Was Graeme Smith Brighton’s worst ever goalkeeper?

Perhaps we should have known from the moment that Graeme Smith took to the field for his competitive Brighton debut that things weren’t going to work out well for the Seagulls new goalkeeper.

The Albion were already 2-1 down away at Huddersfield Town on Tuesday 18th August 2009 when one of Adam El-Abd’s trademark short back passes had lacked anywhere near the necessary power to make it to Michel Kuipers.

As a result, the Former Dutch Marine was absolutely startled by what was going on in front of him and he came charging out like a bull in a china shop to wipe out Lee Novak.

Red card Kuipers, penalty Huddersfield, Smith on as a substitute. It was the start of an inglorious 10 game career in English football.

Before Smith had even touched the ball he entered the referee’s book, picking up a yellow card from Neil Swarbrick after lifting the ball off the penalty spot and carrying it to his goal line in an attempt to unsettle Novak who had dusted himself down to be the Terriers’ taker.

With a new club record secured for the fastest ever booking in Brighton history secured, Smith duly saw Novak hammer the spot kick past him for 3-1.

By the time the final whistle blew at the Galpham Stadium as it was then known, he’d conceded a further four as the Albion lost 7-1 – the club’s heaviest defeat for 36 years. That set the tone rather nicely for what was to come.

Having said that, it often goes forgotten that Smith did actually manage to save another penalty in that Huddersfield hammering – he kept out Jordan Rhodes’ second half effort with a stunning stop that prevented it being 8-1.

But that was good as it got and four months later, Gus Poyet was packing him back off to Scotland in one of his first acts as Brighton boss.

By that point, Smith had played a further nine times. His full debut came four days after the Huddersfield debacle in place of the suspended Kuipers when he shipped another four goals against Stockport County.

Smith’s cause that day admittedly wasn’t helped by the fact that Tommy Elphick got sent off after 62 minutes with the scores level at 2-2.

Two minutes later and Colin Hawkins followed suit, a remarkable achievement given he’d only been introduced as a substitute as part of a tactical reshuffle resulting from Elphick’s dismissal. Nine man Albion ended up losing 4-2.

Smith’s next game came in the Paint Pot against Leyton Orient, a 1-0 defeat. He then started in a 3-3 draw at home to Hartlepool United which turned out to be Russell Slade‘s last game in charge, played in a 4-4 FA Cup First Round tie at Wycombe Wanderers and kept his only Brighton clean sheet in the resulting replay, a 2-0 Withdean win in Poyet’s first match in the Withdean dugout.

Next was a 3-0 home defeat against The Leeds United, a 4-1 loss at Norwich City, a squeaky 3-2 FA Cup win against non-league Rushden & Diamonds and a 2-0 defeat against Charlton Athletic.

Poyet had seen enough by that point and moved to bring in Sexy Pete Brezovan on a free transfer. And so after conceding an astonishing 28 goals in eight starts and two substitute appearances, Smith returned to the SPL with Hibernian.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Smith was held in high regard in his native Scotland having played nearly 150 times for Motherwell as they regularly challenged for a European spot behind the Glasgow pair of Celtic and Rangers.

His form at Fir Park was enough to push him into the reckoning for the Tartan Army and when Mark McGhee was in charge of Motherwell, he had turned down several big money bids for the services of Smith.

Because of Smith’s form and reputation, Slade persuading him to swap the SPL for League One was routinely described as a transfer coup at the time.

With Michel Kuipers not getting any younger, the 26-year-old signing a two year deal meant that he was all set to be the long-term successor to the former Dutch Marine as Brighton number one. The belief was that he would help Slade lead the Albion into the Championship.

In some ways, Smith was unlucky that his Brighton career unravelled so quickly and so dramatically. Facing three penalties and having three of the defenders in front of him sent off in his first hour in an Albion shirt probably left him with post traumatic stress disorder. It would be little wonder if his confidence was shot to pieces by that point.

Maybe if Smith hadn’t have found himself thrown in at the deep end in such testing circumstances at Huddersfield, things would have worked out different.

Maybe he’d have been the heir to Kuipers’ crown, Poyet’s number one in the League One title winning season and the first year at the Amex and back in the Scotland squad.

Or perhaps not. After all, there were also some terrible clangers along the way that put him firmly in that “worst goalkeeper ever” category.

Wycombe away was a horror show with one easy shot squeezing under his body and his performance at Norwich saw every effort on target fly in, which is not what you want to see from a six hour round trip to Carrow Road on a Tuesday night.

His career after leaving the Albion was interesting to say the least. The move to Hibs didn’t exactly work out well, with only 16 league appearances during his 15 months with the club and he subsequently played for Azerbaijan Premier League club Gabala before joining Partick Thistle in November 2012.

Smith’s debut for Partick was nearly as good as his Brighton one as he marked it with an own goal in a 1–0 defeat against Hamilton Academical.

After six games for the Jags, Smith moved to Brechin City where the strangest moment of his career took place – and that’s saying something – when he made the 83 mile journey to the Ochilview ground for City’s away game against Stenhousemuir.

Somehow, Smith had failed to realise that Brechin were actually meant to be at home that day. He did manage to make it back to Glebe Park, but that proved to be a waste of time anyway as his side still lost 2-1.

McGhee was one of the biggest advocates of Smith’s talents. The former Albion boss was in charge of Aberdeen by the time Smith moved south, but he said of the Albion’s new goalkeeper: “He did a sterling job for me in two years I was at Motherwell and didn’t make many mistakes at all.”

“I could have sold him several times. I’m not talking about millions of pounds but hundreds of thousands – but we were determined to keep him.”

“He has got a great work ethic and is a good goalkeeper. I think the Withdean crowd will like him as well because he is a bit of a character.”

Bit of a character was one way of putting it…