Brighton, Southampton and the first and last game at the Dell

You are a football club playing your final game at the place you have called home for 103 years. The world is your oyster in terms of inviting one final opponent to give the ground a proper send off. Who do you pick? Manchester United? Bayern Munich? Barcelona? If you are Southampton and it is the last game at the Dell, the answer is Nationwide League Division Three champions Brighton & Hove Albion.

There was some method behind the apparent madness. Saints had not just drawn a name from a hat and ended up selecting opposition from three divisions below themselves in the English football pyramid.

The reason Brighton were selected was because it was the Albion’s forerunners, Brighton United, who provided the first ever opposition at the Dell.

Rather than go for the glamour option, Southampton opted to finish their time at their historic home with the same club who started it. Which was pretty cool.

The outcome in both games were the same. Saints wins. But other than the result and the location, the first and last game at the Dell between Brighton and Southampton could not have been more different.

Southampton 4-1 Brighton United, Saturday 3rd September 1898

Southampton previously played home matches at the County Ground in Northlands Road, home of Hampshire Cricket Club. Football and cricket co-existing was a bit of a thing back in the day.

Brighton United and then the Albion both played home games at the Sussex County Cricket Ground before moving into the Goldstone in 1902.

Pioneering Saints director George Thomas decided the Saints needed their own home. And so the Dell was built. It played host to its first game on Saturday 3rd September 1898, the opening day of the Southern League Division One season.

It also happened to be the first competitive match ever played by Brighton United. And it came just two days after United had stepped onto a football pitch for the first time.

Thursday 1st September saw them take on Southwick in a 6pm kick off. 2,000 intrigued spectators turned up to watch at Croft Meadow, a football ground on a farm situated where modern-day Southwick Rec is. United ran out convincing 8-1 winners over their West Sussex Senior League hosts.

The setting could not have been more different for Brighton to make their Southern League debut. 6,525 spectators crammed onto the terraces at the Dell in glorious September sunshine, including a good following of people from Brighton who travelled there and back on a special train.

I wonder what the 1898 equivalent of box of Strongbow Dark Fruits and doner kebab for the journey home was?

Southampton wore their famous red and white stripes. United were in their green home shirts, which earned them the original and inventive nickname of the Greenbacks.

Saints were one of the finest teams in the Southern League at the time. They won the title in the previous 1897-88 season and their squad boasted four full internationals.

Therefore unsurprisingly, Southampton ended up winning 4-1 against Brighton United in the first game at the Dell.

The Mayor of Southampton kicked things off… literally. Politicians on the pitch being something you do not see enough of these days.

Next time Brighton play Arsenal and Sir Keir Starmer is at the Amex, can we get him on the pitch to take kick off?

Once the mayor had done his thing, it ended up being quite a violent encounter. The referee had to lecture several players about their conduct.

The worst incident saw United midfielder Willie McArthur taken to hospital for stitches after only 20 minutes following a kick to the jaw.

United were already behind by that point. Watty Keay applied the finishing touch from neat wing play by Tommy Smith for the first goal at the Dell.

Abe Hartley and Jim McKenzie moved Southampton 3-0 ahead before a thunderbolt from Roddy McLeod put his name in the history books as scorer of the first competitive goal for Brighton United.

Any hopes of a comeback were soon extinguished when England international Harry Wood made it Southampton 4-1 Brighton United.

A scoreline which could have been much worse had Greenbacks goalkeeper Leo Bullimer not been in such inspired form.

Despite the defeat, the general consensus was United had done well against the most powerful team in the division.

The match report in the Brighton Gazette said: “Such a defeat at the hands of a crack team is nothing to be kept dark.”

A stark contrast to the head loss a 4-1 away loss against Southampton would spark on social media in the 21st century.

Southampton 1-0 Brighton, Sunday 27th May 2001

Fast forward nearly 103 years and Brighton faced Southampton in the last game at the Dell. Ex-Saints favourite Micky Adams brought his Albion side who had just been crowned Division Three champions along the south coast for a friendly.

It very much lived up to that word, certainly compared to that fiery first match back in 1898. Nobody followed McArthur into the infirmary, for example.

Brighton even entered the pitch ahead of Southampton, with captain Paul Rogers carrying the Division Three trophy to a standing ovation.

Southampton had played their final competitive game at the Dell a week before Brighton came to town. It was an exhilarating 3-2 win over an Arsenal, featuring a last minute winner via a trademark volley from Matt Le Tissier. Makes you think…

Through the first 20 minutes, Southampton and the Albion seemed determined to match the entertainment provided seven days earlier.

Both sides went hammer and tongs at each other. But eventually the heat and the friendly element took over. Summed up by Chris Marsden and Bobby Zamora missing chances at either end which they would clearly have done better with in a competitive fixture.

The only goal of the game came from Uwe Rosler. Le Tissier delivered a corner, Matt Wicks attempted to head clear. The ball only made it as far as Rosler, who thumped it back past Michel Kuipers to become the last ever goal scorer at the Dell.

With Saints fans desperate to get their hands on souvenirs, the final whistle never actually blew. Supporters spilled onto the pitch around the 90 minute mark, digging up pieces of grass to take home and prising out seats.

Having lost the Goldstone just four years earlier, Albion supporters were somewhat experts at removing bits and pieces from a stadium.

Which is why my mother has, alongside all kinds of stuff from the Goldstone, a seat from the away section of the Dell in her garage. As you do.