Chris Hughton’s 10 best moments as Brighton boss
Whatever your feelings by the end of his reign as Brighton boss, nobody can seriously doubt that Chris Hughton will go down as one of the greatest managers that the Albion have ever had.
He took the Seagulls from staring League One in the face to a side looking forward to a third successive season of Premier League football and with an FA Cup semi final thrown in as an added bonus. The impact he had and the legacy he leaves will last for a long, long time.
Because it’s not just on the pitch where people will remember Hughton. Lots of people have their own personal stories about his generosity and his class, ranging from the bride who was surprised by a video message of good luck from Hughton on her wedding day to the graduate who he took the time to speak to when they both received degrees from the University of Sussex.
Trying to whittle down his best moments as Brighton manager to a top 10 was a near impossible task. We could have easily made this a top 20 or 30 list and still barely scratched the surface of so many great days.
No doubt we’ve missed loads of people’s favourites out – we’re looking at you, day out at Wembley and you, Fulham away – but that just goes to show what a brilliant, brilliant team we’ve enjoyed over the past four-and-a-half-years.
So thanks, Chris. Whoever takes your place has big boots to fill.
10) Hammering Norwich City 5-0
When Norwich City brought their tractors and combine harvesters to the Amex in October 2016, it was a massive test of Brighton’s promotion credentials. Our record up until that point against the rest of the apparent top-six contenders was patchy, with the result sheet showing a defeat to Newcastle United, draws with Derby County and Reading and a win over Huddersfield Town.
90 minutes and one Glenn Murray hat-trick later and any questions about the Albion’s ability to finish in the top two had been well and truly answered. Norwich weren’t bad, they just had no answer to a Brighton side who had blown them away to win 5-0 with Lewis Dunk and Anthony Knockaert the other goalscorers.
It felt like a coming of age performance, the first time under Hughton we’d beaten a promotion rival and beaten them convincingly. You can imagine it was quite satisfying for him too, not that Hughton would ever say as much. By that point, we were two-and-a-half years on from his sacking by Norwich and yet their fans still had this fixation on deriding him for his negative football.
Can’t imagine what they thought when Boring Chris Hughton’s side stuck five goals past them.
9) Winning away at Birmingham City in the 96th minute
They say the sign of a good team is winning when you aren’t playing well, and Brighton tested that theory to the max away at Birmingham City in the last game before Christmas 2016. Birmingham had taken an early first half lead through Lukas Jutkiewicz and looked to be good value for all three points until Hughton introduced Solly March just past the hour mark.
March proceeded to have one of those games in which he is just unplayable. He helped set up Knockaert for the equaliser with eight minutes remaining and then in the sixth minute of injury time, Murray grabbed a dramatic winner before sprinting the length of the St Andrews pitch to celebrate with the away supporters.
In all the commotion that followed that goal, I managed to split my trousers into two which should have made for an uncomfortable train trip home. That it didn’t says much for the power of Hughton. He could make you have to endure a three hour journey from Birmingham New Street to Euston with a pair of trousers that hid absolutely nothing from public view and you didn’t care one bit.
8) The Shoreham Air Disaster response
The Shoreham Air Disaster was a tragedy that rocked the whole of Sussex. Among the 11 men who lost their lives that day were Albion groundsman Matt Grimstone and a lifelong supporter and member of the Robert Eaton Memorial Fund team, Jacbob Schilt.
Brighton and Hughton’s response to the crash were exemplary. Hughton dedicated the Albion’s 3-2 win away at Ipswich Town a week on from the disaster to the victims and a moving tribute was paid at the Amex before the 1-0 home win over Hull City seven days later.
His comments in the aftermath were always measured and always considered. “The club have done a magnificent job in respecting the memories of all the victims and the gravity of what happened has hit home very hard in the football community. There is nobody around the club or the team who wouldn’t find it quite humbling. So many people have pulled together and, yes, the way we have been playing is a fitting tribute everyone affected.”
In many respects, he was the voice of the Albion and the fans when it came to expressing the sadness and grief that many of us experienced because of the crash. Nobody was surprised that he was able to enunciate it so perfectly.
7) 10 man Brighton 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday
When did you truly start to believe that Brighton might actually be heading to the Premier League? For many of us, that night was when Sheffield Wednesday came to the Amex in January 2017 and the Albion beat their promotion rivals with only 10 men.
This was a huge game, both in terms of the league table and psychologically. To say Brighton don’t have a good record against Wednesday is rather like saying Joseph Stalin was a little bit nasty. The Albion were always terrible whenever the Owls swooped into view, including in the previous seasons play off semi finals when anything that could wrong did, such as four players getting injured in the 2-0 first leg defeat at Hillsborough.
Something changed on this night though. Knockaert scored the only goal of a tepid first half before the game sparked into life after the break. Dunk beat David Stockdale with an own goal and Murray saw red for a deliberate handball in the box, gifting Wednesday the chance to take the lead against 10 men. That they didn’t was thanks to a fantastic double save from Stockdale, who not only stopped Fernando Forestieri’s penalty but also managed to somehow keep out the rebound as well.
That galvanised the Albion and they retook the lead with five minutes remaining through Knockaert again, leading to a fantastic meltdown in the Wednesday ranks as Steven Fletcher and Sam Hutchinson joined Murray in the red card club. A 2-1 win against a team we hardly ever beat and achieved with just 10 men. It was finally going to be our year.
6) The reaction to losing to Sheffield Wednesday in the play off semi finals
Hello again, Sheffield Wednesday. We’ve just mentioned beating them, so it probably seems a little strange that losing to them ranks higher on the list of Hughton’s greatest moments. But that defeat at Hillsbrough highlighted the characteristics that make Hughton such a likeable and class manager.
Having seen Knockaert, Tomer Hemed, Connor Goldson and Steve Sidwell all limp off injured to leave his side finishing the game with only 10 men, Hughton would have had every right to feel aggrieved. Imagine the reaction of Jurgen Klopp, a man who holds a gust of wind responsible for his side not winning, or a serial moaner like Jose Mourinho if they’d found themselves in such circumstances? You’d never hear the end of it.
Hughton’s response? It went something along the lines of saying it was unusual but one of those things and that we’d just have to try harder in the second leg to turn it around. No attempt to blame anybody else, no whinging like a spoilt brat. Just a calm and measured response. That and Liam Rosenior’s “chin up” pose towards the away end at the final whistle made you proud to have two such men representing the Albion.
5) Beating Manchester United to secure Premier League survival
For many of us who grew up supporting Brighton in the 1990s, we were a rare breed in the school playground. It was a jungle dominated by Manchester United followers, those attracted by the glory delivered by Alex Ferguson and the Class of 92 but who couldn’t point to where Manchester was on a map, let alone had visited Old Trafford.
These United fans would take joy in pointing out they supported treble winners whilst you spent your Saturdays travelling with your parents up and down the M20 to watch ‘home’ games played at Gillingham in the bottom tier. “Why not support a Premier League team?” they’d say.
That’s why Brighton securing their top flight survival by beating United 1-0 at the Amex was so sweet. We did support a Premier League team, and we didn’t have to choose one 258 miles away who we’d never watched live in order to do it. Hughton gave us bragging rights over all those glory hunting plastic Mancs across Sussex and boy, did it feel good.
4) Doing the double over Crystal Palace
Not since the 1983-84 season had Brighton done the double over rivals Crystal Palace. For an entire generation of fans, Palace have always been the bigger and better club with the bragging rights to go with it. But not this season; they might have finished above us in the Premier League table, but the Albion have certainly dominated the rivalry in 2018-19 – thanks to Hughton.
The first meeting at the Amex was as madcap a game as you’ll see. 1-0 up through a Murray penalty that probably wasn’t a penalty, Shane Duffy sent off for headbutting Patrick van Aanholt with less than half an hour played, Leon Balogun scoring with his first touch 20 seconds after coming on and then that goal from Florin Andone right on the stroke of half time. Brighton’s 3-1 victory was well deserved and arguably the finest performance of the Hughton era, given the opposition and the circumstances.
To then top that by winning at Selhurst Park three months later was even better. Murray’s volley when he wasn’t even going to be playing until Andone got injured in the warm up got the party started and then Knockaert scored the sweetest strike you’ll ever to see, perfectly curled into the stanchion of Vicente Guaita’s goal. Not even being locked in that grubby part of Croydon for an hour afterwards by the Metropolitan Police’s finest could dampen the mood. Ole, ole ole, six points, six points.
3) Going 21 games undefeated at the start of the 2015-16 season
It’s hard to put into words just how bad Brighton had been in the 2014-15 season – even in the five months that Hughton had been at the helm. We won only once in our last 11 games, and that was because Blackburn Rovers’ Matt Kilgallon was friendly enough to score an own goal in a 1-0 success at Ewood Park. We only managed to score two goals of our own in that little sequence as well, via Dale Stephens in an away defeat to relegated Wigan Athletic and Bruno at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
That’s what made the start of the 2015-16 season all the remarkable. In three short months over the course of one short summer, Hughton turned us from a side who’d won one game and scored three goals in 11 games into a side who could go 21 undefeated, which formed the bedrock of a completely unexpected promotion bid. The turnaround was extraordinary and tells you everything you need to know about his skills as a manager.
2) Taking the squad to France for Anthony Knockaert’s father’s funeral
Knockaert had known much tragedy by the age of 25. In 2011 when at Leicester City, he’d suddenly lost his elder brother, Steve. Then his father, Patrick, passed away in 2016.
Hughton’s response was class. Not only was Knockaert given as much time off for compassionate leave as he wanted, but the Albion manager cancelled training on the day of the funeral and took the squad to Leers, on the outskirts of Lille, to pay their respects and show their support for their teammate.
For Hughton, missing a day of training didn’t matter. Football didn’t matter. What was important was being there for somebody who needed it. It was the ultimate example of the club’s #Together ethos before it became a wank, overused and meaningless hashtag.
1) The day Brighton were promoted to the Premier League
Before Hughton, only one other manager had led Brighton to promotion to the top flight of English football – Alan Mullery some 38 years previously. The day that the Albion confirmed their return to the elite is one that nobody who was there will ever forget.
Wigan Athletic were the visitors to the Amex on Easter Monday. The Latics looked to be heading for League One, the Albion in the opposite direction. Three points would all but confirm Brighton’s promotion. From the outside, that probably looked a formality given the two side’s contrasting positions in the Championship. But we Brighton fans know better than to think of anything being straightforward when the Albion are involved – we’ve seen far too many cock ups down the years.
There was to be none of that on this day though. Murray put the Albion ahead in the first half and March doubled the advantage just past the hour mark. Nick Powell did pull one back for the Latics with five minutes remaining, but we held on unusually comfortably to win 2-1. Promotion was pretty much assured, 20 years on from when we were sitting bottom of the Football League and about to be made homeless.
The full time whistle was greeted with all kinds of feelings. Relief that we’d done it. Excitement about what the future would bring. Sorrow that many of those who battled and fought so hard to keep the club alive passed away before they got to see the day when all those efforts were rewarded so gloriously. The overriding emotion though was joy. Sheer, unbridled joy. Hughton was responsible for all that. Not just bringing happiness to an entire football club, but an entire city and county as well.
The manic celebrations that followed revealed one of his other great character traits – his humility. Google image search ‘Brighton promotion celebrations’ and it throws up countless pictures of the pitch invasion, the players in the Directors Box, Tony Bloom and Paul Barber in the stands. You’ll struggle to find one photo of Hughton though. He slipped away from the stage silently with his job done, letting his players and chairman have the limelight. A class act, always.
Now you’ve read our top 10 Chris Hughton moments, why not test your knowledge of the Hughton Era with this weeks WAB Friday Quiz which features 20 question on the last four-and-a-half-years under his management?
