What happens when Brighton win on the opening day?
Brighton winning on the opening day of the football season is an occurrence that doesn’t happen very often.
Since the turn of the century, the Albion have only managed to kick off a campaign with victory on five occasions. And while three points from the first game of the year leads the majority of us to think we’re in for an excellent season, in actual fact it very rarely works out like that.
Here are the Albion’s opening day wins since the year 2000 and what followed over the course of the remainder of the campaign.
2015-16: Brighton 1-0 Nottingham Forest
The 2014-15 season had been an abysmal one for the Albion with the club only avoiding relegation to League One because there were somehow three worse teams in the Championship in the form of Blackpool, Millwall and Wigan Athletic.
Despite a busy summer under Chris Hughton, not many people were expecting much from the Seagulls in 2015-16 – Brighton fans included. We were all pleasantly surprised then when the Albion beat Nottingham Forest 1-0 in front of the Sky cameras for their Friday night Football League curtain raiser.
Kazenga LuaLua got the only goal of the game five minutes into the second half. That was the start of a record-breaking first four months as Hughton’s men went undefeated for 21 matches right the way through until mid-December when Middlesbrough won 3-0 at the Amex.
Ultimately though, there were too many draws in that sequence as the Albion ended up missing out on automatic promotion to Boro on goal difference. Just one more point would have secured promotion to the Premier League, but instead the campaign ended with a traditional play off semi final defeat, this time to Sheffield Wednesday.
2011-12: Brighton 2-1 Doncaster Rovers
One of the greatest days in Albion history came on the opening day of the 2011-12 season as the Amex opened its doors for the first time for a competitive fixture.
Doncaster Rovers were the visitors and nobody needs reminding about what happened as Will Buckley struck twice – including a 96th minute winner – to deliver a 2-1 win for Gus Poyet’s side.
The Albion would top the early table through September until their first defeat of the campaign which arrived away at Leicester City in game seven. We finished the season in 10th spot, nine points off the final play off position.
2010-11: Swindon Town 1-2 Brighton
The 2010-11 season is the only campaign in the last 20 years that Brighton have been victorious on the opening day and gone onto win a title. Matt Sparrow marked his Albion debut with both goals in a 2-1 win away at Swindon Town, which set the tone nicely for Poyet’s men to go onto dominate League One.
They ended the campaign as worthy champions, winning the championship with four games left to play. It remains one of the most exhilarating seasons we’ve ever had.
2008-09: Crewe Alexandra 1-2 Brighton
After finishing seventh in the 2007-08 season, Dick Knight took the decision to reward Dean Wilkins with that by sacking him in order to bring Micky Adams back to the club for a second spell at the helm.
A 2-1 victory at Crewe Alexandra from the first game of the season offered a lot of early vindication for that decision. The Albion had never won at Gresty Road before and so this was a hugely impressive result, delivered by goals from Adam Virgo – moonlighting as a central midfielder at this point – and Nicky Forster’s 90th minute winner.
Of course, this proved to be a complete false down and just six months later, Adams found himself being fired by Knight in Hickstead’s Little Chef with the club staring League Two in the face. Russell Slade was eventually appointed and pulled off the greatest of great escapes, rescuing the Albion from relegation despite being eight points adrift of safety with just seven games to play.
2003-04: Oldham Athletic 1-3 Brighton
The opening day of the 2003-04 season sent the Albion to Oldham Athletic, which must be the only time we’ve ever gone to Boundary Park and the temperature hasn’t been below -20. The weather in Greater Manchester was in fact glorious and the football more than matched it as Steve Coppell’s side blew away the Latics to win 3-1.
All the goals came from debutants with Leon Knight scoring twice and Darius Henderson netting a penalty. Coppell would be in charge for only 11 more games before being lured to Reading. He left the Albion at the top of Division Two though and Mark McGhee carried on the good work by delivering promotion via the play offs.
2002-03: Burnley 1-3 Brighton
The most overwhelming example of why nobody should be getting too carried away about the 3-0 win at Watford comes from the 2002-03 season opener away at Burnley.
Just like at Vicarage Road, Brighton had a new boss at the helm managing the club for the first time. And just like at Vicarage Road, they scored three times with a devastating display as goals from Paul Brooker, Steve Melton and Bobby Zamora delivered a 3-1 success at Turf Moor for Martin Hinshelwood.
The sky looked to be the limit at that point in time and a 0-0 home draw with Coventry City in the second game of the season maintained the encouraging start.
That was as good as it got though. Brighton wouldn’t taste victory again for another 13 league games, by which point Hinshelwood had been shoved into a Director of Football role with Coppell taking his place.
Despite a huge upturn in performances and results with the former Crystal Palace boss at the helm, the damage had been done and Brighton ended up being relegated on the final day of the season. Fingers crossed that history doesn’t repeat itself for Potter’s Albion this year.
