Southern Alliance League

Brighton & Hove Albion Southern Alliance Overview

The Southern Alliance League was formed in 1912 as the brainchild of Brighton & Hove Albion chairman Peter Vey, who advocated a new midweek competition for Southern League clubs to partake in. Most hadn’t played midweek football since resigning en masse from the Western League in the summer of 1909 and were eager to grasp the opportunities that extra home fixtures would offer.

Nine teams signed up for Southern Alliance’s debut 1912-13 season with the league’s rules stating that club must name at least seven first team players in their starting XIs. Despite the guarantee of near-full strength line ups, the competition never really caught the imagination of the public. Crowds barely crept above 1,000 at the Goldstone Ground and the Albion – despite essentially being the league’s founders – pulled out after two seasons.

The Southern Alliance may not have been the success off the pitch that Brighton had hoped, but the Albion certainly enjoyed themselves on it. In that first 1912-13 season, they finished as runners up to Croydon Common. In 1913-14, they went one better by lifting the title by one point from Luton Town.

Brighton’s first ever game in the competition came away at Southampton on Wednesday 2^nd October 1912. The Saints won 3-1 with the crowd figure at the Dell merely being recorded as “small”. The Albion drew their second game 0-0 with Croydon Common on Saturday 9^th October 1912 and then lost 6-0 away at Luton Town on Saturday 16^th 0ctober 1912.

From that point though, they would go onto lose only four of their next 29 games over two years. The Albion’s improved form after that rocky start came too late for them to overhaul Croydon in the 1912-13 season and they ended the campaign three points behind the champions.

Brighton endured another tough start to their second Southern Alliance season, losing their opening two games against Newport County (0-1) and Luton (0-2). As a result, Jack Robson’s side were never really considered as title contenders until the final few weeks of the campaign.

With four games left to go, they sat third and some way adrift. A stunning late season run however saw the AlbIOn beat Portsmouth (3-0), Cardiff City (4-0), Southend United (4-2) and then the Shrimpers again at the Goldstone on the last day (3-1). Having not topped the table once all year, Brighton found themselves in first place at the season’s conclusion as they pipped Luton to the title in dramatic style.

An overall record of 19 wins, seven draws and six defeats from 32 games meant that Brighton’s time in the Southern Alliance League was an overwhelming success. The defeat to Newport on the opening day of the 1913-14 season was the only time Brighton lost at the Goldstone in the competition and their title winning campaign in particular was full of impressive results, including a 5-0 win over reigning champions Croydon and a 7-0 hammering of Brentford.

That league championship also provided Robson with one final trophy for his impressive collection as Albion boss, going with the Southern League title, the Southern Professional Charity Cup and the FA Charity Shield that he won in 1910. Within six months of Brighton’s withdrawal from the Southern Alliance, Robson was swapping the Goldson for the manager’s job at the mighty Manchester United.