It was 25 years ago today that Liz Fleet played the last post in front of the run down South Stand as Brighton and Hove Albion ended their 95-year tenure at the Goldstone Ground in Hove.
They won a now famous 1-0 victory over Doncaster Rovers with that iconic Stuart Storer goal which gave the Albion that chance to secure their Football League status which, thankfully, they took.
Without the win at home to Doncaster and the infamous draw at Hereford a week later, it is doubtful that Brighton and Hove Albion would be in existence now let alone in the Premier League.
The Goldstone was such a welcoming yet rundown and almost ramshackle stadium, set amid the urban sprawl of central Hove, surrounded then by huge Edwardian houses and mainly factories and car showrooms.
You could the see glow of the evening floodlights from Hangleton and that northern part of Hove around the Greyhound stadium and the well to do homes behind Hove Park and the rising gradient of the Goldstone Valley.
The lights often shone when the reserves were playing, adding a surreal mystery of a dark or foggy evening as to why the light were shining and what stars of the future were trying to make a good impression on the Goldstone pitch. Some eventually got it Wright!
Many superstars trod the Goldstone turf from Bobby Charlton for Preston in the 1970s to Kevin Keegan for Newcastle in the 80s. Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker played in Graham Moseley’s testimonial in 1990 – and a World Cup superstar Toto Schillachi appeared for Italy B against England there in 1989.
And let’s not forget David Beckham on his debut for Manchester United in 1992, or those Albion greats – Peter Ward, Mark Lawrenson, Steve Foster and Tommy Cook.
Kevin Davies, who played at the Goldstone for Chesterfield in 1995, amazingly also played against Albion at Withdean for Southampton actually on 11 September 2001. He then played for Bolton at the Amex in 2012.
The last match, remembered fondly by so many today, is all but forgotten by a majority of Hove dwellers that Saturday evening back in 1997. Then, the town didn’t seem to care for Brighton and Hove Albion as much as it does today.
Sometimes, should you walk down Poynings Drive or similar on a spring or early autumn evening and Sussex cricketers have a match under the lights at Hove – just for a second, if you are a touch disoriented, you might just to think to yourself, who are the reserves playing tonight I wonder.
