“Leicester might have scored, but I can’t see through the fog”
Imagine travelling 164 miles on a Friday night five days before Christmas to watch your team play football, only to not be able to see the solitary goal of the game scored by your centre forward because of fog.
That’s the card that fate dealt Leicester City fans on Friday December 20th 2002 for their first ever trip to face Brighton and Hove Albion at Withdean Stadium. Brian Deane’s winner went largely unnoticed by the entire Foxes contingent packed into the away end and most Albion supporters in the home sections for that matter. As far as 80% of those in attendance at the Theatre of Trees on that misty evening were concerned, the game finished 0-0.
Looking back, it’s astounding that the fixture was allowed to go ahead in the first place. Even before kick off was delayed by 15 minutes due to travel chaos coming into the city, the heavy rain that had been falling over Sussex all day was giving way to a thick mist. With Withdean being located in a valley, it shouldn’t have taken a meteorologist to work out that this might be a slight problem.
Neither the Albion, Leicester or referee Tony Bates had any concerns though. Perhaps they wanted the game done and dusted so they could concentrate on their Christmas shopping the following day. After all, that was the reason that games in December at Withdean had to take place on a Friday night, so as not to interrupt the Park and Ride service into the city centre from the stadium’s car park on a Saturday.
Perhaps they didn’t want to antagonise the visiting supporters whose loyalty in travelling to the worst stadium in the country on arguably the worst day of the year was astounding. Or perhaps it was because nobody expected the mist to have a bearing on the outcome given the obvious gulf in class between the two sides.
Leicester were in their first season in the second tier following relegation from the Premier League and had managed to keep together a quality squad under the management of former Albion boss Micky Adams. The Foxes were stalking table topping Portsmouth, sitting five points behind the long term leaders coming into the game.
Brighton meanwhile were deep in relegation trouble. Despite the uplift offered initially by Steve Coppell’s appointment as manager two months previously, the Albion were in the bottom two and without a win in six games. It would take a bigger miracle than a dose of scotch mist for the Seagulls to upset the form book.
Before kick off, Adams received a rapturous reception from the home support as he headed towards the away dugout in front of the South Stand through the gloom. This was his first return to Withdean since the previous October when he’d walked out for Leicester, where he was originally appointed assistant manager before replacing Dave Bassett towards the end of the last season.
There was the odd dissenting voice and a few hardy souls singing “There’s only one Peter Taylor” in honour of Adams’ replacement who’d gone onto lead the Albion to the Division Two title, but it was largely a crowd appreciative of what Adams achieved in transforming the club on the pitch.
Adams being Adams, he’d been mischief making before the game by saying that if Leicester won promotion and he had money to spend back in the top flight, Bobby Zamora would be top of his shopping list. If Leicester fans were hoping to get an advanced preview of what they could expect from the man that their manager wanted to lead the line at the Walkers Stadium the following season, then they were to be disappointed.
Not only did Zamora have one of his quieter games, but even if he’d scored a hat-trick they’d have struggled to see any of it. Within 15 minutes of the start, visibility was starting to decrease. The South Stand couldn’t see the North, the North Stand couldn’t see the South, and nobody could see the Foxes supporters, separated from the action by the bend of the running track some 50 yards behind Michel Kuipers’ goal in the North East corner.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a classic. Brighton stuck 10 men behind the ball in an attempt to defend their way to a draw while Leicester didn’t appear to have an answer as to how to break through. By the time the teams emerged for the second half after 45 dull minutes, visibility was down to about 50 metres.
That led to much confusion when the game’s two golden chances rolled around in the space of 11 second half minutes. The first came Brighton’s way on the hour mark when a foul on Richard Carpenter gave Graham Barrett a chance to strike a free kick at Ian Walker’s goal at the railway end of Withdean.
Barrett’s effort had Walker scrambling and although the ball curled narrowly wide of the post, the Albion supporters at the west end of the South Stand began celebrating. Unable to see through the gloom, some charlatan had decreed that it had beaten Walker and the Albion were in the lead. If only.
While Brighton fans were celebrating goals that never were, the opposite was true when it came to Leicester supporters and what proved to be the winner. Such were the visibility problems that when Deane headed home Alan Rogers’ free kick, it was met by complete silence from the away section.
It was only a couple of minutes later when the Foxes fans realised that the game was kicking off again and that they therefore must have scored that they began cheering the goal. The victory took them to within two points of the top of the table.
