7 of the hottest ever Brighton & Hove Albion games

What with it being illegal to talk about anything other than temperatures during England’s July 2022 heatwave, we asked Albion fans nominate the hottest games they have ever watched Brighton play.

The result is this list of seven matches played in soaring heat. Some resulted in Brighton displays as hot as the weather; others were uncomfortable to watch and not just because of the temperature.

Interesting, the majority of them all take place this century. That might be due to everyone forgetting hot days at the football before 2000 (with the honourable exception of the 1983 FA Cup semi final).

Or it might be because the planet is heating up. Whatever your views on climate change, don’t be surprised if Greta Thurnberg or Caroline Lucas start quoting WAB as providing verified evidence of climate change in the coming weeks.

Because nothing says greenhouse gases are bad like it being over 30 degrees at Boundary Park, Oldham. Speaking of which…

 

Oldham Athletic 1-3 Brighton, Saturday 9th August 2003

Any non-Albion fans reading this will have probably just done a double-take. Boundary Park has an established and deserved reputation as being the coldest football ground in England.

And yet Brighton have somehow played away against Oldham Athletic on a day when the mercury tipped 32°C, making it one of the hottest Albion games ever.

Brighton coped much better with conditions on the opening day of the 2003-04 season than their hosts, hardly a surprise given Latics players are usually accustomed to minus temperatures and a 70mph wind every time they play at home.

As unexpected as the heat was the final score. This was the Albion’s first game since selling Bobby Zamora to Spurs for a club-record £1.5 million.

In the build-up, Brighton boss Steve Coppell talked about the difficulty in replacing the 25 goals Zamora would score and the 15 others he would create.

Coppell’s solution was to sign two new centre forwards on-loan. The debutants made light work of Oldham. Darius Henderson got the party started with a penalty, followed by Leon Knight scoring two headers.

Brighton had the game sewn up by the hour mark. Paul Murray scored an 82nd minute consolation to deny Ben Roberts a clean sheet, but other than that blemish it was a beautiful day out in stunning weather at Oldham. Not many football supporters ever say that.

 

Swindon Town 0-1 Brighton, Sunday 16th May 2004

Oldham was not the only scorcher in the 2003-04 season. Fast forward nine months and Brighton were in the Division Two playoffs, paired with Swindon Town.

The first leg took place on a sweltering Sunday afternoon at the County Ground. There were several reasons as to why this ended up being such an uncomfortably hot experience, the first of which was the lack of shade for the 2,200-odd Albion fans crammed onto the uncovered Stratton Bank behind the goal.

With Brighton in the midst of their battle for planning permission for Falmer, many Albion supporters wore John Prescott masks ahead of the decision on whether to green light the stadium.

If we learnt anything that day, it was that a cardboard mask of the Deputy Prime Minister is not the best fashion choice in a heatwave. Neither is an afro wig, which were also plentiful amongst Seagulls fans in honour of on-loan striker Chris Iwelumo.

On-the-pitch and a tense affair was decided by a single goal. Richard Carpenter hit a drive from outside the box which took a deflection off Grant Smith on its way to creeping into the Swindon net.

There was some irony in the son of Gordon Smith helping the Albion to score such an important goal 21 years after the 1983 FA Cup Final.

Brighton rode their luck somewhat to come away from Swindon with the win. The Robins hit the crossbar and Roberts pulled off an outrageous save from the rebound as the Albion held on.

It was a similar story in the second leg at Withdean, on-the-pitch at least. The woodwork was the Albion’s best player before Adam Virgo and penalties somehow found a way to send the Seagulls to the Millennium Stadium.

Weather-wise, the second leg could not have been more different. From a heatwave at the County Ground to torrential rain at the Theatre of Trees four days later.

Not that anyone cared about being drenched to the bone after that late, late drama in the playoffs. The 30 minutes are almost up Swindon fans, but you’re not there yet…

 

Wolves 0-0 Brighton, Saturday 20th April 2019

When Wolves put visiting fans in the lower tier of the Steve Bull Stand, it is one of the worst away sections in the Premier League. Everyone is strung out, it is hard to get an atmosphere going and the view is not exactly great.

The Albion’s visit to Molineux towards the end of the 2018-19 season threw in an added problem – the sun. For 90 minutes, Brighton supporters had that big yellow thing in the sky beating down straight into their faces.

That meant people were beginning to overcook even before kick off. At which point Wolves helpfully let off a load of fireworks in front of the away section.

The hosts did at least realise this may have been a stupid idea, making up for it by giving out free bottles of water at half time to supporters who looked particularly hot. They then ran out of water. Said bottles also came with lids, the stuff of nightmares for Paul Barber.

Temperature was not the only problem caused by the sun – it also made it difficult to see what was going on as it shone directly into the eyes of Albion fans.

Thankfully, not much was missed as bugger all happened. Chris Hughton and Brighton did their normal trick of boring everyone to death in a Premier League away game and it finished 0-0.

 

Spurs 0-1 Brighton, Saturday 16th April 2022

Recency bias this might be, but Spurs 0-1 Brighton last season has to be up there as one of the hottest games ever. The away end at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium suffered from the same issue as Wolves in that it was permanently in the sun.

Unlike that afternoon at Molineux though, Brighton put on quite the show out on the grass. Defensively, they prevented arguably the best front pairing in the Premier League in Harry Kane and Son Heung-min from having a single meaningful shot on target.

It looked like that would be enough to secure an impressive 0-0 draw. Leandro Trossard though had other ideas and in the 90th minute, he waltzed his way through the Spurs defence and beat Hugo Lloris to give the Albion a famous victory.

Graham Potter and the players basked in the glory of it all in front of the away end afterwards. Brighton fans meanwhile basked in the lunchtime sun.

The cold beers afterwards tasted particularly sweet as we reflected on six points from the two North London clubs in the space of seven days.

 

Brighton 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday, Saturday 16th April 1983

One of the most famous games in Brighton history also happens to be one of the hottest. The Clock End at Highbury had no roof when Brighton rocked up for their 1983 FA Cup semi final against Sheffield Wednesday, leaving fans fully exposed to the sun.

What made the experience particularly hot was the sheer numbers packed onto the terrace. 26,000 Albion supporters made the journey via five charter trains and 113 coaches.

The majority of those fans were stood on the Clock End. There was no room to swing a cat, in the unlikely event that you wanted to take your cat to the game.

Jimmy Case opened the scoring in front of the Brighton support with a thunderbastard free kick from 35 yards. The Clock End was transformed into a sea of surging bodies in response, raising the temperature even higher.

Wednesday equalised on the hour mark via Ante Mirocevic to set up a tense final 30 minutes. The game was decided in the 78th minute when Michael Robinson poked home in a goalmouth scramble.

Who cared about the onset of heat exhaustion when Brighton were going to Wembley for the first time in their history?

 

Southend United 2-0 Brighton, Saturday 12th August 2000

Opening days of the season in the early 2000s seem to be a goldmine when it comes to the hottest Brighton games. Three years before temperature records were broken in Oldham and the Albion kicked off their Division Three title winning campaign away at Southend United.

An incredible 3,500 Brighton fans made the trip for a day out at the seaside in the summer sun. Confidence was high, as the now-infamous chorus of “Bring on the champions” which rang out before kick off attested too.

Nothing sums up what happened over the next 90 minutes better than the Albion’s refreshingly honest official match report: “Glorious weather, glorious array of new signings and trusted professional, glorious turn out from Albion’s travelling masses… and in the end, a glorious result for Southend.”

Martin Carruthers gave Brighton a shock when opening the scoring after only five minutes. Michel Kuipers was hauled at half time of his debut in favour of Mark Cartwright but the unorthodox change of goalkeeper made little difference and future Albion midfielder Dave Lee wrapped up the win for Southend on 83 minutes.

 

Reading 3-2 Brighton, Saturday 7th August 2004>

What did we say about Brighton first games of the season in the early 2000s being amongst the hottest ever? Here is another, from the 2004-05 campaign when Mark McGhee took his Albion side to Reading.

It did not take long for the Seagulls to have their supporters jumping around at the Madjeski Stadium to become even hotter. Maheta Molango made quite the impression, needing only 12 seconds of his Brighton debut to open his account for the club.

Unfortunately for Molango, his Albion career went steadily downhill from there. So too did Brighton’s afternoon. Dave Kitson equalised within 120 seconds of Molango’s opener, followed by James Harper and a certain Nicky Forster having the Biscuitment 3-1 ahead before an hour had been played.

Jake Robinson pulled one back on 63 minutes but the Brighton were unable to find an equaliser as it finished Reading 3-2 Brighton.