Five penalties in 27 minutes on the craziest of Easter Mondays
There have been plenty of crazy matches between Brighton and Crystal Palace down the years – but none can hold a torch to the Easter Monday meeting of 1989 which set a world-record for number of penalties in a single game.
Most football supporters are lucky to see five spot kicks in a season. For those in the 14,384 crowd at Selhurst Park that day, they were treated to five in 27 madcap minutes.
Four of the penalties went to Palace with Brighton receiving one of their own. Just to add to the madness, the Eagles managed to miss three of theirs. They still managed to win 2-1, mind.
Palace had a formidable line up, managed by future Albion boss Steve Coppell and led by Mark Bright and Ian Wright, but even their deadly duo up front had to take a back seat from the limelight despite the fact that they both scored. All the attention on this day was reserved for referee Kelvin Morton.
Mr Morton did not restrict his impact on Palace versus Brighton to just the four penalties. Before even awarding his first spot kick, he had shown the Albion’s Mike Trusson a red card.
And once the penalties started flowing, he began awarding them with ever more elaborate hand signals and gestures.
Think Mike Dean on ecstasy and you are still nowhere near the levels of Mr Morton. It was like watching the lead of the Thornton Heath Amateur Dramatics Society give a particularly exuberant performance of Lady Macbeth’s “out damn spot” meltdown.
A Shakespearean tragedy mixed with farce, although nobody supporting the Seagulls that afternoon was laughing.
With each decision to award Palace another opportunity from 12 yards, Mr Morton would point to the spot with increasing gusto before sprinting off to stand in front of the cheering home fans, as if he were a player celebrating a goal.
A gaggle of Albion players would follow Mr Morton to wherever he had headed to soak up the applause of his adoring public in order to protest against the decision.
When confronted by these increasingly angry men clad in yellow, Mr Morton simply raised his head higher and higher into the air and dismissed the appeals by waving his hand back and forth, as if he we were the Queen dismissing a servant. It was almost like he was enjoying it.
Palace were already 1-0 up before Mr Morton took centre stage, Wright scoring a sensational volley from an impossible angle midway through the first half.
Trusson was then dismissed for attempting to decapitate Eddie McGoldrick and seconds later, Bright went down in the box to win the hosts their first penalty of the afternoon, which he duly dispatched past John Keeley.
That was on 38 minutes. On 41, Palace had their second penalty. This time, the lively McGoldrick was brought down by Dean Wilkins, making a tackle for only the third time in his life.
Bright stepped up again, but this time Keeley pulled off an excellent save to his left to push the ball around the post.
Palace eventually swung the resulting corner over to Bright who again went down, giving Mr Morton the opportunity to award penalty number three, less than 120 seconds after number two. Ian Wright took this one and although he beat Keeley, he could not beat the post.
Half time arrived but any hopes that a 15 minute interlude would calm the madness and the flow of penalties between Palace and Brighton would be stemmed were quickly dashed as within 10 minutes of the restart, Mr Morton pointed to the spot for the fourth time in 17 minutes.
This one at least went to the Albion after a tussle in the box between Kevin Bremner and Jeff Hopkins saw Bremner hit the deck. Alan Curbishley did what Bright and Wright couldn’t and successfully converted past Perry Suckling.
Despite being down to 10 men and having given away three penalties, Brighton were remarkably now back in the game at 2-1.
Even more remarkable was that it was still the case 10 minutes later after Mr Morton awarded Palace their fourth and the game’s fifth penalty.
Ian Chapman was adjudged to have deliberately handled in the box, by which point Brighton players had all but given up appealing, accepting the fact that every time the ball found its way into the box they were going to be punished for something or other. They simply shook their heads in disbelief and let Mr Morton get on with it.
Taking duties this time fell to full back John Pemberton, who had never taken a penalty for Palace before. He soon showed everyone why, blasting the ball into orbit over the then-uncovered Holmesdale End.
Had the current two tiered structure that stands there today been in place back then, he’d have cleared that as well.
That was the end of the penalties but it was not the end of the action. Curbishley had a glorious chance to snatch the most unlikely of points late on for the Albion when he found himself with time and space six yards out, but Suckling somehow diverted the midfielder’s powerful shot over the bar.
Palace managed to hang on until full time, prevailing 2-1 and picking up three precious points in their ultimately successful quest for promotion, meaning that this would be the last meeting between the two sides for 13 years.
Whilst the Albion finished the campaign in 19th, the Eagles ended up beating Blackburn Rovers 4-3 in the two legged playoff final to book their place in the top flight for the 1990-91 season.
That was in part thanks to a 3-0 home win the second leg – with, shock horror , a penalty from Dave Madden contributing to the Eagles success.
And the referee for that win over Blackburn? Well, no it wasn’t actually Kelvin Morton. But admit it – you would not be surprised if it was.
Crystal Palace Perry Suckling, John Pemberton, Richard Shaw, David Madden, Jeff Hopkins, Gary O’Reilly, Eddie McGoldrick, Alan Pardew, Mark Bright, Ian Wright, Phil Barber.
Subs: David Burke (Shaw).
Albion: John Keeley, Gary Chivers, Keith Dublin, Dean Wilkins, Larry May, Ian Chapman, Garry Nelson, Mike Trusson, Kevin Bremner, Alan Curbishley, Paul Wood.
Subs: Robert Codner (Wood).
Attendance: 14,384
