Next Game - Brighton and Hove Albion (home)

Last updated : 09 August 2002 By Tony Scholes

Kerry Mayo
It is just over six years since we last took on the Seagulls but a lot has happened to them since that last encounter. They were relegated to the 3rd Division at the end of the 1995/96 season with just 40 point although that still kept them 9 points above bottom club Hull City.

If that wasn’t bad enough the 1996/97 season was a nightmare and on the last day of the season they were facing the same fate that had threatened us ten years earlier, relegation into the Conference. They had been deducted two points during the season but in the end they escaped with a 1-1 draw at Hereford on the last day of the season surviving only on goals scored as their last day opponents went down.

Things didn’t get better though and they were soon to face an even tougher battle to survive when their Goldstone Ground was sold by the then owner of the club who was based in Lancashire. They did survive and spent time playing at Gillingham before returning to their current home in Brighton, the totally inadequate Withdean Stadium.

The big turn round they needed came in the 2000/01 season when they won the 3rd Division with a convincing 92 points after five year stay in the basement. Not long into the new season in Division Two though they lost their manager Micky Adams who took on the assistant’s job at Leicester to work with Dave Bassett.

This move came after Leicester sacked Peter Taylor who then took the Brighton job. Incredibly after his disastrous run at Filbert Street he again found a side on the up (as he did at Gillingham) and just a year after arriving in the 2nd Division found themselves leaving it with a second successive promotion and a second successive Championship.

Bobby Zamora
Taylor went shortly after the end of the season when he realised he wouldn’t have a fortune to spend and after long deliberation they promoted youth team coach Martin Hinshelwood to the top job with Bob Booker continuing as the number two.

This brings them to the Turf for their first game at this level since 1988 after a period that had seen them hit the heights with top level football and an FA Cup Final appearance.

Probably the best known player at Brighton is striker Bobby Zamora. Saturday will be the second anniversary of his arrival at Brighton from Bristol Rovers for £100,000. In those two years he has scored 56 goals in 84 league appearances and another 7 in ten cup ties.

Alongside him in the squad will be three players who have made significant contributions in games against the Clarets in the past. Defender Danny Cullip scored the only goal of the game against us when he was with Fulham, the 1-0 defeat shown live on Sky during the Waddle season. Richard Carpenter was the player involved in the incident that saw Glen Little sent off at Cardiff during our promotion season and Robbie Pethick was himself sent off against us on the day that referee Keith Hill completely lost the plot at Bristol Rovers.

Just like the Clarets there will be no new signings on view for Brighton so we can just look back at the side that played in their last league game a 1-0 win at Port Vale on the last day of last season. Somewhat surprisingly the goal was scored by Paul Watson and not Bobby Zamora.

The team was: Will Packham, Paul Watson, Kerry Mayo, Simon Morgan, Danny Cullip, Richard Carpenter (David Lee 63), Charlie Oatway, Paul Brooker, Nathan Jones, Wayne Gray (Paul Rogers 73), Bobby Zamora (Robbie Pethick 82).

From that side Simon Morgan is no longer with the club and Wayne Gray was on loan from Franchise FC.

He played for both

This season rather than mention a number of players who have played for both clubs we will feature just one. On this occasion we will take a look at a player who became Burnley’s most expensive player when he signed from Brighton in 1995 – KURT NOGAN.

Kurt started his career with Luton Town and his first team debut was at Anfield and he managed to score. He never established himself at Kenilworth Road though and after a short period with Peterborough he moved to Brighton where he became an instant success.

His first season brought him 20 league goals in just 30 appearances and in both matches against Burnley he scored twice as we went down 3-0 at the Goldstone Ground and 3-1 at the Turf. There were 22 goals the following season and again he scored against the Clarets at Brighton in a 1-1 draw.

The 1994/95 season saw him score eight goals in the first nine games and then he didn’t score in the next seventeen. It was then that Jimmy Mullen paid some £350,000 for him as we tried to avoid relegation. We didn’t and Nogan was not an instant hit.

It was the 1995/96 season that saw him become a Turf Moor favourite and it was our turn to get 20 league goals from him in a season including one against Brighton. Without his goals that season we would probably have been facing football in the basement again.

The next season saw it all go sour with a very public fall out with Adrian Heath the manager. For a time the fans were on Kurt’s side but as off field stories filtered through most were glad to see the back of him when he went to Preston.

There is no doubt that he always saved his Preston performances for games against us and the goals came with monotonous regularity. The more stick he got from the crowd the better he did and none more so than the only goal of the game in March 1999, the first game after the City debacle at the Turf.

He eventually went home to Cardiff City, his birthplace, but he never made an impact for the club he supported and was released at the end of last season.

You will never hear a good word for him now at Turf Moor but we should remember that for a season or so he did a great job for the Clarets.

Previous league results from the last 20 years

Season

Div

Ven

Result

Att

Scorers

a

1992/93

2

h

1-3

9,424

Conroy

a

0-3

8,741

1993/94

2

h

3-0

8,837

Russell(2) Davis

a

1-1

8,021

Davis

1995/96

2

h

3-0

9,016

Eyres Swan Nogan

a

0-1

5,954

Last Time in the League

Burnley 3 (Eyres, Swan, Nogan) Brighton and Hove Albion 0 – Saturday 21st October 1995, Endsleigh Insurance League Division 2

This game came during our best spell of the season when not only were we picking up home points but were also collecting them away from home, a rare event during most of the 1990s.

The week before we beaten Bournemouth away 2-0 for our fist away win of the season and the two games after brought four more points from away games.

This was the home game in the sandwich and we went into it in seventh place in the league with 15 points from 12 games whilst Brighton were next to bottom with just 9 points.

There is no doubt that this game went to form and it was probably the easiest game of the season as we simply took the struggling Seagulls apart in a first half attacking the Bee Hole End.

It was David Eyres, then playing as a central striker, who gave us the lead with his fourth goal of the season and it was 2-0 shortly afterwards when Peter Swan scored his first ever Burnley goal. He went on to score in three successive games.

Poor Brighton really were all at sea and right on half time came the third courtesy of Kurt Nogan who run onto a ball on the right hand side before sliding it past the visiting keeper.

The only surprise was the fact that there were no more goals in the second half and we had to settle for a 3-0 win. The three points took us into fifth place and one of the play off positions although eventually we were to fight a relegation battle of our own.

The Clarets included loan player Paul McDonald from Southampton and he went on to sign for Brighton later in the season whilst a familiar name the visitor’s line up was that of former Ipswich and England defender Russell Osman.

The teams were,

Burnley: Marlon Beresford, Gary Parkinson, Chris Vinnicombe, Peter Swan, Mark Winstanley, Gerry Harrison, Ted McMinn (John Francis), Warren Joyce, David Eyres, Kurt Nogan, Paul McDonald (Jamie Hoyland).

Brighton: Nicky Rust, Peter Smith, George Parris, Dean Wilkins, Russell Osman, Paul McCarthy, Stuart Storer, Junior McDougald, Stuart Myall, Denny Mundee, Jeff Minton (Philip Andrews).

Referee: Mr. K J Breen