‘The landscape is evolving’: Brighton head to first FA Cup final in 43 years

It was a damp day in May 1983 when Brighton fans last made their way to Wembley Stadium for an FA Cup final.

After a difficult season in which they had finished bottom of the First Division, there was an opportunity to win the game against Manchester United when Gordon Smith had a golden chance in the closing seconds. But his shot was saved, the match finished 2-2, and United thrashed Brighton 4-0 in the replay. They have not been to a cup final since.

That changes today when they return to a much-altered Wembley 43 years on, with far warmer weather and the blue side of Manchester awaiting them. The south coast team will face Women’s Super League champions Manchester City in a first-ever Women’s FA Cup final for them.

It is the culmination of a season which has seen Brighton make headlines. Despite finishing two points and two places worse off compared to last year, in seventh, they were the only non-top-three team to beat City in the league this season and knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup on their way to the final. Neither occasion was a fluke.

Winning a major trophy is a key pillar of Vision 2030, the strategic plan put in place this season across the whole club. For the women’s team, this is an evolution of a long-term aim of reaching European football. Brighton have firmly established themselves as a mid-table WSL club, but the 23-point gap between their points tally and that of Chelsea in the final Champions League spot highlights how far they still have to go.

“The landscape [in the women’s game] is constantly evolving,” says Zoe Johnson, Brighton’s managing director for women and girls since 2023.

“There’s a lot of other ambitious Premier League football clubs that have women’s teams and now, as you see in London City Lionesses, non-Premier League clubs that are wanting to be ambitious. It is an ever-changing market.”

Teams like Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur were yet to make it into the top division when Brighton were first promoted in 2018. Transfer fees and salary expectations continue to rise year on year, with Bunny Shaw’s annual salary for her new Manchester City deal thought to be around £1.2m. For Brighton, competing with sides with far more financial heft is not a new phenomenon. In the Premier League, they have made it an art.

“We’ve got to trust in what we’re doing here,” says Johnson. “We know we’re not going to be everybody’s end journey. We know not everyone is going to have a career of 10 to 15 years at Brighton. But we can play a part in a player’s journey to some certain point, whether that is at the start of their careers, the middle or the end.

“That’s the philosophy of what we’re trying to do here and we hope that when we get players in this building, they buy into the project and want to stay here long term.

“[The spending] is only going to get worse. You’ve just got to be really comfortable in what you do, and understand that you’ll keep some, you’ll lose some, and the journey is constantly evolving.”

Fran Kirby is one such player who Brighton were able to convince of what they were trying to do, turning down multiple other offers to move south after she left Chelsea in 2024. If Brighton are to pull off the mother of all upsets, Kirby will surely be a catalyst. She will be unfazed by the Wembley stage, having won numerous FA Cup titles there with Chelsea as well as the small matter of a European Championship with England. The willingness to use older players like Kirby to support the development of a younger core is one that the men’s team have used to great effect.

Yet arguably the biggest difference-maker at Brighton over the past two seasons has been Dario Vidošić.

The Australian coach had only been managing for two years after retiring from professional football when Brighton approached him. They had struggled with previous appointments. Jen Scheuer was sacked in 2023 after only three matches, while there was some consternation after Melissa Phillips was also let go in 2024. Results under Phillips were passable, but the underlying numbers were poor.

“[Dario] was someone we felt was an unbelievable coach on the grass but was also someone that we felt we could mould,” explains Johnson.

“You never know when you’re recruiting a head coach what way it’s going to go. We’re really fortunate that it’s worked out with Dario. He’s an unbelievable person and someone that I enjoy working with every day.”

It has been a tough season for Vidošić, whose father Rado passed away in January. Rado had been working at Brighton for around a year and Vidošić was away for over a month. It was a testing time for the squad as a whole, as Rado was very well-liked.

It has been a fitting tribute to him that Brighton have fought through the end of the season, including coming back from 2-0 down against Liverpool in the semi-final to reach this centrepiece moment at Wembley.

On the pitch last Sunday, during Brighton’s final Premier League game against Manchester United, owner Tony Bloom implored fans to make their way to Wembley to support the women.

No WSL side has its home ground further from its Premier League equivalent than Brighton, who play at League Two Crawley Town, 22 miles away from the American Express Stadium on the rolling South Downs.

That is one reason why Brighton have announced that they are building a bespoke ground for the women’s team alongside the Amex. Despite not being the biggest on-field spenders, Bloom has made sure that Brighton’s training-ground facilities are best in class. That is a big draw for players. They hope the new ground will have a similar effect.

“It’s not just commitment in terms of his financial backing,” says Johnson. “There’s probably not many owners in the country that designate their time to the women’s team the way that Tony does.

“It really shows how much he does care about the team and the growth of the women’s game as a whole.”

What better reward could there be than a first major trophy for the lifelong Brighton & Hove Albion fan who owns the club.

Photograph by Jess Hornby / Getty Images