Is there anything that football fans, especially neutral ones, love more than teams that unexpectedly, from the shadows, make a big success and amaze the public with their games? Of course, the Premier League champion from a few years ago Leicester City is the first association, but this time it is not about them.

We move to the south and get acquainted with this year’s hit of the Premier League, which in the coming days is fighting to reach a place that leads to European competition next season. Of course, we are talking about Brighton.

More specifically, Brighton & Hove Albion. Somehow, we all forget that second, by no means less important part of the name, although even the fans of the popular Seagulls often “shorten” the name of the club and say only Brighton. In order to understand how the club under this name came to be, we have to further go back in history, to the middle of the 19th century. Then the small town in the very southeast of the country, in the province of Sussex, got the status of a municipality. It was about Brighton.

A few kilometers away, the settlement of Hove had to wait for another 40 to be able to boast of enjoying the same privilege. So, Brighton and Hove entered the twentieth century as separate, neighboring settlements. However, they soon got their own joint football club.

Brighton, although today one of the largest cities in the south, did not have its own football club until 1901. True, Brighton United was founded a few years earlier, but it only existed for two years until it was shut down due to poor management.

At the very end of the 19th century, Brighton & Hove Rangers was also created, but he did not even live to celebrate his second birthday. In the aforementioned 1901, the club was formed, which today we have the opportunity to watch on small screens.

It was on June 24th at a meeting in the Seven Stars Hotel, where John Jackson spearheaded the idea of forming a professional football club to take the place in the Southern Football League previously secured by Brighton & Hove Rangers. Although the idea was to call the club Brighton United, just like the one that was shut down a few years before, after complaints from several representatives of the city of Hove, it was decided that the name should be – Brighton & Hove Albion.

The newly formed club adopted blue and white colors, although it was not until 1904 that it was decided that the jerseys would be striped, as they are today. There is an interesting anecdote from the beginning of the nineties of the last century, when the management of the club came up with the idea of adding stripes to the shorts. Brighton fans remember that period as the “pajama period”.

Until 2013, he constantly balanced between the second and third tier of the competition, and in the mentioned season, under the leadership of Gus Poyet, he reached the 4th place in the Championship table and the playoff double-header with Crystal Palace, in which he was defeated by the future member of the Premier League. Success was repeated in the following season, the team again played in the play-offs, now under the leadership of the Spaniard Oscar Garcia, and was once again stopped before Wembley, this time by Derby County.

The 2015-16 season exceeded all expectations. Direct placement in the Premier League eluded them because of the goal difference! So demoralized, they didn’t give their best in the playoffs and Sheffield Wednesday narrowly kicked them out!

Chris Hughton didn’t let that discourage his side and next season it was no surprise that they were promotion contenders. The second place in the table brought the elite rank after 1983, and they were the leaders until the last round. Brighton managed to survive in the PL with a magical 40 points and the fairy tale is still going on.

This season this team is playing above every expectations and after some magnificent wins Brighton find himself above Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa and many bigger clubs on the table. Brighton’s main goal at the start of the season was to avoid relegation, but now this team has opportunity to fight for a place in some European competition next season.