Brighton v Burnley: History & Head-to-Head of Seagulls v Clarets

Meetings between Brighton and Burnley have only become a regular occurrence since the turn of the century and although the draw is the most common result in the 37 game history of the fixture, they are encounters that are never normally lacking in action.

Brighton have won 11 of the previous meetings, Burnley 11 and there have been 15 draws. More notable is the number of players and managers who have completely lost their minds whenever Seagulls have faced Clarets, starting with Mark McCammon who suffered two meltdowns in the space of nine months when the name Burnley appeared on the fixture list.

The first of those came when McCammon took exception to Mark McGhee hauling him at half time of the 1-1 draw at Turf Moor in April 2005.

McCammon told McGhee exactly what he thought of the decision, which did not impress the Brighton boss who threw the burly striker off the team coach just as it was about to start its journey south, leaving a bewildered McCammon to wander into Burnley town centre and attempt to make his own way home.

History repeated itself the following season when Brighton and Burnley drew 0-0 at Withdean in January 2006 and McCammon delivered another extraordinary moment, taking exception to Ian Hart’s suggestion on BBC Southern Counties that he wasn’t good enough to play for the club.

In an incredible piece of radio, McCammon actually phoned up the show to remonstrate with Harty and went onto lay into the rest of this team mates and his manager live on air. Needless to say, McCammon didn’t play for Brighton again after that.

Fast forward five-and-a-half years to December 2011 and it was Romain Vincelot and Ashley Barnes who went mad against Burnley. They both managed to get sent off inside of 12 minutes of the Clarets’ visit to the Amex Stadium by referee Craig Pawson.

That led to one of the finest atmospheres the stadium has generated, with the great escape ringing out around the terraces. The Albion gave a performance full of fight as well and they were worthy of a point despite playing for over 80 minutes with nine men.

Sadly, they ended up with nothing to show for their efforts as future England international Kieran Tripper scored the only goal of the game.

The return match on Good Friday 2012 had another spectacular tantrum, this time from Brighton manager Gus Poyet. Despite the fact that the Seagulls were trailing 1-0, they were still well in the race for a spot in the Championship play offs with six or seven games left to play – even if they suffered defeat at Turf Moor.

That is what made Poyet’s decision to storm off with five minutes still to play all the more incredible. He was effectively throwing in the towel, not exactly a great example to set to your players – especially when everybody can see you walking away as the players tunnel at Turf Moor is located about 150 metres away from the dugouts. Which did at least give Poyet a good amount of distance to launch the toys out of his pram.

One Brighton manager who had no need for such theatrics was Martin Hinshelwood, who began one of the shortest reigns of any Brighton boss in history with a 3-1 win against Burnley on the opening day of the 2002-03 season.

The Albion had just won back-to-back promotions from fourth tier to second. A turbulent summer had seen Peter Taylor quit and Dick Knight panic into appointing Director of Youth Hinshelwood as first team manager.

All of which led most Clarets fans to predict an easy win for their side in the lead up to the game. Four, five, even six – if you listened to Burnley supporters, then all they had to do was turn up to start the campaign with a win.

Football never works like that though. Steve Melton, Paul Brooker and Bobby Zamora all scored as the Brighton thrashed their overconfident hosts.

Sadly, that was as good as it got for Hinshelwood. He only picked up one more point in addition to that win at Burnley in one of the worst spells in charge of any Brighton manager in the club’s history, being relieved of his duties two months later at the start of October.

By the time Burnley came to Withdean in late December, Steve Coppell was in the Albion dugout. The Clarets looked like they would get that easy win they had predicted back in August second time around as they entered injury time 2-0 ahead.

An 18-year-old flame haired midfielder by the name of Steve Sidwell had other ideas though. Sidwell scored twice in the final 90 seconds to give one of the greatest individual performances of any Brighton player in history, earning the most unlikely of points to stun Burnley as the Albion came back to draw 2-2.

That was not the first entertaining score draw either. In fact, that best describes our first ever meeting in the FA Cup of the 1960-61 season as well.

Burnley had the finest team in their history, were the reigning English champions and a side packed with internationals yet they couldn’t find a way past second tier Brighton at the Goldstone, a ridiculously entertaining game eventually finishing 3-3.

The Clarets made the most of their second opportunity, winning the replay at Turf Moor three days later 2-0 on their way to the semi finals of the competition, where they were eliminated by that season’s double winners Tottenham Hotspur.