The Italian Stallion Lorenzo Pinamonte
The Cosmopolitan footballing venue of Spotland, Rochdale had probably never seen an Italy flag before Brighton & Hove Albion rocked up to Lancashire in January 2000 with the Italian stallion Lorenzo Pinamonte in their midst
It was set to be the final match of Pinamonte’s month long loan from Bristol City. Micky Adams wanted to keep the striker, who had scored twice in the 4-2 New Year’s Day win over Exeter City when Darren Freeman netted the first goal of the millennium.
Brighton fans were equally enamored. It was a rare treat to have a player with flowing locks and burnished with continental flair pulling on the stripes when the Seagulls were scuttling around in the lower divisions.
Pinamonte was an exotic intrigue at a time when Albion supporters were used to the likes of Jamie Moralee and David Cameron (Scottish striker as opposed to future Prime Minister).
Which is why a flurry of little Italian flags on sticks of the sort you normally see being waved at Last Night of the Proms could be spotted in the away end at Rochdale. The message from Brighton fans was Lorenzo Pinamonte, we want you to stay.
Dick Knight importantly shared the views of both Adams and the Withdean faithful. He fired in a bid to Bristol City to bring Pinamonte to Withdean on a permanent basis.
With spectacular timing, the offer was submitted on the same day that Tony Pulis resigned as City manager to take over at Portsmouth.
Any decision on where Pinamonte’s future lay would have to wait until a successor to Pulis was in place at Ashton Gate. Brighton instead had to settle for extending Pinamonte’s loan into a second month.
You would have got decent odds on the Albion being desperate to keep Pinamonte based on his first few appearances in the stripes.
His debut had come away at Swansea City a week before Christmas 1999. Flu had ripped through Adams’ squad ahead of the trip to the Vetch, to the point where the Brighton boss and his assistant Alan Cork nearly had to play.
Pinamonte was signed on the Friday morning, a little over 24 hours before kick off at Swansea. The Albion team coach stopped off on route to south Wales to pick up Pinamonte in Bristol.
The first time he met his new Albion teammates was when he stepped onto the bus in Bristol. The first time he kicked a ball with them was in the warm up at the Vetch Field. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.
For his debut, Pinamonte led the line as a lone striker. A thankless task was made even harder when the Albion were reduced to 10 men following a red card for Jamie Campbell with only 25 minutes played. Unsurprisingly, Brighton lost 2-0.
Pinamonte was given strike partners in his next two outings; Gary Hart against Barnet on Boxing Day and Darren Freeman away at Rotherham United 48 hours later.
The Albion ended up drawing 1-1 with the Division Three leaders in the first of those games, followed by a magnificent 3-1 win at Millmoor against a Millers side sitting second.
Four points from the top two made for a very merry Christmas. Pinamonte’s hold up play as a powerful target man was central to those results, even if he did not get on the scoresheet himself.
Already proving popular, it was that Exeter match on Saturday 1st January 2000 when Pinamonte gained cult hero status.
A midday kick off meant that Brighton played before any other professional club in the country, giving the players of Seagulls and Grecians the chance to write their names into the history books.
It also meant rare national attention on Withdean with the media keen to play the “first of the millennium” card. Freeman famously got the goal and is still remembered for it to this day. Pinamonte though was the star of the show, impressing The Sun in particular.
“Most people would have marked down a Premiership playboy to be the first foreigner to score a league goal in the 21st century,” they wrote.
“But no, Lorenzo Pinamonte grabbed that honour. The Italian powerhouse from Genoa hurled his 6ft 4in frame at a Paul Watson corner to make it 2-0.”
Pinamonte followed his classic target man goal with a sublime second. Darren Carr (the first player to be booked in the 21st century) sent a long free kick forward which found Pinamonte.
With his back to goal, Pinamonte cushioned the ball on his chest, waited for the ball to drop and then hit a low volley which skimmed the grass on its way into the bottom corner. For that moment of quality alone, Pinamonte looked worth keeping.
Next came Rochdale. Lorenzo Pinamomte appreciated the Italian flags from Brighton fans, but his afternoon at Spotland came to a premature end when he limped off with a groin problem after 57 minutes.
Watching from the stands was Brentford chairman Ron Noades. When Pinamonte was replaced by Rod Thomas, Noades too made his exit. An ominous sign for the Albion’s hopes of holding onto their new Italian icon.
And so it proved. Lorenzo Pinamonte made four more appearances for Brighton, taking him up to the end of his second month on loan.
By that point, Bristol City had confirmed that coach Tony Fawthrop would be in charge for the remainder of the 1999-00 campaign. City indicated that Pinamonte could leave and Knight submitted another bid.
So too did Noades. Brighton could not compete financially with Brentford and so Lorenzo Pinamonte became a Bee for £75,000.
It is somewhat unusual for a loan striker who scored only two goals in nine appearances to be remembered with the sort of affection that Pinamonte is by Albion fans, more than two decades on from his brief spell with Brighton.
There was just something about Pinamonte that made him extremely likeable. Even when he was missing easy chances of the sort that led Cork to nickname him “Barn Door”. Not that a 21-year-old Italian had the first clue what that meant.
The fondness of supporters towards Pinamonte was mirrored by the warmth he felt about the Albion. “I know that Brighton, with the atmosphere here, should not be playing in the Third Division. We have got to go higher,” he said when his initial loan spell was extended.
Even when retired and now running a hotel on Lake Garda, Pinamonte remembered his spell with Brighton with fondness.
He told The Argus: “When I was there the city was great, the fans were great but the stadium was missing. I follow Brighton. In the future I would like to come to Brighton and see the stadium.”
Pinamonte went onto play just 25 times for Brentford, scoring three goals. He struck twice on loan at Leyton Orient from 11 appearances before returning to Italy and spending eight years mainly in Serie C with six different clubs.
His departure from Brighton did not work out too badly either for the Albion. Had Pinamonte become a permanent Seagull, then Adams would not have needed to reinforce his strike force by signing a 19-year-old centre forward on loan from Bristol Rovers.
Wonder what happened to that Bobby Zamora chap?
