nicky Law and his staff for a great season – regardless of any points deduction.”

“I genuinely do feel sorry for the fans of Chesterfield, their staff and the players. Let’s hope they can bounce back from whatever fate is dealt them, because on the pitch they have had a tremendous season.”

Less sympathetic were the Brighton faithful and those in the tannoy box. As Chesterfield’s players left the pitch following their pre-game warm up, someone rather brilliantly decided to play I am the Taxman by The Beatles.

When the sides them emerged for the battle ahead, thousands of Brighton supporters in the South Stand waved brown envelopes around. There was even a giant brown envelope made up of lots of single ones sellotaped together with “TO CHESTERFIELD” written on it and passed over the heads of supporters, as if it were a giant flag.

Chesterfield’s players and staff could be in little doubt about the contempt they were held by the Sussex footballing public. Now it was time for Brighton to do their talking on the pitch and prove that they were a better side than Chesterfield.

The Albion were equally fired by the injustice of their defeat at Saltergate earlier in the campaign. Charlie Oatway had been controversially sent off that day with Jamie Ingledow scoring the winner deep into injury time.

Brighton had been magnificent with 11 on the pitch and battled hard once Oatway received his marching orders. Losing six months earlier was just another score to settle.

Rather wisely, Premier League referee Steve Bennett had been shipped in for the game. He had his work cut out in a pulsating first half in which yellow cards were flashed to Oatway, Paul Watson and Chesterfield trio Marcus Ebdon, Jon Howard and David Reeves.

Although the game was entertaining, chances were few and far between. Bobby Zamora had a shot beaten away by goalkeeper Mike Pollitt, Chesterfield’s best player on the night.

Zamora was then uncharacteristically off target with a header from a Kerry Mayo cross early in the second half. When Chesterfield introduced Beckett for the final 30 minutes, the stage seemed to be set for the player who the Spireites had acquired through bent accounting to prevent Brighton winning the title outright.

Beckett though had little impact. By the time the Brighton goal arrived with 11 minutes left to play, Chesterfield had not managed a shot on target against Michel Kuipers.

The Albion were having little trouble getting their own efforts on target – the bigger problem was beating Pollitt. He saved spectacularly from Mayo, at which point those brown-envelope waving Seagulls supporters must have been wondering how they could find a way through.

For once, the answer did not come from Zamora. It was instead Danny Cullip who rose highest to power home a Paul Watson corner, make it Brighton 1-0 Chesterfield and sending Withdean wild.

After Zamora, Cullip was the second-most appropriate man to score the goal which secured the title having enjoyed an incredible season at the heart of the Albion defence.

There was a somewhat premature announcement shortly after Cullip’s goal, asking supporters to stay behind as the Division Three title would be presented to Brighton following the final whistle.

Nobody had been expecting that. The sensitivity of the situation surrounding Chesterfield meant that a secretive cloak-and-dagger operation had taken place to smuggle the silverware and the podium into Withdean so that the Albion could lift the trophy in front of their own supporters.

Of course, there were still 15 minutes or so to get through yet. Chesterfield though rarely threatened, especially once news filtered through that Hull City had been held by Southend United and so the Spireites own promotion was confirmed, regardless of their subtracted nine points.

Chesterfield could go home happy then. Not as happy as Brighton though, who upon Mr Bennett’s full time whistle had their first piece of silverware since winning the Division Four title in 1965.

The title winning players were presented to the crowd two-by-two, as if they were boarding the Ark rather than being crowned a Division Three champion.

Eventually, it got to Paul Rogers and we bore witness to a Brighton captain lifting a trophy – something which had not happened for a generation.

Nobody could deny that the Albion had been the best team in the league in the 2000-01 season. Points deduction or no points deduction, Brighton were crowned champions and they did it in the most apt way possible – by beating Chesterfield 1-0.