Chelsea vs Brighton and Hove Albion Timeline & H2H Stats

Just as with Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and other London-based clubs, there isn’t really a massive rivalry in place between Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion. Whilst the Seagulls absolutely hate playing Crystal Palace for some spurious reason and Chelsea fans see red when Spurs turn up to Stamford Bridge, the matches between the Blues and Brighton are generally no more anger-filled than any footballing clash. That is, at least in part, likely to be down to the fact that the teams didn’t really play each other very often in the past. In fact, their first four encounters were all in the FA Cup, including one replay.

Given the extent to which Chelsea would go on to dominate the Seagulls in the future, there is a slight irony in the fact that the first match between the two sides, which took place on the 14th of January 1933, ended in a 2-1 win for Brighton. That knocked Chelsea out of the FA Cup, with the London club seemingly taking it personally. When they met in the same competition 34 years later, the match in Brighton ended in a 1-1 draw before Chelsea ran away 4-0 winners in the replay. It perhaps showed the Blues what they needed to do to enjoy success in the tournament, winning it for the first time three years later when they defeated Leeds United in the final.

Chelsea’s Dominance

Other than the name and perhaps one or two people working behind-the-scenes, there is very little in common between a team that played in the 1930s and one that played 50 years later. Even so, Brighton & Hove Albion supporters might well have been wondering what they’d done to upset Chelsea when the Blues won 11 times in a row against them between 1967 and 2019. Some of the matches were in the FA Cup, some where in the Second Division and some were in the Premier League, but they all seemed to have the same thing in common: Chelseas absolutely dominated their South coast opponent, scoring 24 goals and conceding just two in reply.

For Brighton, the reality was seeing the West London club dominate them year after year, in match upon match. Between the January of 1933 and the September of 2024, Seagulls fans got to celebrate a mere three wins against Chelsea over the course of 24 matches. That is a miserable record however you look at it, with the victories for the Blues coming across four different competitions. The most myopic of Brighton fans would likely point to the fact that the clubs didn’t face one another often enough for any real conclusions to be drawn, but there is no question that the Seagulls have been one of Chelsea’s favourite clubs to face historically.

Chelsea’s Full Match History Against Brighton