Brighton v Leicester: History & head-to-head of Seagulls v Foxes

Until the 1990s, Brighton & Hove Albion and Leicester City rarely crossed swords – but since then, the two have produced a ridiculously set of entertaining games and traded some of the most popular and yet divisive managers in the history of both clubs.

Peter Taylor, Micky Adams and Mark McGhee have all sat in the Foxes dugout as well as managed Brighton at Withdean. Taylor and Adams were both reasonably successful during their time in the East Midlands, but McGhee is hated by Leicester fans for walking out on the club for rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in December 1995 after less than year in charge.

Leicester had been relegated from the Premier League under McGhee at the end of the 1994-95, something which did not come as much of a surprise to Brighton fans who had seen Liam Brady’s third tier Seagulls win 1-0 and 2-0 against their top flight opponents in a two-legged League Cup second round tie just before McGhee took charge.

Kurt Nogan secured a 1-0 Brighton win at the Goldstone Ground in the first leg. Most people expected the Foxes to turn it around when they had home advantage at Filbert Street two weeks later.

Instead, it was a truly memorable evening for the Albion. Nogan scored again with Stuart Munday netting his first Brighton goal with a spectacular strike from 35 yards.

The stunning result is often overshadowed though by what happened to veteran midfielder Jimmy Case who was sent off for being deaf.

Brighton had a corner in the final couple of minutes which Case was taking his time to deliver. The referee urged Case to hurry up but the 40-year-old had forgotten his hearing aid.

He could not hear the warning, the official subsequently showed him a second yellow for dissent – much to the delight of the Leicester fans – and Case entered the history books as the first Brighton player to be sent off for having a hearing problem.

That strange incident was just the beginning in terms of weird stuff happening when Brighton face Leicester. Adams swapped Seagulls for Foxes in October 2001 and his first return to Withdean came the following December in a game that somehow went ahead despite heavy fog at the Theatre of Trees.

So bad were conditions that you could not see from one end of the pitch to the other. This would have been a problem at a normal football ground, but as everyone knows, Withdean was not a normal football stadium.

When Brian Deane scored the only goal of the game at the west end, Leicester’s supporters in the north east corner were completely oblivious to the fact that they had taken the lead. It was only when they spotted the Albion kicking off again that they belatedly realised they were 1-0 up and began celebrating.

McGhee was Brighton manger the next time the two clubs shared a division in the 2004-05 Championship season. It was away at Leicester on August Bank Holiday Monday that McGhee’s bizarre decision to play Adam Virgo up front bore fruit for the first time as Virgo netted a stunning goal in the Albion’s first away win of the campaign.

10 months, eight goals and a last day survival from relegation later and Virgo was off to Celtic for £1.5 million. McGhee’s whiskey-induced positional roulette had somehow kept the Albion up and netted them a seven figure sum in the process.

It was all downhill from there though for Brighton. Even Stevie Wonder could see the Albion were doomed to relegation from the Championship in the 2005-06 season.

Leicester’s visit to Withdean in February looked pivotal if McGhee and his players were to confound those doom and gloom predictions.

In classic Brighton style, the Albion were 2-0 down inside of five minutes. McGhee’s take on matters after the game? “We were the better side after that though”. Not helpful, Mark…

The Foxes joined Brighton in League One for the 2008-09 campaign with Adams back in the Albion dugout. Leicester would win the title that season and by some distance as one of the most dominating sides in third tier history, but they were unable to beat struggling Brighton in two more bizarre encounters.

Leicester led 2-0 at half time of their trip to Sussex in October and were cruising to victory. Adams hauled former Foxes midfielder Robbie Savage and winger Kevin McLeod at half time in favour of Kevin Thornton and Dean Cox, sparking a remarkable Albion turnaround as the hosts ended up winning 3-2.

Not that many home fans were left in Withdean to see it. Only 5,450 Albion supporters had bothered to turn up and hundreds headed for the exits at the interval.

That sparked one of the most famous threads in North Stand Chat history from one early leaver, who logged onto the forum after getting home at 9pm to demand Adams’ sacking – only to then have to watch the replies roll in as Bradley Johnson scored twice and Jack Hobbs netted an own goal to give Brighton three completely unexpected points against Leicester.

Adams was still in his job when Brighton went to Leicester in January, another strange evening as one of the most inevitable cock ups in Albion history happened.

Dick Knight must have been warned designing a home, away and third kit all in blue wasn’t the smartest idea – especially with over half of League One’s sides in the 2008-09 season wearing blue at home.

That issue came to a head when we were forced into wearing Leicester’s away kit at the Walkers Stadium in 2009. The matchday referee was unsurprisingly not happy about Brighton wearing dark blue against Leicester blue and so Adams’ side took to the field in Foxes yellow.

Perhaps they should have taken that kit home with them. Adams would be sacked within a couple of weeks and yet his side somehow drew 0-0 with the runaway leaders on their own patch.

There must be something about Brighton proving difficult for Leicester to beat in seasons in which the Foxes lift titles. In their 2013-14 Championship winning season, Leicester lost both of their games with Oscar Garcia’s Albion.

Ashley Barnes scored twice and Craig Conway once as Brighton won 3-1 at the Amex Stadium in December 2013. Come April and the Foxes had already won promotion when the Albion headed to the King Power Stadium.

Judging by their performance that day, Leicester had been celebrating a little too hard about their newfound Premier League status – sounds familiar – as Brighton hammered the champions 4-1.

Leonardo Ulloa netted a brace against the side who would go onto sign him for £8 million that summer. Stephen Ward and Jesse Lingard – another player to represent both clubs – were the other scorers as Brighton picked up a huge three points in their push for a top six spot.

The sides did not meet again until the 2017-18 campaign. Leicester have dominated the fixture since, winning six of the eight Premier League matches so far. That leaves the only top flight victories that Brighton have recorded over the Foxes in their history coming from the 1980-81 campaign.

There have been two FA Cup meetings with mixed results. The first came in the 1930s when the Albion had something of a reputation as giant killers.

Charlie Webb took his side to Filbert Street in the third round of the competition in the 1930-31 season and despite the two-division gap and the fact Leicester had one of the most successful sides in their history (prior to the class of 2016), it was Brighton who ran out winners.

Four special trains carried thousands of Seagulls supporters to the East Midlands. Fog though seems to love this fixture and 70 years before it caused such havoc at Withdean, it delayed the arrival of those Albion fans in Leicester.

By the time they arrived, the Foxes were already 1-0 ahead through Arthur Lochhead. That was how it stayed until the second half, when Potter Smith scored with two stunning strikes to secure a famous 2-1 win.

It would be 90 years until the FA Cup paired Brighton and Leicester together again. Both Graham Potter and Brendan Rodgers named weakened teams for the 2020-21 season’s fifth round clash at the King Power.

An even game looked destined to go to extra time until 10 Albion players were unable to defend a short corner against three Foxes, somehow leaving Kelechi Iheanacho with a free header to send the hosts through with 10 seconds remaining.

Following that gift of a goal from Brighton, Leicester would go onto lift the famous trophy for the first time in their history at the end of the season, defeating Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley.