Video Of The Week: Orient vs Brighton – April 1979

Since there are only Johnstone’s Paint Trophy matches and FA Trophy Second Qualifying Round replays this week, we thought it would be about the right time to have another “Video Of The Week” and this, I have to say, is something rather special – a complete episode of London Weekend Television’s “The Big Match” from April 1979. The show features the battle for promotion from the Second Division, a four-way fight between Crystal Palace, Brighton & Hove Albion, Stoke City and Sunderland that went right to the very last day of the season.

This episode – ironically, since the two clubs met in the Johnstones Paint Trophy this very evening – features the match between Orient (the prefix “Leyton” had been stripped from their name in 1966 and wasn’t reinstated until 1987 after a campaign by the “Leyton Orientear” fanzine) and Brighton & Hove Albion, before moving on to a match from the Midlands between Leicester City and Stoke City. Host Brian Moore then takes a look at Cologne’s preparations for their European Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest, before rather wonderfully finishing off the show with very brief highlights from a First Division match between Liverpool and Arsenal.

Determined to cram every square second of the programme with action, they even manage to cram in Martin Chivers’ two goals for Spurs against Aston Villa in the 1971 League Cup final and Ralph Coates’ winning goal for Spurs against Norwich City in the 1973 League Cup final. Of course, the idea that two matches from the second level of English football could ever be treated with more reverence than a match between Liverpool and Arsenal demonstrates, if nothing else, that the past really is a foreign country. This video is more than worth forty-five minutes of your time. Thanks to the anonymous (Brighton supporting) uploader for making this available to us all.