West Ham 6-0 Brighton: When everything that could go wrong, went wrong

“You do realise if you leave, you can’t come back in?” Yes Mr steward, I have been to over 700 games to know how this works. “And the game has only been on 20 minutes?” Yes Mr steward, but West Ham were 3-0 up in 11 minutes, Brighton look like they have never played football in their lives and it is probably going to finish 6-0 or something.

And so the West Ham steward opened the gate. A gaggle of Albion fans abandoned the Upton Park ship, quite possibly setting a new record for the earliest departure from Brighton game ever. It has etched the date Saturday 14th April into the memory bank.

What made West Ham 6-0 Brighton more remarkable was that the Seagulls arrived in East London with an outside shot of still making the Championship playoffs.

Since the turn of the year, Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named’s side had lost just three out of 18 matches. West Ham meanwhile were without a win at home in seven matches, a run that had undermined their automatic promotion hopes and left Hammers fans increasingly incensed that Sam Allardyce was in charge of their club.

A sold out away end therefore had genuine hopes of upsetting West Ham, even though they were playing hosts who knew victory would guarantee their own top six finish with three games of the 2011-12 season still to play.

Bookmakers around Liverpool Street Station had been doing a roaring trade before the game. West Ham 6-0 Brighton also happened to be Grand National Day.

Word on the street was that Synchronised and AP McCoy had a huge chance of winning the National just four weeks after taking the Cheltenham Gold Cup. No horse had completed the double since the great Golden Miller in 1934.

Synchronised though was a real warrior who had battled up the famous Cheltenham hill a month earlier. If anyone had the fight and stamina needed to dig deep and win both races back-to-back, it was him – especially with the greatest horseman of all time on his back.

Several hours of pre-match beer in the pubs of the East End, a sizable bet on Synchronised retuning big money and three points for Brighton at West Ham. This had the makings of a perfect Saturday all round.

And then the football got in the way. Or to be more precise, Brighton & Hove Albion got in the way. Sitting in the sun in the lower tier of the Trevor Brooking Stand mere metres away from Sexy Pete Brezovan offered the perfect view of the carnage that was about to unfold.

People may moan about the stands at the London Stadium being in a different postcode to the pitch. Oh, what we would have given to be miles from the action on a day when former Barnsley striker Ricardo Vaz Te was made to look like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Pele and Diego Maradona rolled into one.

The first sign that this was going to be a ghastly experience came straight from kick off. Brighton lost the ball, West Ham came forward and a Henri Lansbury shot was deflected onto Brezovan’s cross bar by an unconvincing sliding challenge from Gary Dicker. 40 seconds in, and West Ham already had the woodwork rattling.

It was still rattling when the Hammers took the lead a minute later. Vicente of all people lost the ball, West Ham worked it into the middle and nobody in green and black could get close to Vaz Te as he let one fly from 25 yards.

Fortunately for the Albion, it was poor effort straight at Brezovan. Unfortunately for the Albion, Brezovan produced one of the strangest pieces of goalkeeping ever seen by a Brighton number one.

He sunk to his knees as the ball came towards him as if in prayer, allowing the ball to fly straight through his arms and into the middle of the goal.

Away fans gawped opened mouth at what they had just seen. Brezovan did at least redeem himself with a point blank save from Kevin Nolan but the reprieve was short lived as Vaz Te scored again on eight minutes to double the lead.

Marcos Painter seemed to have his mind on other matters, like whether he had left his oven on. What else could explain the fact that Gary O’Neil had 30 yards of space out on the Albion’s left to cross for Vaz Te to climb above Gordon Greer and head towards goal?

Brezovan seemed to grab the ball as it was about to cross the line, and yet somehow ended up rolling into the back of the net with it.

Goal number three on 11 minutes proved to to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for those Brighton fans who decided to leave.

Matt Taylor sent a hopeful free kick forward from the halfway line. Painter decided the best way to deal with it would be by ducking out of the way, leaving James Tomkins to nod across goal.

Inigo Calderon seemed to have his mind on other matters, like whether he had left his iron on. What else could explain the fact that he let Nolan saunter freely forwards for a tap in from a matter of yards?

Howls of anguish were screamed from the away end. Brezovan merely put his hands on his hips and turned slowly in a circle, like a bloke whose been looking forward to going to Greggs all morning for his lunch, only for them to have sold out of sausage rolls.

Those who stayed beyond Brighton going 3-0 down inside of 11 minutes were at least treated to the Albion surviving nearly an hour without conceding again.

When West Ham did manage to add their fourth on 62 minutes with a goal which could be perfectly overlaid with the Benny Hill theme tune for the Albion’s defensive efforts, it reopened the floodgates.

A cross came over from the right. Painter was MIA again, leaving Carlton Cole to nod into the box from the far post.

Liam Bridcutt could have cleared but he fell over his own leg. Maybe he had his mind on other things, like whether he had remembered to lock the front door?

Painter belatedly appeared on the scene to challenge Adam El-Abd for a header, seemingly forgetting which team he was playing for.

Having barged El-Abd out of the way – no mean feat – Painter merely looped his header straight up into the air, where it dropped perfectly for the unmarked Vaz Te to score an acrobatic volley. Brezovan had his feet planted on the ground and simply watched the ball fly in.

Two minutes after that calamity and West Ham had a fifth. Dicker played a fantastic defence-splitting pass, the only problem being it split the Brighton defence rather than the Hammers’.

Cole cut inside and his effort hit Lansbury on the back, deflecting the ball past Brezovan who looked to be diving the wrong way anyway for some reason.

The only way Brighton could make the rout any better would be by adding a comical own goal into the mix. Step forward, Dicker.

Mark Noble whipped over a corner which the Albion midfielder tried to volley clear. Instead, he merely succeeded in steering the ball past Greer, Brezovan and Calderon all gathered on the line.

One of them surely could have done something to try and prevent it going in, but by this point every Brighton player seemed to be suffering from PTSD.

And what of those who left West Ham 6-0 Brighton early? A number decamped to The Queens Pub by Upton Park tube station to watch the Grand National.

At half time, more Albion fans arrived. “What’s the score?” those already in the pub would ask. “Still 3-0 and we haven’t had a shot.”

As the goals rained in, the number of Brighton supporters slowly began to increase. “What’s the score?” “West Ham just got a fourth.” “What’s the score?” “I left on the fifth.” “What’s the score?” “Six, Dicker’s just scored an own goal.”

The big race at 4.15pm was not much better. Around the time that West Ham were adding their fourth and fifth goals, Synchronised suffered a fatal leg fracture.

Those pre-game dreams of a big money win and Brighton beating West Ham had turned into a horse not coming home and a 6-0 defeat.

There was at least one small mercy from the day. We abandoned The Queens at 4.45pm. Minutes later, a chair came through the window amidst scenes almost as ugly as what Albion fans had witnessed on the pitch.

The only way to toast that lucky escape from being involved in a remake of Green Street (minus Frodo Baggins) was for further medicinal alcohol around London Bridge.

By 1am, that translated into being woken up on an empty train by a guard having somehow ended up at Seaford Station. Put it down as one of those days when everything that could go wrong, went wrong.