Quite a honest account below which shows the extent of the rivalry,have different memories of that day but they match the account below from a different perspective. I think we are lucky that those days are in the past and hyping the rivalry up is not a very good idea
The Seagulleater
Palace V Brighton 5/4/1980
Got an early start on a Party 7. Sh*t did it taste rank at seven in the morning, but today was a special day, it was Brighton. Arranged to meet a few mates in the buffet bar at East Croydon for 8.30am, so we could have a gander at the Brighton as we thought we might take a pop at a few of the early arrivals.
Arrived at East Croydon at about 8.45am and found my mates at the corner where the post office is. Wondering what the hell they where doing there then, as I got up to them, I turned to where a lot of noise was coming from.
Outside East Croydon, there must of been 200+ hard-looking fuc*ers drinking away and having a laugh amongst themselves. I turned to my mates and said 'Fu*k this, let's go meet the others'.
We had arranged to meet other Palace in the centre of Croydon and along the way little mobs of Palace started to join us and we were turning into quite a tasty sized firm. We had a run-in with some brighton by the Forum pub, which used to be in the whitgift centre.
Give them their due, they never realised how many of us there was, and fought for as long as they could. One of them either jumped or was pushed from the first floor, and I honestly thought he was fuc*ed, but he just picked himself up and ran off towards the rest of the Brighton.
Well we all met up as planned, must of been 250/300 of us now. Imagine the sound of all 300 singing 'We hate Brighton' through the Alders arcade, so we decided to head back to East Croydon and kick it off.
We had all split up in different groups on both sides of George street and somewhere in the road. Big mistake going back to East Croydon as there was hundreds of the scum there well out-numbering us by say three to one.
Still we were up for it and carried on only to be diverted by the Old Bill and sent down Dingwell Road. A few of the BHA saw us and stampeded down towards us, but there were too many plod.
About ten of us dodged the Old Bill and in groups of two and three and headed for the Ralilway Tavern which was oppossite East Croydon Station. The best sight we ever saw over the next hour, was what our rivalry is all about as more and more Brighton kept pouring out of East Croydon Station and just collecting there.
There were so many that most were on the road and in the end the Old Bill closed it. Things were getting a bit uncomfortable where we were, and so we decided our safest bet was to get the fu*k clean out of there.
We dodged our way by using the subway which led us into Cherry Orchard Road. We stopped at the Horse and Groome, which had about 50 Palace in it and told them what we had seen at East Croydon and said we were going to Selhurst and see if we could pick off any BHA on the way.
Some came and some stayed saying that the BHA wouldn't come their way they would be diverted towards west Croydon and on to Whitehorse Road. Much the same at the next pub, The Cherry Orchard, and we went to the last pub, The Leslie Arms, where we decided to have a light ale or two.
About 20 mins later, someone from outside shouted have a look at this. So outside we went, and believe me, I have never seen anything like it in my life.
There were thousands of Brighton comming down Cherry Orchard Road. All you could see was a sea of Blue and white, with a bit of red and yellow mixed in. I felt for the Palace who we saw in the pubs on the way down, 'cos all you could here was glass breaking as the scum went passed. That was a firm and a half.
The Old Bill advised us to move on and to go up to the Wonderloaf, and turn right into Whitehorse Road, and then continue on to the ground. They said all the Brighton where heading this way and they estimated several thousand.
I'm game for most things but fu*k that lot, so we did the right thing and fu*ked off, kept looking around as all you could hear was the BHA. Not only that would you take your eye off of several thousand BHA?
Anyway in the distance we notice a mob of 250, by now we numbered the same so we ran at them, and they ran at us, turned out they were Palace too. So now we numbered around 500, a right nice firm too.
We carried on down Whitehorse Road until we got to the Big Gloucester, that's where the road splits into five ways. No sooner had we reached there, were when we were hit by all five roads, there was Brighton everywhere.
We had no choice but to have it on our toes, and all went out different ways. The Old Bill were soon on the scene, and ordered what was left of us to go straight to the ground.
It was only 1 o'clock too. On getting there, we were the first Palace in the Holmesdale, but also in there were about 50 BHA.
We did what we had to do and run 'em, right down to the pitch, and across they went, for the last big shock of the day, a sea of blue and white, appeared from nowhere in the Whitehorse Lane end and just poured down the terrace.
If they had managed to get across that pitch then I wouldn't be writing this now. As you can imagine there were offs all day and into the night, even went off in Surrey Street Market, but hey that's another story ...
