The tidal wave of streaming landfill, football club reality series, part of the seemingly bottomless pit of sport industry content, means that cutting through is tougher than ever, especially for single-instalment films that can’t rely on surfing some sort of wave of tournament triumph nostalgia. Access isn’t enough; you really need a good story, and this account of the rise, fall and rise again of Brighton & Hove Albion – while “authorised” up the wazoo – has certainly got that.
Brighton’s top-flight exploits in the late 1970s and early 1980s may feel like ancient history – and are presented here as such – but their 1983 FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United marked the beginning of an extended spell in the wilderness, capped by the still-outrageous plan by the club’s board to sell the Goldstone Ground, Brighton’s home since 1902, to property developers without any concrete plan for a replacement. (Of the two executives cast as the bad guys, David Bellotti, former MP and the club’s CEO, is no longer with us but Bill Archer, DIY retail tycoon and then Brighton chair, is very much still around, so the film treads carefully where the latter is concerned.)
