Back in the autumn of 1991, Albion were in Division Two of the Football League – the Championship in today’s money – and John Major was in 10 Downing Street lagging in the polls.
Although still six years from the almost total oblivion faced at Hereford, the club were still reeling from losing the play-off final a few months before at Wembley to Neil Warnock’s Notts County.
The Seagulls had a Rumbelows League Cup second round tie against Brentford.
Rumbelows was an electrical goods chain selling, in those days, state-of-the-art devices such as big tellies that extended back for miles into the living room as well as fax machines and Sony Walkmans.
Not having had the greatest start to the season, the Albion were thrashed 4-1 in the first leg at Griffin Park on Tuesday 24 September and were seemingly out of the League Cup (again).
And incidentally, this was the day when Nirvana released their latest album Nevermind.
Two weeks later, on Wednesday 9 October, a resurgent Albion knocked four past an admittedly electively weakened Brentford team in the second leg.
Sadly, however, Brentford scored two to win the tie 6-5 on aggregate.
But the moral of story is that all is not lost, as it might appear, and, believe me, things that last occurred in 1991 could even repeat themselves in 2024.
