Cowardly Brighton throw a good man in Chris Hughton onto the street
henry winter, chief football writer
In between exhaling after that breathtaking title race and the excitement of looking forward to the announcement of next season’s Premier League fixtures on June 13 (9am sharp, can’t wait), the heart sank at the brutal bulletin from Brighton & Hove Albion that they have sacked their manager, Chris Hughton, a decent man in a dirty trade.
Perfidious Albion? Come on, Brighton are better than this, the timing let alone the decision. Brighton pride themselves on their principles, negotiating sure-footed passage through the swamp of the modern, scruple-free national game.
Look at the banners around the Amex Stadium, the notices on the wall underlining the behaviour they expect, the need to respect everybody. Well, managers deserve respect, too.
Hughton embodied values many associate with Brighton, integrity and inclusivity for starters. He is more than a mere man who stands in a dugout, directing operations. The 60-year-old represents qualities the game desperately needs: determination, uprightness, compassion. A quiet dignity defines him. A spin through his career shows what a special man he is, and what an important, inspiring individual Brighton have just ushered out on to the street.
The son of an Irish mother and Ghanaian father, Hughton was born in Forest Gate, east London, and when he began making his way as an energetic, intelligent left back for Tottenham Hotspur in the late Seventies, he suffered racist abuse from the opposition, occasionally “half a stand chanting at me”. Hughton ignored them. He endured poisonous remarks from opposing players. He didn’t complain, simply making sure “the next tackle went in a bit firmer”, as he once told me.
Grace under pressure characterises him. Hughton should be celebrated as one of football’s finest role models, an example for aspiring managers of how to build a career, taking his time and doing his apprenticeship, learning under everyone from Keith Burkinshaw to Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle to David Pleat and Martin Jol at Spurs. Brighton have just dispensed with a lot of experience.
On smashing through what Cyrille Regis always called the “glass ceiling” for black coaches wanting to break into management, Hughton won manager-of-the month awards in three of his first four months at Newcastle United. He got them promoted, got Andy Carroll performing consistently, and when he was eventually fired by Mike Ashley with the team 11th in the Premier League, fans demonstrated outside St James’ Park. He was replaced by Alan Pardew. That hardly worked out triumphantly.
On he went after Newcastle, steering Birmingham City into the Championship play-offs, helping to nurture Nathan Redmond and the on-loan Andros Townsend, and so grounded that he hosted a table at the club’s Christmas party in 2011 and invited kit men and groundstaff as his guests. Class.
It needs acknowledging that Hughton’s time at Norwich City from 2012 to 2014 is not remembered overly fondly by fans. Even amid his darkest hour at Carrow Road, he willingly agreed to interviews, and I remember talking to him at length about Norwich’s plight and he was hurting deeply, stressed by his failure to inspire the team. Hughton cares. He respects employers and supporters, and frets when he cannot deliver value.
This was the only occasion that I heard him raise his voice and that was after he discovered me at Colney Training Centre conducting an (he thought) unauthorised interview with Grant Holt. Far from full Fergie hairdryer, Hughton still made his dissatisfaction abundantly clear. He had issues with the striker at the time and the whole tension essentially boiled down to his wanting the best for the team. It’s never about him with Hughton. He doesn’t possess an ego.
Kindness runs through him. When Jonás Gutiérrez sought matches after recovering from testicular cancer at Newcastle, Hughton took his old player on loan to Carrow Road in 2014. Hughton was motivated mainly because of Gutiérrez’s ability but also by empathy.
Seven months after being sent packing by Norwich, he began galvanising Brighton, eventually getting them promoted to the Premier League and keeping them there, helping to generate more than £200 million from TV and prize money in two seasons. He was praised for his management, and also as a wonderful ambassador for the club.
After winning away to Ipswich Town shortly after the Shoreham air disaster in 2015, Hughton dedicated victory to two of the victims, Matt Grimstone, a member of the club’s groundstaff, and supporter Jacob Schilt. When Anthony Knockaert’s father died in 2016, Hughton called off training and organised for the players to travel over to near Lille for the funeral, showing their support for a grieving team-mate.
All the while, Hughton has been a beacon of hope for coaches who craved becoming No 1s, for black managers rightly concerned about the glass ceiling, for home-grown managers and those who have taken the long road.
Hughton is obviously a capable manager and it was scarcely two years ago that the FA chairman Greg Clarke backed him to potentially take charge of England. “Why not?” Clarke told The Times. “It would be wonderful to see a black England manager. It would put us forward 20 years.”
Hughton lifted Brighton even higher than mere elevation from the Championship into the Premier League. He placed them on the pantheon as a club that judged human beings on quality not ethnicity.
The perception of Brighton has always been of a club with a conscience, of fans finding ways to keep their cherished institution alive, fighting off the charlatans who would drag them down, pinch their land, threaten their birth-right. Hughton is too modest to say it, even think it, but he bestowed moral substance on Brighton. They will miss that.
Everyone who comes into contact with him instinctively warms to him. Fans find him willingly spending as long as required to satisfy selfie and autograph requests. Media from across the globe would visit Brighton’s splendid Lancing training retreat, as well as the Amex, and discovered to their delight a manager of a Premier League side welcoming and helpful. A manager with manners.
Even for those of us popping in to Lancing for an interview with a player would be invited over for a brief chat. How are you? How are the children? Hughton is a good man, as well as manager. Brighton have lost their greatest calling card.
If offspring truly reflect parenting skills, then Hughton can be particularly proud. When the Tube packed up the night of the Kick It Out 25th anniversary dinner at Stamford Bridge in February, a group of us were jettisoned at Earl’s Court. Hughton’s daughter, Aisha, kindly signalled to climb into her Uber. Chatty and friendly, she enthused about how much her father loved Brighton, the city and the club. Brighton was more than a job for Hughton, it was a passion.
We reached the Bridge in good time to hear Aisha’s father speak powerfully about how much the game had to do in combating racism. As the night closed, and Hughton needed to head south, he happily made the delayed journey to the door, stopping to talk to his many friends and admirers. That’s Chris. Decent. That’s why those who know him are so outraged by Brighton’s decision. They have let a good man go.
Brighton will argue that this was a decision carefully thought through. They can politely point out that Hughton’s side have been in a tailspin for most of 2019, taking three points from 27, and clinging to elite status only because of the incompetence of Huddersfield Town, Fulham and Cardiff City. Brighton’s owner, Tony Bloom, is neither uncaring nor imprudent and his ambitious new technical director, Dan Ashworth, the man who effectively appointed Gareth Southgate with England, is certainly no trigger-happy fool.
If Bloom and Ashworth can prise Graham Potter from Swansea City, then some sense will be conferred retrospectively on a seemingly callous decision, assuming that Potter’s desire for expansive football with, respectfully, average players does not see Brighton ripped apart.
At the very least, Hughton deserved a few days to bask in his achievement of keeping Brighton up, the principal demand from the club. Bloom and Ashworth waited only until the show was over, the media circus had moved on, and those fans supportive of Hughton did not have a match-day platform to chorus their disapproval. The timing is cowardly, even if Bloom and Ashworth can defend the decision itself. As a man and a manager, Hughton deserved better.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cowa ... -t9wdwx8zd