When pre-season tours go wrong: The Battle of Longford

Ireland was a favourite haunt of Micky Adams. Every pre-season, he would pack off whoever he was managing at the time for a pre-season tour of the Emerald Isle featuring an intensive training camp and a few games against local League of Ireland teams.

It normally proved to be a good starting point for a successful season as well. Adams’ 1996-97 Fulham side won promotion from the bottom tier after such a trip.

Brighton went one better in the 2000-01 campaign by lifting the Division Three title 10 months after they had made the trek across the Irish sea.

Unsurprisingly, Adams took his Seagulls squad back to Ireland in the summer of 2001. Games with Sligo Rovers, Longford Town and Athlone Town were scheduled in.

Three fixtures against decent opposition to give the Albion a good test ahead of their first Division Two campaign for five years. Or so we thought.

The first friendly game ended in a 1-0 defeat to Sligo. The second friendly game did not make it past 44 minutes as Brighton players nearly came to blows, three men were sent off and Charlie Oatway managed to spark a 40 man brawl involving both teams, coaching staff and even the Longford chairman.

The Battle of Longford has taken on an almost mythical status in Albion history. You can only imagine the furore that would surround it if it took place in the social media age, where camera phones would have been trained on Oatway the moment he began chasing 30 yards down the pitch to have a ‘polite word’ with a Longford player.

But because this was 2001, we look back on it almost misty eyed. Adams’ team of no-nonsense footballers standing their ground and giving anyone in sight a good kicking. Including each other.

That was the first sign that this was going to be an interesting afternoon. Matt Wicks and Richard Carpenter were the two men who nearly had a full on punch up before Adams substituted Carpenter with just 15 minutes played to try and cool the situation.

Their barney came about when Wicks played what felt like his 12th misplaced pass in a quarter of an hour, much to the displeasure of most of his teammates. Their mood had not been helped by going 1-0 behind inside of 120 seconds to a header from Sean Prunty.

Longford were clearly up for a fight, probably because they were smarting after being embarrassed 4-1 by Cardiff City a few days earlier.

Andy Crosby got elbowed off the ball by Longford’s Eric Levine and Wicks decided to try and decapitate Levine in retaliation.

Wicks was subsequently substituted as well before he got sent off. Paul Rogers scored a 30 yard thunderbolt to level things up on 22 minutes but the game did not calm down after that.

In fact, it got even worse to the point where Paul Brooker – a man who would not say boo to a goose – found himself getting booked. Paul Brooker. Booked. Just think about that for a second.

The real fun was only just beginning though. When Adams had hauled Carpenter to prevent him knocking Wicks’ teeth out, he sent Steve Melton on in Carpenter’s place.

Writing in his brilliant autobiography My Life in Football, Adams said he gave Melton: “Specific instructions to give the lad who was booting our players up in the air a taste of his own medicine. Make sure he knows you are around.”

That lad was midfielder Alan Reynolds and by the 44th minute, he certainly knew Melton was around. That’s when the Albion midfielder put in the worst tackle of the game – which is saying something – on his Longford counterpart, a terrible flying lunge at waist height that would not have looked out of place on an episode of Crimewatch.

Longford were incensed and so began a mass brawl in the middle of the pitch as blows and insults were traded in front of around 500 very bemused onlookers.

Melton was sent off for the tackle. Longford’s Alan Murphy and Oatway were dismissed for their part in the melee. It is fair to say things were getting out of hand, not helped by referee Dermot Tone, who had only stepped in to officiate the game at the last minute because senior Irish referees were at a seminar.

That just added to the farce. Here were two teams, one from the top tier of Irish football and the other from the third tier of English football, involved in a huge punch up with a 25 stone referee who normally took charge of what was effectively the Irish Sunday League trying to restore order.

Needless to say, Mr Tone was unable to do that – and things were about to get a whole lot worse. Murphy was by now making his way off the pitch to the changing rooms situated down a gravel path about 100 metres behind one of the goals when Oatway decided to tear after him.

The Albion players saw what was about to happen and so all went chasing after Oatway. The Longford players joined the race to the changing room and before you knew it, bodies and fists were flying everywhere.

Longford boss Stephen Kenny was calling Adams a disgrace, Adams was telling him to fuck off. Even the Longford chairman was getting involved, with one of the better rumours about the battle being that he got inadvertently punched in the face by one of his own players.

Meanwhile, Mr Tone was still stood in the middle of the pitch blowing for half time. He need not have bothered. Once Adams finally managed to get his players into the changing room, he decided that enough was enough, telling them, “Well done lads, get your gear on, we are out of here.”

And out of there they were. Adams pulled the plug on the final game of the tour with Athlone and the Albion instead flew home.

Brighton never returned to Ireland after that. The tour did however prove to be as successful as all of Adams’ other visits – 10 months after the Battle of Longford, the Albion were crowned Division Two champions.