Iain Baird
Image by: The Argus
PUBLISHED
06:00 15th October 2014
by Kuen-Wah Cheung
Brighton & Hove Albion had an inauspicious start to life in the Second Division in August 1958. Billy Lane’s side lost 9-0 to Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park, with future Albion boss Brian Clough helping himself to five goals. Here’s the unfortunate keeper Dave Hollins’s account of the match in Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly.
Albion also lost the return fixture in a 6-4 goal fest at the Goldstone. Footage was recorded by the BBC with highlights shown that December evening. A scan of the matchday programme can be found on the Seagulls Programmes website.Despite the defeats, Albion recovered to finish in 12th spot, one place above Boro.
A few years later, Billy Lane bought Middlesbrough centre-forward Dennis Windross for £1,000 in November 1960. The striker hit four goals in 21 appearances for his new side. You can see a rare colour photo of him in action against Swansea at the Goldstone in March 1961, one year before Brighton were relegated.
Come the early 1970s, Albion were back in the Second Division, but Albion lost 2-0 to the North East club during a dismal run of 13 successive defeats under Pat Saward. The thoughtful manager wrote in his notes, "The biggest test any club has to face is the way it fights back when playing fortunes have dipped and results have started to go against them."
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Thereafter, the fortunes of the two clubs went in separate directions. In 1973/74, Jack Charlton’s superb Middlesbrough side won the Second Division championship by an incredible fifteen points (under the old system of two points for a win). That season, Albion, struggling in the wrong end of Division Three, appointed Brian Clough and Peter Taylor to form the new managerial team. In his autobiography ‘With Clough By Taylor’, this is how Peter Taylor described the shock move to Brighton.It took until 1979/80 for Brighton and Middlesbrough to be reunited, this time in the dizzy heights of the First Division. The Seagulls eked out a 1-1 draw in November 1979 thanks to Gary Williams’s equaliser before getting a fine 2-1 victory towards the end of the season. Ray Clarke and Peter Ward were both on the scoresheet. In the following match programme, a ‘What The Papers Say’ feature summarised press reports of this success.
Sadly, not much video footage of matches between the two sides seems to exist. There is the 1-0 victory for the Seagulls in February 1990, with Mark Barham’s rocket defeating the club he had left a few months before.
The roles were reversed a season later when Boro’s Ian Baird scored in his side’s 4-2 win at the Goldstone in October 1990.
Baird went on join the Seagulls in July 1996, playing a significant part in Brighton’s battle to stay in the Football League in the season that followed. His biography came out last year.
[h=3]ALBION V MIDDLESBROUGH
[/h]SATURDAY 18TH OCTOber, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]ALBION V ROTHERHAM
[/h]SATURDAY 25th OCTOBER, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]Albion v WIGAN
[/h]tuESDAY 4TH NOVEMber, kick-off 7:45pm
Original article