Remember, remember, the 5th of November… Brighton 0-3 Barnet
Remember, remember the fifth of November, gun powder, treason and plot… and Brighton losing 0-3 to Barnet on a Wednesday night at Gillingham.
The year was 1997 and the Albion were crawling towards the midway point of what would end up being officially the worst ever season in the club’s history.
Brighton picked up just 35 points in that 1997-98 campaign, being spared bottom spot in Division Three and relegation to the Conference by Doncaster Rovers somehow being even shitter. Thank God we were still a few years away from two sides being relegated out of the Football League.
Nobody in their right mind wanted to spend a Saturday watching Brighton play home games a 140 mile round trip away in Gillingham. Hence why crowds barely crept above 2,000 in that first season at the Priestfield.
Following the Albion on a Saturday at the Priestfield was a sign of an unhealthy level of devotion. Making that nightmare journey on a Wednesday through rush hour when you could be putting your Bonfire Night to better use doing something normal like watching fireworks was bordering on clinical insanity.
Officially, 1,025 people flagged themselves as having a serious screw loose by attending Brighton 0-3 Barnet on 5th November 1997.
We say officially, because that looked like a made-up attendance – long before the Albion started counting tickets sold rather than physical bodies through the turnstile to massage crowd figures at the Amex.
In reality, there were probably no more than 900 present to experience the lowest of the low. Even with the inflated figure, Brighton 0-3 Barnet set a smallest ever crowd for an Albion game in the Football League. Enthusiasm for Brighton was at rock bottom to match performances on pitch.
My parents and I were three of the loons at Priestfield that night. Want to know what the worst possible thing a mother can say to her 10-year-old son when all his friends are going to spend their Bonfire night with sparklers, fireworks and effigies of Guy Fawkes?
“Don’t be late home from school, remember we are getting the coach at 4 to go to Gillingham.” And so there we were, stood on the sparsely populated Rainham End.
The Priestfield was yet to undergo the redevelopment which two years of rent from Brighton helped massively pay towards, and so the opposite side of the ground was a small open terrace. Behind it which lay most of Gillingham and a clear night sky.
Perfect as it turned out for watching fireworks go off in the distance. At regular intervals, an explosion of colour would appear. A case of “Here’s what you could be doing right now…”
The attention of every Brighton fan would for a second be diverted away from the football, before reluctantly returning back to watching the Albion comprehensively outplayed by a Barnet side flying high in sixth place in Division Three.
Those fireworks were cruel. The people of Gillingham were having fun, getting merry and celebrating the Houses of Parliament not being blown up in 1605, right in front of Albion fans being subjected to the most miserable football watching experience of their lives.
It was the equivalent of making a person doing a life stretch in prison watch the world and his wife throwing one big party.
All the Barnet goals came 32 minutes either side of half time. Stevie Searle opened the scoring 60 seconds before the interval, Paul Wilson doubled the Bees advantage on 12 minutes after the restart and the misery was completed by Lee Howarth with 14 minutes remaining.
Steve Gritt described the performance as being nowhere near good enough, which was under-egging the pudding if anything in the minds of those who had spent four hours travelling to and from Gillingham.
Still, it was hard to apportion much blame on Gritt. The Albion boss publicly stated the woeful display was probably a response to having to tell five of his senior professionals that they had been transfer listed as the club could no longer afford them.
Craig Maskell, Ian Baird, Paul McDonald, Mark Morris and John Humphrey had given everything to save the club from relegation and in turn keep it in business the previous season.
Now they were essentially out of a job. The nightmare of playing home games at Priestfield impacted on players as well as supporters.
Things did not get much better after Brighton 0-3 Barnet. Defeat to the Bees ended up being the third game of a then club-record run of 12 matches without a home victory.
Graham Potter eclipsed that achievement when overseeing 14 winless league games at the Amex between June 2020 and January 2021.
Brighton were of course a Premier League outfit when Potter broke the record. Facing the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea in a 30,000 capacity stadium back in Sussex seemed an impossible dream whilst the Albion were being hammered at the Priestfield by Barnet.
Those who were at Gillingham on Bonfire Night in 1997 will always remember just how shit Brighton once were. Remember, remember the fifth of November, gun powder, treason and plot… and Brighton losing 0-3 to Barnet on a Wednesday night at Gillingham.
