The history of Brighton v Derby County

Meetings between Brighton and Derby County have virtually all taken place in the second tier – and it’s never good news from a Seagulls point of view if the Rams name features on the fixture list towards the end of the campaign.

Defeats in the final month of the season against Derby have twice sent Albion towards relegation, not to mention the crushing experience that was the Championship play off semi finals against Steve McClaren’s outstanding County side at the end of the 2013-14 season.

How they didn’t go up that season nobody knows, but the gulf in class between a Rams side that finished the regular season in third and a Brighton side who finished sixth was huge. Derby won the first leg 2-1 at the Amex but it was at the iPro Stadium three days later that we were really blown away, Will Hughes, Chris Martin, George Thorne and Jeff Hendrick all scoring in a 4-1 win for the hosts.

Brighton’s cause wasn’t helped by a raft of injuries which saw Oscar Garcia having to play Inigo Calderon at centre back, Stephen Ward at right back and Adam Chicksen at left back but in truth, it would have been a travesty had Derby not made the final. Not that it did them much good in the end, a certain Bobby Zamora scoring the only goal of the game at Wembley to send Queens Park Rangers into the Premier League at the Rams expense.

Other bruising experiences towards the end of second tier campaigns have come in the 1961-62 season when a 2-0 defeat at the Baseball Ground condemned George Curtis’ side to finishing bottom of the Division Two table and in April 1992 when a 2-1 defeat at the Goldstone pushed the Seagulls closer to relegation to the third tier despite Mark Gall netting his 12th goal of the season.

Happier memories are provided by Craig Mackail-Smith and Vicente from the 2011-12 campaign. Brighton have only ever won once at Pride Park and that was thanks to a stunning distance strike from Mackail-Smith which earned a 1-0 win in November 2011.

A little over three months later and the Rams were vanquished 2-0 at the Amex, a game in which Vicente gave one of the greatest individual displays you’ll ever see. It culminated in him dribbling around nine Derby players before hitting the crossbar from 30 yards – an absolute privilege to watch.

Cup games have also provided some joy, with the League Cup fourth round of 1976 giving third tier Albion the opportunity to test themselves against one of the best sides in the land. We’d already shocked one top flight club by winning 2-0 away at West Bromwich Albion in round three to set up a Goldstone meeting with the league champions of a year previously.

A crowd of 33,500 packed the Goldstone for the visit of Derby and the Albion came mightily close to causing another upset. Peter Ward, playing against his hometown club, beat future Brighton goalkeeper Graham Moseley to open the scoring after only 37 seconds but Derby equalised to force a replay.

Half of the population of Sussex headed north two weeks later with coaches, three charter trains and even a special plane ferrying supporters to the Baseball Ground, but those who made the journey were left disappointed as the hosts ran out 2-1 winners with Ian Mellor’s 56th minute goal proving to be nothing more than a consolation.

There have been three FA Cup meetings between the two sides in the past, with two of those coming in the 1945-46 season when the competition undertook a unique format. With football still trying to find its feet after World War II and the league structure all over the place, ties took place over two legs for the only time in FA Cup history.

That seemed to suit the Albion as they embarked on a marvelous run to the fifth round, knocking out Romford, Walthamstow Avenue, Norwich City and Aldershot to set up a meeting with a Derby side who possessed four of the best British forwards of the era – England’s Sammy Crooks and Raich Carter, Scotland’s Dally Duncan and Ireland’s Peter Doherty before he married Amy Winehouse.

With so much firepower, it was little surprise to see Brighton completely hammered. They lost the first leg at the Goldstone 4-1, although the Albion had been well in the tie up until the final 10 minutes when two goals from Carter and Doherty took the game away from the hosts. Carter then grabbed a hat-trick in the second leg as the Rams ran out 6-0 winners for a 10-1 aggregate victory. They went onto lift the trophy that year, beating Charlton Athletic 4-1 in the final at Wembley.