Brighton rivals to bowls buddies: is this elite football’s firmest friendship?

This is a story that came dangerously close to never being told. In May 2020, in my capacity as a freelance writer, I interviewed a man called Eric Gill. Way back when, Eric had been one of the finest goalkeepers in Britain, a Londoner who made headlines around the world by appearing in 247 consecutive matches for Brighton & Hove Albion between February 1953 and February 1958, equalling a Football League record for goalies.

Given football’s intensely physical nature in those days, that achievement took some doing. Besides keeping the ball out of the net, goalkeepers had to make do with being, to all intents and purposes, beaten black and blue by opposing centre-forwards, along with anyone else on the field who fancied having a go. Look up ‘brutal’ in the Oxford English Dictionary and it will say ‘the art of goalkeeping circa 1875 to 1960’. Or at least it should.

I’d never spoken to Eric before, but I knew of him. Growing up in Sussex during the 1970s into the 1980s and supporting Brighton, I heard talk among older fans of the goalkeeper to beat all other goalkeepers, the one who’d played year upon year without missing a single match. Being a young keeper myself, albeit of limited potential, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Here was a bona fide sepia superhero straight out of Pathé News – and he’d played for my favourite club.

However, it wasn’t only Eric’s story that interested me. Behind every first-choice goalkeeper, there’s an understudy, the poor sod who has to wait their turn until the main man or woman falls from grace, breaks their fingers, or gets spirited away by another club. Eric’s unbroken run had lasted five years. Someone with the patience of a saint must have waited for his chance … and waited … and