Brighton and Hove Albion

Also written as Brighton.

The club

Brighton and Hove Albion were founded on 24 June 1901 and are based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Since 2011 they have played at Falmer Stadium, known commercially as the American Express Stadium after a naming deal announced on 22 June 2010 and universally called the Amex. It opened on 30 July 2011 with a friendly against Tottenham Hotspur. Capacity has stood at 31,800; extra seats behind the goals take it to about 32,500 for 2026/27 according to The Argus, and Wikipedia's stadium page now lists 32,500. The club are the Seagulls, or simply the Albion, and play in blue and white striped shirts.

Recent seasons

Brighton have been a Premier League club since promotion in 2017. They finished 15th in 2019/20 with 41 points and 16th in 2020/21 with 41. Ninth in 2021/22 with 51 points was then the highest finish in the club's history, and it was beaten immediately: sixth in 2022/23 with 62 points, qualifying for European football for the first time. That took them into the 2023/24 Europa League, where they reached the round of 16 and were knocked out by Roma; domestically they were 11th with 48 points. They were eighth in 2024/25 with 61 points, not enough for Europe, and eighth again in 2025/26 with 53 points: 14 wins, 11 draws, 13 defeats, 52 scored and 46 conceded. The home and away split was stark, nine wins at the Amex against five on the road. That finish qualified them for the Conference League play-off round.

Honours and landmarks

Brighton have never won a major national trophy. Their honours are the Southern League title in 1909/10, the FA Charity Shield in 1910, the Third Division South title in 1957/58, the Fourth Division title in 1964/65 and the League One title in 2010/11. They were Championship runners-up in 2016/17, which brought promotion to the Premier League, and FA Cup runners-up in 1982/83. The Charity Shield was won 1-0 against the Football League champions Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge on 5 September 1910, Charlie Webb scoring with 18 minutes left. The 1983 FA Cup final ended 2-2 with Manchester United, Gordon Smith and Gary Stevens scoring, and produced the commentary line "and Smith must score" when Smith was through in the last minute of extra time; United won the replay 4-0. Brighton were relegated from the First Division the same season. Highest league finish is sixth, in 2022/23.

The near-death years define the club's modern identity. The Goldstone Ground was sold and the last match there was a 1-0 win over Doncaster Rovers on 26 April 1997; a week later, on 3 May 1997, a 1-1 draw at Hereford United with a 62nd-minute Robbie Reinelt equaliser kept Brighton in the Football League and put Hereford out after 25 years. Dick Knight, a lifelong supporter, took control of the club in 1997. Brighton then played two seasons of home matches at Gillingham's Priestfield Stadium, more than 70 miles from the city, before moving into the Withdean Stadium athletics track in 1999 and staying there until 2011.

Record appearances belong to Ernie "Tug" Wilson, 566 matches between 1922 and 1936. Tommy Cook is the official record scorer with 123 goals in 209 appearances between 1922 and 1929. The record fee received is £100m for Moises Caicedo to Chelsea in August 2023. The record fee paid is £46m for Luka Vuskovic from Tottenham Hotspur in July 2026, with add-ons taking it towards £50m, surpassing the £42.5m paid to Leeds United for Georginio Rutter in August 2024.

Notable scorelines

Record attendance at the Goldstone Ground was 36,747 against Fulham on 27 December 1958. The Amex record is 31,872 against Luton Town in the Premier League on 12 August 2023; these are separate records and the Amex figure is not a club record. Record win in all competitions is 14-2 against Brighton Amateurs in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup on 4 October 1902. Record league win is 9-1 against Southend United in Division Three on 27 November 1965. The heaviest defeat is 0-18 against Norwich City in a wartime fixture on 25 December 1940; the record competitive league defeat is 0-9 at Middlesbrough in Division Two on 23 August 1958. From 2025/26, the biggest wins were both 6-0 in the EFL Cup, away at Oxford United on 27 August 2025 and away at Barnsley on 23 September 2025. The heaviest defeats were 0-3 at Liverpool in the FA Cup fourth round on 14 February 2026 and 0-3 at home to Manchester United on 24 May 2026, the latter in front of the season's biggest home crowd of 31,729. Danny Welbeck was top scorer with 14 goals in all competitions.

Head-to-head notes

Brighton do not publish all-time head-to-head records on their own site. The one series with a published all-time record is the M23 derby with Crystal Palace, the club's defining rivalry: as of 8 February 2026 the clubs had met 145 times, Palace winning 52, Brighton 51, with 42 draws. The sides first played in 1905 but the animosity dates from the mid-to-late 1970s, when Terry Venables at Palace and Alan Mullery at Brighton took both clubs from the Third Division to the First within three years. The last three meetings: Palace won 2-1 at Selhurst Park on 5 April 2025, the sides drew 0-0 at Selhurst Park on 9 November 2025, and Palace won 1-0 at the Amex on 8 February 2026. Brighton have not beaten Palace in their last three attempts.

For every other 2026/27 opponent, no reliable published all-time series record could be established, and any such figure should be treated as unverified. That includes the three promoted clubs, Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City, none of whose recent meetings with Brighton could be confirmed from the sources read.

Right now (2026/27)

Fabian Hurzeler is head coach, appointed on 15 June 2024 from FC St Pauli at the age of 31, then the youngest permanent manager in Premier League history. He extended his contract until June 2029 on 7 May 2026, so he starts 2026/27 in his third season.

Summer business has been heavy in both directions. In: Costinha from Olympiacos for £11m and Zadok Yohanna from AIK for £21.5m, both on 15 June; Pascal Struijk from Leeds United for £15m on 30 June; Rodrigo Rego from Benfica for £3m on 1 July; Michael Svoboda from Venezia for £4.3m on 2 July; and Luka Vuskovic from Tottenham Hotspur on 14 July for a club record £46m plus £4m in add-ons. Out: Jeremy Sarmiento to Middlesbrough for an undisclosed fee on 15 June; Jan Paul van Hecke to Tottenham for £52m on 18 June; Diego Coppola to Paris FC for £16.5m plus £3.5m in add-ons on 16 July. Brajan Gruda has gone on loan to RB Leipzig and Rego straight out on loan to Castellon.

Pre-season began with a 4-1 win over Wycombe Wanderers behind closed doors at the training ground on 18 July, with Strasbourg on 1 August, Roma on 8 August and Bologna on 15 August to follow. Brighton enter the Conference League at the play-off round; the draw is on 3 August 2026, so the opponent is not yet known, with the first leg on 20 August and the second on 27 August. The Premier League season starts on 21 August 2026 and Brighton open at home to Aston Villa on Sunday 23 August at 14:00, the kick-off slot set around the Thursday European tie.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.