Chris Hutchings, from getting arrested on the Goldstone pitch to playing on it
Chris Hutchings is probably unique in football. Not many players have gone from being arrested for their involvement in a pitch invasion at a club’s ground to playing for that club inside the space of three months.
It’s certainly an unusual scouting method. Even in a day and age before statistics and Moneyball-type analysis became all the rage, signing a bloke who was nicked for inciting a riot against you 12 weeks early was an intriguing transfer policy.
The trouble had occurred on September 3rd 1983 when Hutchings was a Chelsea player. It was the Albion’s first ever league game against the Blues and is generally considered to have been the scene of the worst outbreak of football hooliganism that the Goldstone Ground ever saw.
The Friday evening before the game saw running battles across Brighton and Hove between Chelsea fans, Brighton youths and the police. By the time 3pm the following day rolled around, there was a tense and somewhat terrifying atmosphere around the Goldstone with 8,000 Blues supporters having infiltrated every corner of the ground among the crowd of 20,874, helped by the Albion’s spectacularly stupid decision not to make the meeting with one of the most psycho fanbases in the country at the time all ticket.
Chelsea won the match 2-1, two goals from Kerry Dixon rendering Alan Young’s fantastic debut overhead kick as nothing more than a consolation. At the final whistle, Chelsea supporters invaded the pitch from all sides of the ground to launch a vicious attack on the police.
While the riot was going on, Hutchings began clapping the travelling fans which was seen by the police as encouraging and inciting the mayhem. One officer of the law told him to get off the pitch. Hutchings said no. Again, he was told to leave the playing area. This time, Hutchings replied with “F**k off” and ran away down the tunnel, where he was promptly arrested for threatening and abusive behaviour.
By the time the case reached Hove Magistrates Court, Hutchings had swapped the blue of Chelsea for the blue of Brighton, becoming one of Chris Cattlin’s first signings after he replaced Jimmy Melia as manager. Cattlin paid £50,000 for Hutchings’ services, which probably gave him enough of a signing on fee to cover the £250 he was later fined when stood in the dock and facing justice just down the road from his new place of work.
That transfer fee proved to be an absolute bargain as Hutchings racked up 175 appearances, scoring six times across the next four years. From the moment he arrived, he was a permanent fixture at either left or right back until the acquisition of Keith Dublin, after which Hutchings was placed on the transfer list.
Despite keen interest from Aldershot, a move to the Recreation Ground never materialised and displaying the battling qualities that had made him a firm fan favourite, Hutchings reestablished himself in the first team, now as a tough-tackling midfielder, going from unwanted to being offered a new contract quicker than you can say “F**k off” to a policeman.
His form in the middle of the park earned the attention of Huddersfield Town and the Terriers offered £28,000 for his services in December 1987 and the sort of contract that a player seeking one last payday at the age of 30 couldn’t really turn down. With that, he was off to Leeds Road with the added bonus of not having participated in a riot against his new employees this time.
He departed the Goldstone as a player with a reputation for caring deeply about supporters. Hutchings was always one of the last off the pitch at away games, clapping the fans and thanking them for their efforts. That endeared him greatly to the Albion crowd and he managed to get through the rest of his career without swearing at any more police officers while doing so.
Once his playing days were at an end, he went onto have a relatively successful career in management. He assisted Paul Jewell when Bradford City achieved an unlikely promotion to the Premier League in 1999 and then took over the reigns for a brief 137 day spell in charge at Valley Parade when Jewell moved to Sheffield Wednesday.
Him and Jewell teamed up again to take Wigan Athletic into the top flight and again he replaced his former boss when Jewell resigned in the summer of 2007 but it was another short-lived spell as a number one, this time lasting six months.
Hutchings has since gone onto work with Derby County, managed Walsall for two seasons and has spells as a number two at Ipswich Town and Barnsley to his name, where we worked with former Albion teammate Danny Wilson.
But it remains the Albion where he produced the best moments of his career. It was the club he made the most appearances for, the club he served for the longest period of time and the club he got arrested while playing against. They don’t make them like Hutchings any more.
