And If You Know Your History aims to explain and highlight some of the incidents, matches, people, players, and situations – occasionally weird, occasionally wonderful – that combine to make Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club what it is.
Napoli have just won their first Scudetto (Italian top division) since 1990, when a certain Diego Maradona captained the sky blues to their second title after helping them to their first in 1987.
Loathed and loved in equal measure, the Argentinian midfielder is widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers to ever play the game, lifting the World Cup in 1986 after his infamous ‘hand of god’ goal against England in the quarter finals. His second in that game is considered, by many, to be the greatest goal of all time.
So, it’s understandable that a player of the very highest calibre would therefore be associated with Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club?
In 2005, Maradona – alongside his former team-mate Ossie Ardiles – pondered an investment in the club, on the proviso that a 22,000-seater stadium would be built at Falmer soon.
Former Tottenham Hotspur players Steve Perryman and Paul Miller, who both played alongside Ardiles in the 1980s, brokered the possible deal in the wise belief that the Albion had serious potential.
Mark McGhee was manager at the time and his charges – in kits very similar to Argentina’s – were treading water in the Championship. Coca-Cola Kid Colin Kazim-Richards – so called because a fan entered a competition to win his team a player – finished the season top scorer with six goals. Unsurprisingly, the campaign ended in relegation.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s decision on whether the Albion could build a stadium on the current site was still up the in air as the rumour mill went into overdrive.
But, before supporters could get genuinely excited, chief executive Martin Perry poured water on the fire, “The truth is we have had no contact whatsoever with either Ossie Ardiles or Diego Maradona.
“If anyone did wish to invest in the club then the right way to do it would be via a direct approach to the club in a confidential manner. But that has not happened, so therefore we know nothing about any of this.”
And so ended another bizarre chapter in the history of our wonderful football club.