[Albion] Who has been Brightons best ever transfer signing?

[GT49er]

Looked at the options - thought Ward? Zamora? Gross? Caicedo? Big fan of Mac, so maybe him? Mitoma full of exciting promise for the future .................. didn't know which way to turn!
Having read through the posts on here so far, the arguments for Zamora have convinced me - just such a light in the darkest of days. Little ol' Brighton had a player even fans of the PL knew about! So, Bobby for me.

 

[Barnet Seagull]

Paul Holsgrove was a great transfer

 

[Justice]

Well it definitely wasn’t the Coca Cola kid. What a waste.

 

[Mundays Right Foot]

Great thread. Voted for Gross due to (a) recency bias and (b) without him, I don’t think we’d have 6 years in the Premier League.

But really any of those listed are valid.

I’d also nominate Peter Smith for being a bright light at a very low time for the club. Or Stuart Storer likewise.

 

[Mustafa II]

We've had a lot of great deals over the years, particularly recently, but which would you consider to be the best?

 

[Invicta]

Zamora, Ward, Pascal

 

[WhingForPresident]

Chris Haemmerhoid

 

[Pondicherry]

Vicente Rodriguez. Was the best and was free.

 

[perseus]

Mark Lawrenson
Bobby Smith I
Peter Ward

 

[Wardy's twin]

Dunk must have been signed at at sometime....

 

[Seagull58]

Bobby Z for me. Not just for the effect he had on the team/club(which was HUGE) but for the fact that we sold him for about 15 times what we payed for him.

I wasn't around for Ward so I can't comment on him and the effect he had on the club. I'd guess we sold him for considerably more than 15 times what we paid.

The others are all magnificent players(well, maybe not Turienzo...) but none of them are as iconic as either Zamora or Ward and none of them had the same effect on the club as big bad Bobby Z.

We bought Ward for 4,000 and sold him for 400,000

 

[peterward]

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'best ever signing'

Zamora helped transform the club - and made us a bit of money when we sold him on.

Moises will make the club north of £80m

£ for £ though, because I saw him so many times it's Ward for me.

Likewise, I wish all Albion fans could've seen Ward play in those Halcyon days in the late 70's early 80's. He was brilliant.

Not as quite in the "best ever" category, but also worthy of mention are of course Muzza, who was pivotal in getting us out of League 1 under Gus and into the PL under Hughton and both times proved to be an absolute bargain.

Another bargain who scored some memorable goals, Barry Lloyd snagged from Plymouth - Garry Nelson.

 

[Reddleman]

For me it’s Gross, we wouldn’t have survived the first season without his goals and assists, we wouldn’t have made Europe without his goals or assists and both those things were transformative for our club.

It’s not just the volume of goals and assists it’s also how crucial so many of his goals have been. I can’t think of any player who has scored so many critical goals.

 

[AZ Gull]

Dunk must have been signed at at sometime....

In August 2003 at the age of 11 (he had been in the youth system at Wimbledon but after they moved to Milton Keynes he signed for his local club).

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Glenn Murray deserves to be on that list. 300k.

 

[Brighthelmstone]

OGH or Bruno for me

 

[trueblue]

Gross is magnificent and one of the Premier League bargains of all time. Without him though, we’d still have been ok as a club. We needed Zamora more, so he gets the nod. Murray perhaps even more so.

 

[bhafc99]

At a time when we needed attitude, reliability, versatility and specifically value, I'm glad that my wearer has been mentioned in the shortlist.

1998-2011
373 appearances
45 goals

All of that for a grand and a set of tracksuits.

I actually chose my NSC moniker as I imagined Gary Hart's post-match shirt to be always drenched in sweat because he always gave 100%.

A great example for any young player and plenty of wonderful memories along the way that helped us in our journey to now.

Always a 7 out of 10 player on workload alone. Never let us down. Appreciated by all Albion fans.

Oh Gary Hart indeed.

And he shagged Posh Spice.

 

[Nobby]

Brian Horton

 

[est.83]

Well it definitely wasn’t the Coca Cola kid. What a waste.

The kid is 36 now. Wow. CKR wasn't a bad player, had loads of potential and netted Brigthon another 1,5 million (edit: not sure what the fee was, transfermarkt has 1,5 mio, some news outlets have 150k - really don't remember)... so wasn't certainly the worst deal. But of course, the dude had attitude problems - has played for 16 teams (+/-) after moving on from Brighton.


To answer the question though - Caicedo is financially going to be the best transfer of recent decades.