Rushden & Diamonds - Away
Season 5 (A) 30/9/03 - 3-1 ~ Butters, Knight, Rehman
Seagulls' fans were chanting, 'you're just a small town in nowhere' and although the run up is devoid of town centre traffic, Rushden is somewhat remote from their ground. Over 4600 supporters got there however, including at least 1200 happy away fans. They have a tidy little ground courtesy of Irthlingborough, with its own watering hole and modern set up. There was an ott police and security presence that seemed unwarranted. The match was not even covered on local radio and Brighton fans thought they were big enough to get a mention there anyway.
Brighton had injury worries beforehand as Cullip now joined long term treatment patients Watson (feet), Oatway (neck), Roberts (back) and cruciate ligament victim Rodger (like Blackwell). Zesh Rehman came in on loan from Fulham and hadn't even practiced with the squad. On quite a nice evening weather-wise, Albion played in black, with that winged white Seagull on their chests picked out by floodlight. For all our competitiveness it appeared the first half would be returned goal-less. However, Butters banged in a strike form a corner just before supper was served. Whatever Steve Coppell said during the break must have resulted in him actually being sent to a stand seat in a tantrum. His impassioned feelings did rub off though when Knight brilliantly put Albion ahead a second time. R&D had previously quickly equalised in the 2nd 45 min to a dubious penalty that Kuipers, apart from his angry manager readily disputed.
Ex-Albion 'reserve' Kitson came on for Diamonds on the hour or so but Butters dealt with him ok. Those two were Hinshelwood signings of a year back and subsequent big disappointments. One was continuing to earn good wages, while the other presumably wasn't. With 15 minutes left Rehman let fly a curler that Brighton fans watched rip into the net below, before mass celebrations spontaneously erupted. Kuipers had a great game and we looked a half decent outfit all round.
Kuipers, Hinshelwood, Butters, Pethick, Mayo, Hart (Piercy), Carpenter, Rehman, Knight, McPhee.
Div 2 (League 1) P 11 . W 6 D 3 L 2 . F 18 A 10 Pt 21 Po 2

Rushden & Diamonds - Home
Season 11 (H) FAC R2 28/11/09 - 3-2 ~ Dickinson 2, Forster
In Gus Poyet's very first match at W'dean, Albion got past Wycombe on a wet nite R1 replay. Like all B'fans he wanted to get into the hat for R3 and draw a big club in a massive stad not a million miles away. But GP had plenty of work to do to make BHA competitive and we wondered how long the honeymoon period would last - especially at down-market Tongdean Lane, rather than Whitehart Lane or the Bridge. Thank God Falmer was actually being built now and refer to Season3 below for a noughties reality check. It pissed hard during this tie and only 3600 punters watched the k-o battle.
OGH got on when GP wanted to get someone to stick-in and reached 400 apps as a result. B'ton shoulda been out of sight by then but for every one scored, we let one in. Dickinson opened up (3min) but R&D hit back (9m), beating BHA defence too easily. Forster got a pen (22m) but before h-t it was level again to more Albion errors (40m). The second half was dire in the extreme, you couldn't tell H from A or L1 from non-league. Anyway bigL got a lucky break and fired a late winner from well inside the box (86m). Gus got into R3 but didn't say too much. We think he was a tad embarrassed.
Smith, Hoyte, Virgo, Elphick, El-Abd, Bennett, Navarro (Dicker), Crofts, McLeod (Hart), Dickinson, Forster.

Season 5 (H) 12/4/04 - 0-0
It was Easter Monday and McGhee had a game plan. Well a diet plan anyway, as he had continued services of a chef to help with preparations. Our gaffer was trying to cover all the angles and said, 'it's teams that prepare properly that avoid shock results you'll see everywhere today.' The culinary expert had been on hand before we got stuffed at Blackpool on Saturday but McGhee was still accentuating the positive. 'Whatever happens and we win enough points to see us into play-offs, then we should arrive there in a really positive frame of mind - as winners.'
After this match McGhee said, 'we were as disappointed as anyone else about taking only one point from Easter. In the two games our displays were nowhere near what we've seen recently. Some aspects of the Rushden game were very frustrating - a disallowed goal which appears to be totally legitimate. The tactics employed checked any momentum we were trying to generate. This was a match played almost in slow motion at times.' It certainly stuck in sore throats of hungry Brighton fans.
Knight had another off-day and perhaps tactics were open to question. Maybe a different method of attacking coulda been adopted, instead of lobbing in a barrage of missiles ad infinitum. Brighton were just too predictable after McGhee talked of being patient. A constant aerial bombardment was dealt with in a capable and routine manner by tall, static defenders. Both teams therefore cancelled one another out. Manager of the month McGhee wanted his charges to pass and probe but... So he made a triple substitution on 77 minutes to show the world who really was boss. Whatever, we couldn't turn Diamonds defence, nor cut a slice thru 'em. Route one failed and two points were lost for lack of managerial ideas of proper sustenance.
Roberts, Virgo, Cullip, Butters, Harding, Hart (Piercy), Carpenter, Oatway (Reid), Jones, Knight (McPhee), Iwelumo.
Div 2 (League 1) P 42 . W 19 D 10 L 13 . F 60 A 43 Pt 67 Po 5

Season 3 (H) 8/12/01 FAC 2 - 2-1 ~ Cullip, Zamora
As time ticked away in the new millennium we approached two years all but completed already and what a difference to that old century life style. Almost halfway through a div2 season and BHA were top of the table and those sad, bad days under threat from future Conference fixtures were a fading memory. Brighton was going to get an iconic 22,000 all-seater state of the art venue at Falmer, as carefully explained by Dick Knight and Martin Perry at a Hove Town Hall presentation. We had risen from ashes of a demolished Goldstone and given support from the city council, plus approval by their planning committee things now appeared almost rosy. This fairy story actually looked like it might take a leap of faith from off the 130k paged dossier. Rushden and Diamonds were also on the up having gained FL status from several attempts to jump out of that Conference. From 1998 to 2001 they had finished 4th, 4th, 2nd and 1st. Now Diamonds backed by Airwear foot products were marching on for a possible step into div2 to boot - probably Dr Martens anyway. It just goes to show what a little stamping can achieve in certain walks of footy life.
This game kicked-off at midday to accommodate TV scheduling and even so 5600 still attended. During a cold and frosty period the pitch required due care and attention to ensure it passed any official or maybe cursory inspection. Brighton fans made good use of live cameras to publicise a need for Falmer and 300 R&D supporters must have wondered how we'd come down to such a plight. For the ninth game running Zamora scored (with a close-in header) and went into record books, which seemed very appropriate in our 100th year of existence. Cullip suddenly assumed a role a auxiliary striker and ball-player extraordinaire to rifle a cross-shot home and help secure a place with big boys in round three. Taylor said, 'the win was a very important one in a match where getting a positive result is the most important consideration.' Presumably he meant if we wanted Tottenham next we just had to win in round two anyhow.
Kuipers, Watson, Cullip, Morgan, Mayo, Hart (Steele), Carpenter, Oatway, Brooker, Jones, Zamora.