The manager's words hung in the Amsterdam dressing room: "There's 3,000 Brighton fans in this stadium tonight, but there's more than twice that number in the city who have travelled over." Roberto de Zerbi was talking to his players before a Europa League tie with Ajax, one of the powerhouses of European football. A senior club official, a fan first and foremost for almost three decades, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. For most clubs, facing Ajax would be routine. For Brighton, it was a dream. They won 2-0 that night — the high point of the first European campaign in the club's history.
Ask Paul Samrah for his most memorable Brighton moment and he gives a completely different answer. August 2007, the day he heard the club had finally won planning permission for a new stadium. "We'd won our battle," he says. Those two stories capture the before and after of Brighton & Hove Albion, a club founded in 1901 that now celebrates its 125th birthday.
For years, Brighton were known mostly for one thing: "And Smith must score..." — a famous BBC radio call from the 1983 FA Cup final when Gordon Smith's late chance was saved, and Manchester United won the replay. Then, in 1995, chairman Bill Archer sold their home, the Goldstone Ground, to pay mounting debts. Fans were never consulted. Their final season there ended with thousands of furious supporters spilling onto the pitch, snapping both crossbars.
The club played for two seasons 70 miles away at Gillingham, then returned to Withdean Stadium — a running track famous for Olympic gold medallist Steve Ovett — with a capacity of just 6,000. In 1997, Brighton came within 27 minutes of being relegated out of the Football League entirely. "We were just rudderless," Samrah remembers.
Then came the people who saved it: former FA executive David Davies, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who overturned a rejected planning application, and chairman Dick Knight, who stabilised the club. Without them, Brighton might not exist at all.
The modern Brighton is a different world. More than 7,000 fans travelled to Amsterdam that night — more than the whole stadium could hold at Withdean. They play in a magnificent stadium in Falmer, a short train ride from the city, and their model of buying players cheap and selling them for vast profits is the envy of the league. They've just beaten Manchester United at Old Trafford for the fifth time in six visits. At the heart of it all is Tony Bloom, a lifelong fan born in Brighton whose grandfather Harry was a vice-chairman.
Four games into their 10th consecutive Premier League season, they sit fifth. And this season they've already begun a second European campaign, in the Norwegian city of Tromso, chasing that elusive first trophy. From near oblivion to Europe — quite a journey for the Seagulls.