Match Preview: Bristol Rovers v Brighton

For fans of most clubs, the Camila Cabello Cup is an absolutely pointless exercise unless you reach the latter stages of the competition and suddenly, a Wembley final looms into view.

That’s certainly been our viewpoint over the past couple of years. After all, drawing the likes of Southampton, Plucky Little Bournemouth and Reading in the competition is about as exciting as having a root canal.

But not this year. For once, the draw has come up trumps and given us an away game we can all get behind. Bristol Rovers away is the sort of fixture that can rekindle the love for an otherwise worthless trophy.

Why? Well, Bristol is one of the finest drinking cities in the country for starters. Games with Rovers always seem to have plenty of goals and even more entertainment and then there’s the prospect of seeing a number of fringe and development squad players appearing in a competitive game under Graham Potter for the first time.

Oh, and Chris McPhee once scored an overhead kick at the Memorial Stadium in a League Cup tie. We’ll always love the place, just for that fact.

A brief history of Bristol Rovers
Bristol Rovers started out life as the most racist named football club in history, being formed in 1883 as Black Arabs FC. According to Wikipedia, this was because of the local Arabs rugby team and the predominantly black kits in which they played.

The name only lasted one season and they were subsequently known as Eastville Rovers and Bristol Eastville Rovers before finally settling on Bristol Rovers in 1899. Rovers were Southern League champions in 1905 and joined the Football League in 1920, spending the majority of the last 99 years in the third tier.

Their highest finishing position is sixth in the second tier which was achieved on two occasions in 1956 and 1959. In 1986, financial problems saw Rovers leave their former Eastville Stadium home for Twerton Park in Bath. After 10 years in exile – sounds familiar – they returned to the city to play at the Memorial Stadium, where they have remained ever since despite several failed schemes to leave.

We last played Rovers in the 2010-11 League One title season which seems like a lifetime ago given everything that has happened to the Albion since then. Remarkably, Rovers have been through even more of a roller coaster having gone from third tier into the Conference and then all the way back up again.

Bristol Rovers last season
Rovers finished last season in 15th spot in League One having dispensed with the services of manager Darrell Clarke in December after four years at the helm. Clarke had been the man who led Rovers out of the backwaters of non league football but a run of seven defeats in 10 matches saw him replaced by Graham Coughlan.

Coughlan steadied the Pirates’ ship and they’ve enjoyed a solid start to the new campaign, winning two, losing two and drawing one so far. They hammered League Two Cheltenham Town to reach this stage of the competition and having giant killed the Albion three times in six League Cup fixtures in the past, they’ll fancy their chances of pulling off another shock.

Head-to-head
The most astonishing thing about the fixture is the number of goals it’s produced, averaging over four per game from the 141 meetings to date. Among some of those bonkers scorelines are Brighton 2-8 Rovers (1973), Brighton 6-1 Rovers (1960), Rovers 4-5 Brighton (1959), Rovers 7-0 Brighton (1952), Rovers 5-0 Brighton (1951), Brighton 1-6 Rovers (1946), Brighton 3-4 Rovers (1945), Brighton 6-3 Rovers (1939), Rovers 5-3 Brighton (1932) and Brighton 7-0 Rovers (1927).

Overall, the clubs are locked on 59 wins apiece with 35 draws. We’ve already touched upon Rovers’ record in the League Cup of beating the Albion when a lower division club, which has happened in 1972, 1983 and 2004. That puts them on four wins to Brighton’s two in this competition.

Brighton and Hove Albion’s head-to-head record with Bristol Rovers

Last six meetings
• Bristol Rovers 2-4 Brighton (League One, 05/02/11)
• Brighton 2-2 Bristol Rovers (League One, 20/11/10)
• Brighton 2-1 Bristol Rovers (League One, 24/04/10)
• Bristol Rovers 1-1 Brighton (League One, 26/09/09)
• Bristol Rovers 1-2 Brighton (League One, 21/04/09)
• Brighton 1-1 Bristol Rovers (League One, 16/08/08)

Rovers haven’t tasted victory over the Albion since that last League Cup upset when Mark McGhee’s Championship side lost 2-1 at Withdean to the League Two Pirates in 2004. Since then, we’ve met eight times with Brighton winning four and four draws.

There have been some ridiculously good games in that little run as well. The 4-2 demolition of Rovers in 2011 despite Brighton being nowhere near their best, Russell Slade’s 2-1 win in April 2009 which went a long way towards securing League One survival and Colin Hawkins setting the stall for his Brighton career out early by giving away a ludicrous penalty in a 1-1 draw at Withdean on his home debut are all highlights.

Team news
During his time at Swansea City, Potter took the FA Cup seriously but couldn’t give a toss about the League Cup. What does that mean for his team selection? We’d expect 11 changes anyway, but it might mean he is more inclined to give Under 23s a chance rather than risk his fringe players.

That could be good news for the likes of Aaron Connolly, Tudor Baulta and Taylor Richards. As for other likely starters, Jurgen Locadia might get the chance to put an absolutely atrocious 20 minutes in Saturday’s defeat to Southampton behind him and we could get our first glimpses of Adam Webster and Aaron Mooy from the start.

Most intriguing though will be what happens with Alireza Jahanbakhsh. The Argus reported last week that Potter was considering attempting to convert the Iranian into a wing back as backup for Martin Montoya.

Given that we were constantly told that Jahanbakhsh looked so rubbish last season because Chris Hughton wouldn’t let him attack, using him in a position which requires even more defending seems like a pretty bold move. Where Jahanbakhsh starts will give an indication of what Potter is planning to do with him going forward.

A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Bristol Rovers away
That game under Slade in 2009 still ranks as one of the best away matches we’ve ever seen. Gary Hart rolling back the clock a decade to tear an opposition defence apart, Lloyd Owusu at his clinical best; bloody hell, we even went berserk over a Crystal Palace player when Calvin Andrew popped up with what proved to be the winner.

Nothing summed up that season’s Great Escape better than the scenes at the final whistle though. Slade was running around like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert as the players went mad in front of the tiny away terrace. It was the moment that we actually began to believe that, somehow, Brighton were going to avoid relegation to League Two despite having been eight points adrift of safety with just seven games remaining three-and-a-half weeks previously.

A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Bristol Rovers away
The Albion haven’t lost at the Memorial Stadium in all five of our previous visits there. Our trip to Twerton Park in October 1994 was an absolute shocker though as a crash on the M4 meant the coach not arriving in Bath until half time. That effort was rewarded by a 3-0 defeat.

Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Bristol Rovers
Two of the mainstays of Brighton’s side that tore through Division Three and Division Two between 2000 and 2002 were both signed from Bristol Rovers. Michel Kuipers arrived on a free from the Memorial Stadium in what must rank as one of the Albion’s best ever pieces of business and Bobby Zamora followed shortly after for £100,000 after a blistering six goals in six games on loan four months earlier.

Despite all that though, we’re nominating Adam Virgo. How could you not love a bloke who was a defender-turned-striker, who Celtic inexplicably thought was worth £1.5m and who got into a fantastic Twitter spat with David Stockdale over the goalkeeper’s poor form towards the end of the 2014-15 season?

Plus we see Virgo once every couple of months at Burgess Hill station when we’re pissed on a Saturday. He is yet to accept our invitation for a nightcap in Quench Bar.

What do we like about Bristol?
Bristol is probably the city that you most associate with the great Isambard Kingdom Brunel thanks to his work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Great Western Railway.

It also helped teach the nation the importance of never judging a person’s character based on their looks. When Joanna Yeates was murdered in 2010, most of the country decided that it must have been her landlord Christopher Jefferies who did it, based on the fact that he looked a little bit weird. After Mr Jeffries had been dragged through the gutter by the police and the press, it turned out it was actually her neighbour Vincent Tabak who did it.

Prediction
If Potter plays his fringe players, he could still name a starting lineup costing in excess of £50m. Even if he throws in a couple of Under 23s, many of them are internationals who finished third in Premier League 2 last season and dispatched of Football League clubs in the Checkatrade Checkatrade.com Trophy. You have to fancy the Albion to get the job done, so a 2-1 victory. Followed by another lower league side based in a fine city away from home in the next round, please.