The Curse of Valentine’s Day which plagues Brighton & Hove Albion
Saint Valentine was, according to legend, a Roman priest who married young couples against the express of wishes of Emperor Claudius II and as a result, he was beheaded on February 14th. Well, if he thought losing his head made for a bad Valentine’s Day then he should try being a Brighton and Hove Albion fan.
Our record on February 14th is nearly as atrocious as paying £25 for a bunch of roses that on any other day of the year would normally cost a tenner.
Over the past 30 years, the Albion have played nine times on Valentine’s Day, recording a grand total of zero victories. It is enough to make an overpriced set meal for two in a posh restaurant full of 30 other couples who do not really want to be there look more appealing than cheering on the stripes.
So, next time you wish that you could spend Valentine’s Day watching Brighton rather than presenting your other half with jewellery that cost the GDP of a small African country, just remember this little lot.
You will soon realise that Valentine’s Day is not actually that bad.
Brighton 1-1 Ipswich Town – Tuesday 14/02/17
Hot on the heels of a 4-1 Championship win over Burton Albion, the Albion could have made a significant statement with regards their promotion chances with victory over Ipswich Town.
This being Valentine’s Day though, the key players did not turn up and Brighton laboured to a point that was achieved largely thanks to a couple of excellent saves from David Stockdale.
Tomer Hemed got the Albion goal from the penalty spot but this was a frustrating evening at the Amex as the chasing pack all picked up points.
Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Brighton – Saturday 14/02/15
After delivering the most boring game in football history with a 0-0 Tuesday night draw at Cardiff City, the Albion delivered the second most boring game in football history four days later away at Sheffield Wednesday.
With Leon Best leading the line, goals were never likely but this was absolutely dire stuff as Chris Hughton’s side limped to Championship safety in the most painful manner possible.
If you had walked out of Hillsborough that day predicting that two-and-a-half-years later Brighton would be playing Premier League football under Hughton, you would have been locked up in an asylum.
Brighton 2-2 Millwall – Tuesday 14/02/12
Last minute goals were something of a trend for Brighton under Gus Poyet in the 2011-12 season. Three days after Alan Navarro had struck a 91st minute away at The Leeds United, it took a trademark Kazenga LuaLua free kick in the 88th minute to rescue a draw against Milllllllllllllllllllll.
Sam Vokes was the other Brighton scorer while Andy Keogh and Liam Feeney netted for the struggling Lions – who also introduced a certain Spurs loan player by the name of Harry Kane from the substitutes bench. Wonder what happened to him?
Brighton 0-2 Carlisle United – Saturday 14/02/09
This proved to be the last league game of Micky Adams Mark II’s reign of terror. A 2-0 Withdean defeat to Carlisle United made it six defeats in the last seven home matches in front of a Withdean crowd of just 5,529.
Former Albion loanee Joe Anyinsah and Richard Keogh scored in the space of four first half minutes to leave the Albion looking utterly doomed with League Two beckoning.
The chorus of boos at the end was as deafening as they could be in a half-empty Withdean Stadium and within a week and a Paint Pot defeat at Luton, Adams was gone and the Albion love affair with Russell Slade was about to begin.
Norwich City 3-0 Brighton – Tuesday 14/02/06
Who would not want to spend a Tuesday night, on Valentine’s Day, in Norwich? Due to the fact that once you cross the border into Norfolk you are actually transported back to the 1400s and it is a single lane road all the way into Norwich, Albion supporters faced a nice four hour drive to get to Carrow Road, only for Darren Huckerby to utterly destroy the visiting defence.
And to top off a terrible evening, the WeAreBrighton.com team ended up being banned by the BBC Southern Counties Radio phone in for suggesting not-so-subtly that Mark McGhee should be sacked.
Grimsby Town 2-1 Brighton – Saturday 14/02/04
Grimsby Town looked to be heading for relegation from League One whilst the Albion were putting in a bid for the play offs under McGhee. Away win banker? Not with this being Valentines Day.
On a wet, miserable and freezing cold day on the North Sea coast, McGhee gave Jake Robinson his first league start and with injuries to Ben Roberts and Michel Kuipers, was forced to play Stuart Jones in goal. The result was a 2-1 defeat with Trevor Benjamin netting. Not even the sending off of Cod Army keeper Aidan Davison could help.
Brighton 0-0 Doncaster Rovers – Saturday 14/02/98
Fans United Day 2 – billed as “The Heart of Football” – took place at Priestfield Stadium between the two sides who must be comfortably the worst to ever compete in the Football League.
Both Brighton and Doncaster Rovers were miles adrift of everyone else in the fourth tier in the days when, luckily for us, only one side dropped into the Conference.
A 0-0 draw was always on the cards with Michael Mahoney-Johnson playing up front for Brighton, but this was Sunday League standards of bad – and that probably does a disservice to what you find at Waterhall every week.
Brighton 1-2 Bristol Rovers – Tuesday 14/02/95
There were plenty of wet experiences at Withdean but one of the wettest games in Albion history came on Valentine’s Day in 1995. The Goldstone pitch resembled a lake at times with Liam Brady branding the conditions atrocious.
Brighton had played a similar game of football which required water skis when losing at Bournemouth three days previously but seemingly they had not learnt much from the experience as Bristol Rovers took the three points from the Goldstone to all but end the Albion’s faint play off hopes. Ian Chapman scored the Brighton goal on a pretty woeful evening.
Birmingham City 2-0 Brighton – Saturday 14/02/87
Brighton may have a woeful record on Valentine’s Day, but it was a date in the calendar that Chapman would remember fondly. Eight years before his scoring exploits against Bristol Rovers, the defender became Brighton’s youngest ever player when making his debut away at Birmingham City in the 1986-87 season.
Chapman cleared one off the line which meant that it was only a 2-0 defeat at St Andrews for the Albion – a particularly dispiriting result as they were one of the sides battling with Barry Lloyd’s charges to stay in the second tier. As it was, we ended up bottom of the table and the Blues survived by one place.
