[Albion] Happy Kelvin Morton Day!

[brighton terra]

What an eventful game that was! Shame about the result.

When Brighton played Palace and the referee gave five penalties in 27 minutes

Ian Wright, Mark Bright and John Pemberton all missed penalties for Palace but they still won (thanks to a penalty)

www.theguardian.com

 

[Easy 10]

I was there, and was absolutely FURIOUS at the time.

But having revisited this game on YouTube, if I slip the blue-tinted specs down my nose a bit, I don't think we could really argue with any of the penalty decisions. We were shockingly reckless in our own box, and it was pretty clear this bloke was giving everything. The dodgiest pen was the one he awarded to us IMO (with Curbs showing the scum exactly how to dispatch it).

One of the most surreal games I have ever seen.

 

[Eric Youngs Contact Lens]

Me too... ours was the only questionable one! Poor day all around..

 

[Mackenzie]

At least it was sunny.

 

[TottonSeagull]

I seem to remember the groundsman coming up our end (which was an open terrace where the Holmsdale is now) at half time and painting the penalty spot!!! Strangest game ever!

 

[Guinness Boy]

I used to write a column for The Albion Mag around "classic" away days. The running joke was that, of course, there was nothing classic about them (thus I crowbarred in a reference to a pub in Doncaster in the first one and reviewed our 5-0 thrashing at Norwich in the Zenith Data Cup in front of 47 travelling fans).

For TAM10 I wrote about the five pens game. Having just checked the old site I don't think an online version was ever made so I've pasted my unedited offering below. Apologies to @Soul Finger if there's an online version anywhere. I'm also not sure if 10 was ever published - it was around that time that we stopped. Anyway, five penalties.......

It will have escaped almost no one’s notice that our promotion to the Premier League, whilst meaning lots of other things like more money than you could possibly imagine and no weekend home games in November, also meant renewing game with “them up the road”. There have been some memorable meetings in the past for both teams. No one reading this will want to remember the 5-0 drubbing at Selhurst or the playoff defeat, changing room shenanigans and all. Nor will many Palace fans wish to recall the St Patrick’s Day massacre or the night Paul McShane scored the only goal to give us a win up there. And then there was the time I watched our 3-2 defeat at Withdean in a Scottish chip shop in Taipei, Taiwan with a Palace fan and a Glasgow Rangers fan. But none of these were as strange as the five penalties affair.

Let me take you back to March 1989. A Palace side that contained Mark Bright, Ian Wright and Alan Pardew, among others, were pushing for promotion. We’d beaten them at the Goldstone earlier in the season, however and so eighteen year old me and my mate Adam were quite bullish on the train up to Nigel Land. Sure they had Wright and Bright but we had Nelson and Bremner. And, er, Mike Trusson.

No tickets needed in those days. Just pile on to the dilapidated terraces until they could take no more (soberingly, this was a month before Hillsborough) and sing. Me, Adam, a couple of thousand others who didn’t mind the very real danger of a fight breaking out at any minute, and an inflatable banana. That’s how it was.

These days, with football transmitted in to our front rooms seemingly non-stop, everyone knows the big referees. There are some, of course, who make it all about themselves, Andre Mariner apparently refers to himself as Dre. Craig Pawson has that weird aversion to overhead kicks. Hoops supports Bournemouth. And then there’s Mike Dean. But back in the day I never used to check the ref’s name in the programme, let alone know who he was. Yet this referee’s name has never left me – Kelvin Morton. He could give Dean a lesson in showing off.

When you’re playing against your local rivals – especially when they’re having a good season and have a front two like Wright and Bright – you do not want to make a bad start. We made about as poor a start as possible. The game had barely started and we were still singing strong-worded songs of rivalry as I looked up to see the afore-mentioned Bright clean through. How he missed I’ll never know. Then it was time for Kelvin to take centre stage.

Out came the cards. First a yellow for Dean Wilkins, never the strongest tackler as evidenced by the sobriquet “Wendy Wilkins”. Then, worse. Morton sent off Brighton’s Mike Trusson for sneezing, or possibly looking at him funny. We were down to ten men. And, in the midst of all that, Wright put them ahead with an incredible dipping shot from almost out on the touchline. One man down and one goal down early doors.

Then it started to get really weird. Palace were awarded a penalty for being a nice South London team with Ian Wright in them and Mark Bright stuck it away. Two nil down now and Adam and I were not so bullish. Then two more Palace penalties. As I recall these were for actual challenges, but I was already watching through my fingers. Incredibly Bright stepped up again for the first and John Keeley saved the spot kick. We all know from school that you can’t take again once you’ve missed so Wright had the second. He hit the post. Somehow we made it to half time only two down.

Morton had clearly not had enough attention in the first half since the second half began with him awarding Brighton a penalty because he liked Kevin Bremner’s hair. Curbishley stepped up to take and slammed it in the corner. We slammed down the terraces in a surge. Could we come back?

No we couldn’t but one last piece of hilarity remained. Morton gave the game’s fifth penalty, penalising Keith “Keith, Keith” Dublin for wearing a yellow away shirt and Palace inexplicably handed the ball to their right back. It entered the home end at pace, where it remains today, forlornly dressed in black, with its own little drum.

2-1 then. 2-1 to them (spit). The usual argy bargy outside. But this was a derby game that many others still talk of too. The game that had five penalties, three of them missed. I was there.

 

[herecomesaregular]

My first Selhurst game. Fueled the rivalry personally for me. To this day, never forgotten his name (even used him as a password in the past!).

edit - thanks for the report above, I'd forgotten we were down to 10! Also, I used to love Keith, Keith, Keith Dublin. Miss the old simple songs haha.

 

[Dinner with Gotsmanov]

Remember the day so well, it was a scorcher and I think it was Easter Monday?

From memory of seeing the highlights long, long ago (sure I’ve seen it posted on NSC before, but no idea how to track it down let alone post it) I agree that the most contentious pen was our one. Also recall that Morton had an odd little routine when awarding the pens but can’t recall details.

Hopefully some one more tech savvy than me can dig out the video and upload it…?

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

 

[Gazwag]

Funny I can remember the Ryan broken leg match better

 

[maresfield seagull]

Vague memories of every time they had possession in our half up went the shout PENALTY( in the OLE style of today )
from our end Mocking the madness of it all

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Extraordinary game, still vivid in the memory. The penalty saga made all the more dramatic by Mr Morton's mad sprint to the by-line each time he awarded a spot-kick. Hard to believe it only finished 2-1. Scoreline could have been anything. In the second half it felt surreal that we were still in the game.
Is 5 pens in a game still the record? Struggle to believe it has even been matched, let alone beaten.

 

[brighton terra]

35 years ago.

Happy Kelvin Morton Day!

 

[Questions]

I was with Harty and Hanksy that day. We all reported an illness at two minute intervals to get up The Whitehorse end (St Johns box) to see us attack in the 2nd half. When we got our penalty we all felt better. It was funny reading what illnesses had been written down by BHA fans in their little book in the hut. Ian was having a stroke whilst Hanksy had severely burnt his tongue on a hot coffee. I can’t believe it’s so long ago.
I got over my dizzy spell soon enough.

 

[Giraffe]

I was there with my inflatable seagull. Crazy crazy game. Although we lost it didn't feel like it in a way because of their ineptitude with penalties.