Today marks the 40th anniversary of a famous Albion victory as Jimmy Melia’s Wembley-bound side beat Manchester City 4-0 in a fourth-round FA Cup tie at the Goldstone, the team’s biggest win of the season.
It was also a result that suggested that the so-called 'Magic of the Cup' was very real for the Albion that year. After a 3-0 drubbing of Norwich City in Melia’s first game in charge on December 11 1982, the team would not win another League match until March, while Newcastle United, City and then Liverpool were all beaten in cup ties over the same period.
A week earlier, Albion had lost 4-2 at home to promoted Luton Town in an exciting but frustrating match, but Melia made only two changes for the visit of City, replacing Graham Pearce and Peter Ward with Steve Gatting and Andy Ritchie.
Albion went ahead after only eight minutes when Jimmy Case’s shot from well outside the South Stand penalty area took a deflection off City’s Kevin Reeves and looped over goalkeeper Joe Corrigan. Steve Foster almost made it 2-0 with a firm header from a corner, but Corrigan made a fine finger-tip save to push the ball over the bar.
Albion, though, would not be denied and when Corrigan could only parry Ritchie’s powerful low drive nine minutes before half-time, Neil Smillie was on hand to prod the ball into the empty net and score his first goal since joining the club from Crystal Palace in a player-exchange deal for Gary Williams.
In the second half, Albion survived a scare when Steve Kinsey hit a fierce shot that beat Graham Moseley only to hit the post before Tony Grealish created the best goal of the match in the 70th minute. The Ireland midfield player tricked his way past a couple of challenges before flicking the ball through for Robinson to finish first-time. The rout was complete with a minute to go when Gordon Smith sent Robbo through to guide the ball past Corrigan and into the far corner.
The defeat was the final straw for City manager John Bond, who resigned afterwards. He had taken the club to Wembley in his first season in charge, losing to Tottenham in a memorable final replay in 1981, but he later confessed that he hated bringing teams to the Goldstone, where he seldom enjoyed good fortune.
But perhaps he should have checked his Albion-City history before quitting. It may seem difficult to believe in these days of City’s dominance of the Premier League, but this was the third time in four seasons in the top flight that Albion had put four goals past the men from Maine Road, as they were then.
The first occasion was on December 29 1979, as Alan Mullery’s team followed up their 3-0 Boxing Day victory over Crystal Palace with a 4-1 win over Malcolm Allison’s City, Ray Clarke scoring twice, Ward grabbing one and Gerry Ryan dribbling the length of the field before rolling in the fourth.
Mike Bailey’s team repeated the score against Bond’s team on October 3 1981, Robinson, Ritchie (2) and Williams scoring. And finally, Melia’s Cup fighters completed a notable hat-trick – although City took their revenge later in the season with a 1-0 Goldstone victory that sent Albion down to the second division and summed up the season: Albion could do very little wrong in the Cup and very little right in the League.
An interesting footnote is that Corrigan was the goalkeeper beaten four times on all three occasions, so naturally Albion ended up signing him, and he went on to make 42 of his 686 career league and cup appearances for us.
He remembers that cup tie at the Goldstone particularly well, as it effectively ended his City career, although not because of his performance for City that day. “My understudy at City, Alex Williams, had come down with the team and as I came off the field I said to him, ‘The jersey’s yours now’, he later told this website. “The chairman had been pinning his hopes on an FA Cup run to get some money into the club. I was maybe the highest-paid player at the time with one or two like Trevor Francis having already left. He wanted me to go because the club couldn’t afford my wages.”
After 16 years at City, during which he played 602 games and won nine England caps, Joe left the North West of England for the Pacific North West of the United States to join the Seattle Sounders. However, he found that the North American Soccer League [NASL] was not the glamorous competition it had been when Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and George Best had filled ballparks and NFL stadiums.
In September 1983, Albion offered him a way back into the British game and a chance to play in front of five-figure crowds again. “The Seattle manager, Laurie Calloway, was a very good friend of Jimmy Melia, and they did the deal between them. Mike Bamber, the Brighton chairman, came over on a Wednesday and I signed on the Thursday.”
His new teammates at The Goldstone included Case, Smillie, Ryan, Foster, Grealish, Smith, Gatting, Terry Connor, Danny Wilson and Eric Young. “They were fantastic players and a great bunch of lads to work with and to play with as well,” Joe says.
“They had gone down from the old first division the season before as well as going on after beating City to reach the Cup Final, and on another day could have won it. They were still not far off the team that got to the final, although one or two had possibly passed their absolute peak. It was a lovely club to play for and a fabulous place to live.”
And he found himself on the right end of a battling FA Cup performance as the next season as Albion, now in the second division, beat Liverpool 2-0 at the Goldstone, Ryan and Connor scoring the goals while Joe kept the mighty Reds out at the other end. “It was like the Battle of the Alamo at one stage but that was what you were there for,” he said. “The lads had also beaten Liverpool in the Cup the season before so they knew what to expect and everybody battled well.”