Coachgate II: Southampton away, 2006
If you are a fan of managers going mad and chucking players off the team bus, then a nine month period between 2005 and 2006 was a glorious time to be a Brighton & Hove Albion fan.
In April, we were treated to Coachgate Round I when Mark McGhee decided he’d had enough of Mark McCammon as the Albion drew 1-1 away at Burnley.
McCammon took exception to McGhee delivering some home truths during the break with the Albion trailing 1-0 at Turf Moor and so he argued back, blaming captain Charlie Oatway for a lack of service. Oatway was of course renowned at the time for his Paul Scholes-level of playmaking ability.
As a result of him voicing his opinion, McCammon was hauled at half time and when McGhee boarded the coach after the game, the striker was told he was not welcome on the bus home. That left a bewildered McCammon to wander off towards Burnley Station for the long train journey back to Sussex.
Fast forward a little under nine months and the Albion were enduring an even more difficult season in the Championship, which resulted in more coach based shenanigans for the trip to St Mary’s to take on Southampton on January 2nd 2006.
McGhee’s side made the journey down the A27 with just four wins from 27 games and looking in every bit as much trouble as you would expect a second tier side whose marquee summer signings were Jason Dodd and Frederico Turienzo to be in.
The Albion’s Christmas form had been, to put it bluntly, shit. There had been a 1-0 win over Queens Park Rangers on Boxing Day but McGhee followed that up by making six changes for the trip to Luton Town two days later.
Those changes included playing McCammon and Turienzo as a front pairing that would make a Stephen Hawking and Prince Phillip strike partnership look mobile. The result, unsurprisingly, was a 3-0 defeat and one of the worst displays Brighton have ever put on.
That is not an exaggeration either. It was so bad in fact that frustrations boiled over to the point where I witnessed a son punch his own father square in the jaw when Warren Feeney’s second for the Hatters flew in just before half time.
Tensions were mounting then among supporters and players and things did not get any better on New Year’s Day when relegation rivals Millwall left Withdean with a 2-1 win thanks to two goals in the first four minutes of the second half.
That all fed into what was to happen at Southampton away. McGhee decided to roll the selection dice again. This time, one of his gambles was to drop Michel Kuipers in favour of giving a league debut to Florent Chaigneau, the 21-year-old goalkeeper on loan from Rennes. And that is what sparked Coachgate Round II.
Kuipers had only returned to the first team after 11 months out in the win over QPR. Reintroducing a man whose shoulder muscles had resembled a pulled pork baguette due to the severity of an injury sustained less than year ago for a run of four games in eight days was a particularly bold move by McGhee.
Although Kuipers kept a clean sheet in that first game back, he had looked very rusty in both the Luton and Millwall losses.
Not that he agreed with McGhee’s decision making. On being informed that he would be on the bench, the former Dutch Marine began remonstrating furiously with Dean White as the coach was about to leave the team hotel for St Mary’s.
At that point, Leon Knight stepped in to offer his two pence worth. When Mark McGhee head about the involvement of Leon Knight, he was far from impressed and with the coach now on route to the stadium, the Albion boss attempted to chuck Knight off in the middle of the New Forest.
One version of the story has Knight in full Albion tracksuit abandoned in the middle of nowhere, miles away from Southampton surrounded by trees and the wild horses of the New Forest.
Knight has always contested that version and said he refused to leave the bus, arriving at St Mary’s with the rest of the squad but having been dropped from the bench.
Whatever happened, it cannot have been ideal preparation for the game against the Saints. McGhee’s other selection choices saw Joel Lynch given a first start at left back and Joe Gatting come off the bench for his debut in the 89th minute.
McGhee also started Kerry Mayo in central midfield, a position he hadn’t played in with any sort of regularity since finishing joint top scorer in the 1997-98 season.
If you ever need reminding of how dire things were in those dark days at Gillingham, Mayo as top scorer should do the trick.
Having said that, that decision remarkably paid off as Mayo got his name on the score sheet. Alexandre Frutos was the Albion’s most creative player on the day and it was his pass that found Jake Robinson who was able to tee up Mayo.
Mayo still had plenty to do but do it he did, drilling an effort expertly through a crowded penalty area and past future Albion goalkeeping coach Anti Niemi. It would prove to be the last of Mayo’s 14 Brighton goals.
That was in the 10th minute. Southampton had already taken the lead by that point, Dexter Blackstock finishing after Martin Cranie had danced past three defenders inside the first five minutes.
It looked like the Albion might hold onto the most unlikely of points, keeping the game level for the next 76 minutes.
There were just four minutes left on the clock when Blackstock netted what proved to be the winner, deflecting Nathan Dyer’s shot beyond Chaigneau and into the back of the net to give the Saints a 2-1 victory.
Coachgate II proved to be the straw that broke the camels back when it came to the Brighton career of Leon Knight and he was sold by Mark McGhee to Swansea City shortly afterwards.
Kuipers meanwhile remained on the bench for the next game against Coventry City in the FA Cup but returned to the side for the 2-1 win over Leeds United and a 3-1 defeat at Sheffield United.
Wayne Henderson was signed on a permanent deal after that but it was not the end of Kuipers’ Brighton career. He would go onto oust the Irish goalkeeper and remain as the Albion’s number one until Gus Poyet’s arrival some three years later.
As for Mark McGhee, well he never got the chance to add a third instalment to the Coachgate saga after the Mark McCammon and Leon Knight incidents.
Nine months later and he was sacked after relegation to League One and a disappointing start to the following season. Over a decade on and we arestill waiting for a manager to chuck another player off the coach.
