GUS POYET - Brighton are ready for the Premier League, and I’d love my old team to get there

Gus Poyet gives the lowdown on former club Brighton, the reasons for his departure and his hopes for the future at the Amex Stadium.

My old team Brighton & Hove Albion are flying at the top of the Championship and had a great win at Leeds, where I was once assistant manager, at the weekend.

Brighton have the support, stadium and infrastructure to be in the Premier League and I’m pleased for them.

Chris Hughton is a very good coach as I saw first hand when I played at Spurs and he coached under Glenn Hoddle. We didn’t agree all the time, but we both wanted what was best for Spurs. Chris knows the Championship level from when he got Newcastle promoted and that experience is good for him at Brighton.

As often happens when you move jobs, I can’t pretend that all ended well between Brighton and me. I was in charge there for four years and as it was my first job in football it will always have a special place in my heart, right from when we beat Southampton away in our first game.

I smile at some great memories, even if some of them got me into trouble. Like when I grabbed the microphone on Brighton sea front to celebrate our promotion from League One and echoed what our fans had been singing. Which was ‘We’re f**king brilliant! We’re f**king brilliant!’

There was a complaint, probably from the only person not singing, and I received a very stern letter from the Football League. I shouldn’t have sworn like that as there were kids around, but I got carried away with the moment and, let’s face it, we were brilliant and that’s why we won the league.

That wasn’t the only ridiculous thing during my time at Brighton, a spell which ended when I found out that I’d lost my job in a BBC television studio. Everyone thought that I found out live on air, but that wasn’t true.

I went into the studio at 7.30pm. All phones were off. Ten minutes later, the club informed my lawyer of their decision. I wasn’t surprised; someone at the club wanted me out. He’d joined the club and wanted change and influence. I felt that I was a successful manager who was doing just fine.

Sir Alex Ferguson said once that the most important thing for a manager is to have total control, and I did have total control at Brighton. But unfortunately that new person at the club didn’t want me to have that control.

Surprisingly, they wanted me to still be responsible for the results in the same way. Sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. Total control equals total responsibility. No control, who is responsible? Shared? People disagree. Fine.

I’d arrived at a club who were 20th in League One and playing in the athletics stadium at Withdean which was limited to 7,000 seats and had changing rooms which were so far from the pitch that when a player needed to have a cut looked it, you knew you’d lose him for half the game. He’d have been quicker going to hospital.

When I left in 2013, Brighton had been promoted and reached the play-offs for the Premier League. Crowds had risen to nearly 30,000 in my final season at the superb Amex Stadium.

Brighton fans had suffered for decades. The older ones talked about FA Cup finals against Man United in 1983 and their old Goldstone Ground, but they’d lost their home and spent years playing away from Brighton before coming back to the city at Withdean.

It was only through the hard work of former chairman Dick Knight that they finally, after years of trying, got the move to the new stadium. Too many people measure owners by how much money they put into a club, Knight should be measured by his effort and determination in bringing the club back to Brighton and building them a new home fit for top class football. Thanks Dick Knight, we’ll always remember you.

I tried to provide that football. My team took some time for fans and players to be convinced but we got it right. My players cared about having the ball and we controlled games.

Teams changed their game when they played against us, which could play havoc with our scouting system as we’d have opponents watched four times before they played us and then they’d play in a completely different manner when they met us.

We scored four or five goals more frequently than other teams in the division. We had players like Vicente, who’d been a star at Valencia. Our captain – and still Brighton captain - Gordon Greer came from Swindon Town and went on to become a Scottish international. Players liked living in Brighton, with its international airport and close links to London and Gatwick.

It was a great club to be at and the end wasn’t nice. It came when we were beaten at home by Crystal Palace, Brighton’s biggest rivals, in a play-off match.

My side had got the better of Palace in a previous matches, then we lost at home. Defeats happen in football. It was horrible to lose to your main rivals, but someone has to lose.

A few days later, I was in the television studio when the presenter got the news in his earpiece. It was uncomfortable for him as he turned to me and said: ‘Gus, I’m afraid you’ve been sacked’. It was soon confirmed on Brighton’s web page. And then I was asked to talk about it live on air.

It was an ugly end to a great love affair; but isn’t it always like that?