Brighton v West Brom: History & head-to-head of Seagulls v Baggies

Where the Albion comes from in Brighton & Hove Albion is one of the great mysteries in the history of the Seagulls with one possible theory being that it was borrowed from West Brom.

Baggies fans are very defensive over what they consider to be ‘their’ name. Refer to Brighton as ‘the Albion’ and it can spark a row of the sort that occurs if you tell your future mother-in-law the hat she wants to wear to your wedding is disgusting. Lord knows what West Brom thought when Brighton attempted to trademark the word Albion in March 2020.

So, how did Brighton come to be stealing the name of the Baggies? West Brom were founded 23 years before the Albion (Brighton). The Albion’s (Brighton) first manager and one of the club’s founding fathers John Jackson was born in Birmingham.

The rumour goes that when Brighton were formed in 1901, Jackson decided to copy the name of West Brom and their colours – hence why the Albion (Brighton) have worn blue and white stripes for much of their history. If it is true, then Brighton are effectively a West Brom tribute act.

It took 75 years for the tribute act to meet the original in a competitive fixture. Games between Seagulls and Baggies have been few and far between ever since, with just 25 meetings to date.

Brighton have won six of those, West Brom 10 with nine draws thrown into the mix. On the rare occasions the sides do play each, the one thing you can normally guarantee is that the Albion (Brighton) will struggle to score.

Of those 25 matches, Brighton have drawn a blank in 12 of them. That failure in front of goal is particularly acute at the Hawthorns, with the Seagulls not troubling the scoreboard on seven of their 12 visits to the Midlands.

Needless to say, Brighton have only won twice at West Brom in their history as a result – and neither of those successes has come in league matches.

The first of those came in that first ever competitive match on Wednesday 22nd September 1976. Brighton were a third division side with Alan Mullery new to the Goldstone Ground hot seat when they were handed a trip to top flight West Brom in the third round of the League Cup.

Mullery’s men had already accounted for one Division One team in the previous stage of the competition, eliminating Bobby Robson’s Ipswich Town 2-1 in a replay at the Goldstone.

West Brom away looked a lot tougher than facing the Tractor Boys, however. The Baggies would go onto finish seventh in the top flight come the end of the season, yet the Baggies had no answer to a brilliant Brighton performance as Peter Ward scored twice to secure a stunning 2-0 upset. The result even drew a standing ovation from the home support as well as the applause of Baggies’ boss Johnny Giles.

Brighton’s second victory at West Brom came in an FA Cup fourth round replay in February 2019. A mind-numbingly boring game had finished 0-0 at the Amex, forcing the sides into having another go 11 days later at the Hawthorns.

To say the game did not capture the imagination of the locals would be an understatement; only 8,645 turned out to watch. Florin Andone had an interesting evening, scoring for Brighton and then deciding to smash his elbow into the face of Sam Field to earn a retrospective three game ban.

Nothing could separate the sides again after 90 minutes as things finished 1-1. Chris Hughton decided to throw on Glenn Murray 11 minutes into extra time and that decision was rewarded as Murray scored twice in 13 minutes to secure a 3-1 success. Murray’s first that evening was the only one of his 111 goals to be scored via his penis.

That covers the few high points of trips to the Hawthorns. The lowlights, well there are too many to mention. How about a 5-0 defeat in the first away game of the 1982-83 relegation season, setting the tone nicely for the next three games on the road which resulted in a 4-0 loss at Nottingham Forest, a 5-0 hammering at Luton Town and a 3-1 defeat at Stoke City?

Then there was a 1-0 defeat in September 1988 which sent Barry Lloyd’s Brighton to the bottom of the second tier. Or the time the Albion (Brighton) went to the Hawthorns in January 2018 to take on a West Brom outfit were yet to win in 20 matches under new manager Alan Pardew.

The final score? West Brom 2-0 Brighton. It ended up being Pardew’s only league victory in charge of the Baggies and to complete a thoroughly miserable experience, Gaetan Bong reported that he had been racially abused by Jay Rodriguez.

Then there was Brighton’s 2021 visit. Sam Allardyce’s side were already doomed to relegation despite it being only February and yet they still managed to beat the Seagulls 1-0 on an utterly bizarre afternoon.

Kyle Bartley gave the Baggies the lead inside of 11 minutes after some typically slack Brighton defending from a set piece.

Lewis Dunk thought he had equalised with a quickly taken free kick which was disallowed, allowed, disallowed, allowed and then finally disallowed by referee Lee Mason in scenes that were reminiscent of something out of an episode of Chucklevision.

Mr Mason might have provided Brighton with a convenient scapegoat for losing the game had they not gone onto achieve the astonishing feat of missing two penalties in the space of an hour – a worthy winner of the WAB Comedy Moment of the Season 2020-21 award.

Pascal Gross – things had become that bad that even a German couldn’t score a spot kick – and Danny Welbeck were the guilty parties.

Aaron Connolly then somehow managed to top those misses by firing over the bar from five yards out when presented with an open goal.

The Kings of xG had outdone even themselves at West Brom in a game that will go down in Brighton history alongside the likes of losing 1-0 to nine man Walsall.

In terms of home games, Brighton fare slightly better with four wins from 13. The most memorable visit of the Baggies to Sussex came in September 2017 when Chris Hughton’s side won their first game as Premier League outfit. Gross announced himself with a brace and Tomer Hemed was also on target in a 3-1 victory at the Amex.

As for the most impressive home victory, you would be hard pushed to top the 3-1 Brighton win from March 1993. A little over two months later and West Brom won promotion via the third tier playoffs.

Kurt Nogan and a brace from Andy Kennedy did the damage on that Wednesday evening at the Goldstone. Yes, Andy Kennedy really did score twice in a single match.

Finally, it is very rare that we got to mention the Full Members Cup seeing as Brighton only took part in it for six seasons. The competition was introduced to provide more football for English clubs following their ban from European football after the Heysel Disaster.

It was effectively the Johnstone’s Paint Pot for the top two divisions. Brighton hosted West Brom in the first round of the competition at the Goldstone in the 1985-86 season, losing 2-1 in front of 4,649 – one of the lowest attendances ever seen at the Goldstone at that point in Albion (Brighton) history.