Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club is an English football club based in the coastal city of Brighton & Hove, East Sussex. It currently plays in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.

The team is nicknamed the "Seagulls" or "Albion". The team has historically played in blue and white stripes, though this changed to all white briefly in the 1970s (in the Freddie Goodwin era) and again to plain blue during the club's most successful spell in the 1980s.Crystal Palace is considered the club's main rival (although the teams are 40 miles apart).

Founded in 1901, Brighton played their early professional football in the Southern League before being elected to the Football League in 1920. The club enjoyed greatest prominence between 1979 and 1983 when they played in the First Division and reached the 1983 FA Cup Final, losing to Manchester United after a replay. They were relegated from the top division in the same season. Mismanagement brought Brighton close to relegation from the Football League to the Conference which they narrowly avoided in 1997 and 1998. A boardroom takeover saved Brighton from liquidation, and following successive promotions they returned to the second tier of English football in 2002 and have played in the second and third tiers ever since.

Brighton and Hove is a unitary authority area and city on the south coast of England. It is England's most populous seaside resort. The major part of the city consists of Brighton, with around 155,000 people of the total population of 251,000. Consequently, people usually refer to the city as just "Brighton". Brighton and Hove's urban area has a population of over 450,000 people. The city is famous for its history as a seaside town, and more recently for its reputation of having a large gay community. The city is also famous for its football team, Brighton & Hove Albion FC (commonly known as just "Brighton" or "Albion"). They currently play in the Football League Championship at the Amex Stadium, opened in 2011.

In 1997, the two large towns of Brighton and Hove were joined to form the unitary authority of Brighton and Hove, which was granted city status by Queen Elizabeth II as part of the millennium celebrations in 2000.

Brighton and Hove forms part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation, the 12th largest conurbation in the United Kingdom. Along this area of the south coast, there is little or no gap of countryside between these large towns and city. Directly to the west is Southwick and then Shoreham-by-Sea, and a short distance to the east are Peacehaven and Newhaven. The city, district and urban areas of Brighton and Hove have the biggest populations in the South East England region.

Coordinates: 50°50′35″N 0°07′53″W / 50.842941°N 0.1313120°W / 50.842941; -0.1313120

Brighton ⁱ/ˈbraɪtən/ is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove (formed from the previous towns of Brighton, Hove, Portslade and several other villages) in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain. For administrative purposes, Brighton and Hove is not part of the non-metropolitan county of East Sussex, but remains part of the ceremonial county of East Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex.

The ancient settlement of Brighthelmstone dates from before Domesday Book (1086), but it emerged as a health resort featuring sea bathing during the 18th century and became a destination for day-trippers from London after the arrival of the railway in 1841. Brighton experienced rapid population growth, reaching a peak of over 160,000 by 1961. Modern Brighton forms part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation stretching along the coast, with a population of around 480,000.

Brighton has two universities and a medical school (which is operated jointly by both universities).