Brighton v Aston Villa: History & head-to-head of Seagulls v Villa

Champions of England, you’ll never sing that. One of the most embarrassing songs that there is on the footballing circuit. And when it is sung towards Brighton, factually incorrect as the Albion have been champions of England once in their history thanks to a victory over Aston Villa.

Back in the early part of the 20th century, football in England was split into two leagues. There was the Football League, still going strong today and back then the one that was considered superior. But there was also the Southern League, a competition that carried much clout.

Between 1908 and 1913, the Charity Shield – or the Community Shield as it is known these days – was an annual fixture held between the Football League winners and the Southern League winners to decide who would be the unofficial champions of England.

And so on Monday September 5th 1910, having won the Southern League title five months earlier for the first and only time in their history, Brighton made the journey to Stamford Bridge to take on Aston Villa, who were the most famous club in the land at the time.

Nobody outside of Sussex gave the Albion a hope. It was a fixture that wasn’t David versus Goliath; it was David versus 11 Goliaths. The Albion players and hundreds of excited supporters left Brighton on a special train bound for London and they returned to Sussex that evening with the Charity Shield in their possession thanks to Charlie Webb scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win.

To this day, beating Aston Villa that Monday afternoon probably ranks as the biggest achievement in Brighton history. The Albion were the only Southern League side to defeat Football League opposition when the Charity Shield was played in that format; and yet it is an achievement that seems to have been forgotten by-and-large by the club, probably because Paul Barber is yet to derive a way to make money from it.

That victory aside, the Albion don’t have a great record against Villa. It reads 27 meetings, five Brighton wins, nine draws and 13 Villa victories. Four of those Brighton wins have come in league competition in seasons when Villa went onto win the title.

Brighton’s only home top flight victory in the fixture came at the Goldstone in the 1980-81 campaign in which Villa ended up champions, Michael Robinson scoring the only goal to secure a 1-0 win on Saturday 20th December 1980 in front of 16,245.

It was quite a way for the club to celebrate the reopening of the all-seater South Stand, in full use for the first time since it it caught fire after the visit of Middlesbrough eight months previously.

The Albion’s only away top flight victory against Aston Villa – in fact, the only win in Brighton history in any competition at Villa Park – took place in November 2020 when goals from Danny Welbeck and Solly March secured a 2-1 success. Spoiler alert: Villa did not win the Premier League title in 2020-21.

Rewind to the 1971-72 season and Villa wound up winning the third tier title, some five points ahead of the Albion in second. The biggest crowd of the season of 28,883 and the Match of the Day cameras came to the Goldstone on March 25th 1972 to see the two promotion chasers do battle.

Brighton won 2-1 through goals from Willie Irvine and Kit Napier. Irvine’s was as the result of a brilliant team move which ended up finishing as runner up in the BBC Goal of the Season competition.

The Albion’s other league success against Villa came in the 1970-71 campaign when Napier was again the scorer, giving the Albion a 1-0 Good Friday victory at the Goldstone.

It may have taken 65 years and 13 attempts for Brighton to win at Villa Park, but that is not to say every memory of Aston Villa away is bad for the Seagulls.

Villa were the opponents who Brighton scored their first ever goal as a top flight club against. Teddy Maybank was the man who took the honours, netting in a 2-1 defeat at Villa Park on Wednesday 27th August 1979.

There have been three FA Cup meetings in which Brighton have given a good account of themselves against opponents who have always been in a higher division at the time.

The most recent of those came in the fourth round in the 2009-10 season when Gus Poyet’s He Who Must Not Be Named’s Albion delivered a gritty performance in going down 3-2 to Martin O’Neill’s exceptional side.

Prior to that, top flight Villa needed a third round replay in the 1944-55 season to see off plucky Division Three South Brighton. The Albion earned a 2-2 draw at the Goldstone in what was the first meeting between the sides since the Charity Shield through goals from Bernard Moore and Albert Mundy on Saturday 8th January 1955.

Two days later and the sides reconvened for a hastily arranged replay at Villa Park. Mundy scored again alongside Bernard Moore but it was not enough as Villa’s class shone through and they ran out 4-2 winners.

Finally, we can’t really talk about Brighton against Aston Villa without mentioning that second opportunity the Albion had to lift some silverware against them, 107 years after that famous afternoon at Stamford Bridge.

We are of course talking about the final day of the 2016-17 season when three points at Villa Park would have given Chris Hughton’s side the Championship title.

Glenn Murray’s penalty looked like it would deliver the goods right up until the last minute when Jack Grealish’s shot from 25 yards somehow went through the legs of David Stockdale.

It finished 1-1, Newcastle United won the league and a few months later Stockdale was leaving on a free transfer to sign a mega-money deal the other side of the city from Villa Park with the Blues of Birmingham. Talk about a way to say goodbye.