Brian Horton recalls the game that clinched Albion’s place in the top flight for the very first time – a 3-1 win at Newcastle United.
Albion embarked on their journey to Tyneside with a sense of expectancy – and they had every reason to be confident. The Seagulls had lost just one of their previous 15 games on the road to promotion, while the Newcastle of May 1979 hardly bears comparison with the Toon of today.
The Mags were sitting mid-table with nothing to play for, but their arch-rivals Sunderland, also in the Second Division, still had a chance of going up. As a result, many United fans turned up at the game to cheer Albion on! But would their players simply roll over for us? Unlikely, with many playing for their futures.
Albion boss Alan Mullery knew this, and in order to guard against any complacency, he headed to the north-east with his squad a full five days beforehand, to prepare properly. The squad also took in United’s midweek game against Bristol Rovers, which they won 3-0. It was, in hindsight, the perfect result. Come the big day, none of Mullery’s players would be treating the opposition lightly.
“We travelled to Newcastle, watched the game, played golf on the Thursday and trained on Friday,” recalled skipper Horton. “Alan [Mullery] wanted to get us in as relaxed a frame of mind as possible, but we were always confident of getting the job done. We’d come this far, and while St James’ Park was always a tough place to play, we were focused on the task in hand.
“We’d missed out the previous season by the tightest of margins and we realised that it was imperative we made it this time. We knew what was at stake. Nothing was going to get in our way.”
Such was Albion’s determination to finish off the job that they absolutely flew out of the blocks. Horton broke the deadlock in the 12th minute, connecting with a Gary Williams corner, then Peter Ward weighed in with a left-foot shot that squirmed under the body of Newcastle goalkeeper Kevin Carr to make it 2-0. Gerry Ryan hit number three from close range, and it was game over before half-time.
“I managed to score with a near-post header,” ‘Nobby’ recalled. “When I think about it even now, I can almost feel the ball hitting my head. It is probably the most important goal I ever scored and it gave us the perfect start.
“Peter and Gerry then gave us a commanding half-time lead and although Newcastle pulled one back in the second half, we’d done enough with our superb performance before the interval to see the game out.”
Newcastle’s consolation goal came from Alan Shoulder with ten minutes remaining, but Albion held on comfortably as the party, attended by nearly 10,000 travelling fans, began in the Leazes End. Albion were going up and Sunderland were staying down, which was something all sides of the ground could actually get behind!
Having showered, changed and downed several glasses of bubbly, Albion’s players made their way to Newcastle’s central station to join the train back to Brighton.
“The champagne hardly stopped flowing all the way from Newcastle to Brighton,” added Horton. “There were hundreds of fans on the train as well, so the atmosphere was marvellous.
“When we arrived back at Brighton late into the night, there were thousands of people to greet us at the station and there were memorable celebrations when we went round the town the next day.”
Unlike today, players from clubs finishing second and third did not get a medal for their promotion exploits, but Horton did have a memento that followed him around at the time – a lucky charm in the shape of a sphinx that he kept on a keyring. Naturally, it accompanied him to St James’ Park.
“One of our supporters handed it to me, saying that the sphinx would bring me good luck. That night we played at Lincoln [in the Third Division] and Steve Piper, who was with me at the time, and myself each scored a goal.
“It became my lucky sphinx and it stayed with me throughout my time at the club. Whenever I looked at the sphinx, it always reminded me of the success we had, and that day at Newcastle United.
“It was a great season, but that game is the one I remember most, more than any of the ones played at the Goldstone. I did score the first goal that day, and I always tended to remember the games I scored in – and what an important goal it proved to be!”