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BournemouthBrighton & Hove Albion Football Club, commonly referred to as Brighton, is a professional football club based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.
Their home ground has been Falmer Stadium since 2011, having played at the Goldstone Ground for most of the 20th century.
Founded in 1901, Brighton played their early professional football in the Southern League. They were later elected to the Football League in 1920. Between 1979 and 1983, they played in the First Division, and reached the 1983 FA Cup final, losing to Manchester United after a replay. They were relegated from the First Division in the same season. In 1990, the club officially adopted the women's team ahead of the launch of the Albion in the Community scheme, and the restructuring of women's football which the club became a founding member of in 1991/92.
By the late 1990s, Brighton were in the fourth tier of English football and having financial problems. After narrowly avoiding relegation from the Football League to the Conference in 1997, a boardroom takeover saved the club from liquidation. Successive promotions in 2001 and 2002 brought Brighton back to the second tier, and in 2011, the club moved into the Falmer Stadium after 14 years without a permanent home ground. In the 2016–17 season, Brighton finished second in the EFL Championship and were thus promoted to the Premier League, ending a 34-year absence from the top flight. In the 2022–23 season, Brighton finished sixth in the Premier League, their highest top flight finish ever, and qualified for the UEFA Europa League; their first participation in European club football.
Brighton are nicknamed the Seagulls and have played in blue-and-white striped shirts for most of their history. The club's fiercest and longest-standing rivalry is with Crystal Palace, which emerged in the 1970s for competitive reasons.
Formation and early years (1901–1972)
Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. were founded in 1901 and 19 years later, in 1920, they were elected to the Football League's new Third Division – having previously been members of the Southern League. In the Southern League they won their only national honour to date, the FA Charity Shield, which at that time was contested by the champions of the Southern League, and the Football League, by defeating Football League champions Aston Villa in 1910. Following their switch to the regionalised Third Division South in 1921, they remained in this division until the 1957–1958 season, when they won the title, securing promotion to the Second Division at the same time as the regionalised North and South divisions merged into a national Third and Fourth Division for the
1958–1959 season. Albion retained their second tier status until relegation in 1962, suffering a successive relegation in 1963 and slipping into the Fourth Division for the first time. They won the Fourth Division title in 1964–1965 and remained in the Third Division until 1972 when as runners up they secured promotion back to the Second Division.