We told you so. Our matchday preview, Villa away, Sunday 28 May 2023.

Six years on and it still hurts like hell. 7th May 2017, Aston Villa 1 Brighton 1.

A major title secured but for one final gut-wrenching blunder. I wept the next day. Distraught not for the failure - promotion was all that really mattered - but for the nature of the loss and the profound sense of waste.

But six years later, hallelujah, we have been blessed with an opportunity to cathartically banish this dark moment to history. To consecrate the greatest season (yet), in the history of our glorious special football club, on the very soil where David Stockdale flapped and broke our hearts.

To enjoy an afternoon with nothing on it that means the world to us, win lose or draw. We have our sixth place finish and spot in the Europa League. Amen per questo.

“There is a god of football,” said Roberto De Zerbi after the righteous 98th minute winner against Fucking Manchester United. Mac Allister’s glorious smote into the top corner delivering confirmation, if proof were needed, of the existence of a higher force.

De Zerbi should know. His achievements this season have been colossal. Saintly. Cleaning up the mess left by Potter and chums was always going to take time, but from the brilliance of the Chelsea home game onwards, what we have witnessed has been miraculous.

A top six finish - incredible success - but the form, at times, and the quality of the play has been top four. Wednesday’s match against Man City resembled a game between two title contenders going at it for 80 minutes, before accepting a truce. Perhaps next season it will be? Nothing is impossible.

Certainly, Roberto hasn’t just touched our hearts, he’s upgraded our mindsets forever. What he demands of his football club, including us supporters, is an elite mentality. To believe in ourselves. To be comfortable with ambition.

“We have to be ready to play one game every three or four days if we want to fight for our big targets,” said De Zerbi before the recent defeat at Newcastle.

A long trip up North towards the end of a gruelling season, in a game we didn’t have to win… a little pragmatism would have been understandable, but RDZ doesn’t do pragmatic. His thing is success, ambition, and the balls to play football in way that nobody has ever tried before: De Zerbianism.

‘You’ve seen the Albion now fuck off home’ isn’t misplaced entitlement or unearned arrogance. It’s cultural commentary. Roberto De Zerbi is reinventing football, and everyone in the congregation, irrespective of denomination, should be grateful to bear witness to his masterpieces.

‘More than just beautiful football, De Zerbismo is about passion, faith and dreaming of success. Unforgettable memories, an almost surreal feeling of universal justification, pure excitement’ Jason Therios, Dogma 9:01

Ten years from now Roberto will be collecting his fourth Champions League winners medal (maybe with the Albion… why the hell not?) and De Zerbianism will be recognised as the leading tactical approach of its time. Practised by many, but with its genesis at the Amex Stadium, Brighton, season 22/23. You’re welcome.

‘The prevailing tactical trends of the last twenty years have been tika-taka, a low block plus counter-attacking approach, and gegenpressing. But now there’s something new, something better: De Zerbianism. You can press us or choose not to, it doesn’t much matter. We will bait you, we will swarm, and we will beat you. Bellissimo, speciale, straordinario,’ Dogma ruminated in a matchday special piece, published online February of this year.

A few weeks later The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew wrote, in a feature article on Roberto De Zerbi’s progress at Brighton: ‘a decade ago, Spanish-style possession football, tiki-taka, was gradually supplanted by a more chaotic, aggressive game. Pressing became the new passing. Like most top teams, Brighton play out from their goalkeeper. But unlike them, Brighton will often continue patiently recycling the ball in their own danger zone. The idea of this possession tightrope is to provoke opponents into overstretching, committing one too many to the press, at which point Brighton neatly play their way out and wreak havoc in the open spaces.’

Dogma article submissions are open, Jonathan, if you fancy returning the favour?

Nobody has responded better to the intensive demands of playing RDZ’s football than our icon and leader, Lewis Dunk. The skipper has missed just 90 minutes of Premier League football this season (Wednesday night). Has he ever been better? He was exceptional - generational - from debut, but this season even Lewis has gone up a tier.

There was a moment in the FA Cup semi-final that encapsulated just how good Lewis Dunk is at playing football. A punted clearance came his way, and despite being grappled and pressured by midfield buffoon Casemiro, Lewis elected to bring the ball down and roll it to a teammate. To head the ball away from danger would have done the job, but that’s not the role Roberto asks of his captain because he knows he’s capable of way more. “Dunk, for me, he is one of the top five central defenders in Europe”. Too fucking right Roberto. Southgate’s five year-long act of heresy defies rational explanation.

Who else but Lewis could possibly have taken pride of place in Dogma’s very first mural project? Deified March 2023 on Farm Road in Hove.

The embodiment of our journey from Withdean to Wembley, and now the Westfalenstadion (perhaps via Windsor Park). Europe, for the first time in our history. Holy shit! But don’t say you weren’t warned.

‘Our advice is to make a start on your drink kitties for season 23/24’s Euro tour. We have. Two crisp €50 notes to be precise,’ Dogma recommended in our season opening matchday preview piece, published online last summer. These Euro notes were exchanged May 2022 and marked ‘23/24 BHAFC’, flourished around the pub table on the morning of our final league fixture (home to West Ham). Testament to our unquestionable faith.

Dogma’s advisory services covered transport as well as financial planning matters this season: train tickets, valid Withdean to Wembley, gifted to every subscriber in advance of a heralded visit to Wembley Stadium. Just a little something from your friendly local fanzine.

Confession time. Half of the original batch of Euro notes were spent on Guinness on a trip to Ireland (putting in the groundwork for our 2023/24 Europa League Final matchday preview piece, location Aviva Stadium Dublin, date June 2024).

But the other €50 note has been the reverentially housed in my home shrine, handled just once for transportation to the away end of the Emirates Stadium Sunday 14th May 2023, safely rehomed in my back-pocket reliquary for the afternoon as our prayers were answered: Julio 51:23 Deniz 86:06 Pervis 96:32.

What I didn’t know back when these Euro notes were handed across the counter at No1 Currency Exchange on Ship Street was that my idolatry was misplaced. That it would take the banishment of Graham Potter to purgatory for the true Messiah to be revealed. I guess everything happens for a reason.

And who would bet against the holy trinity of Tony Bloom, Roberto De Zerbi and the most resilient fanbase in British football achieving even greater success next season? Big balls, big targets. Certainly not Dogma. Season 23/24 subscribers will find an amulet included in their Issue 10 envelopes (delivered mid-September), to help ward off bad luck and deliver us from evil - exactly which of the three competitions we’re winning next season will have to be left for the gods to decide, but it’s happening.

“Now we have to build a squad to compete in the Europa League, in the Premier League, in the FA Cup, in the Carabao Cup. In everything, in everything,” was De Zerbi’s message to Tony, a sermon shared in the afterglow of last Sunday’s joyful communion at Falmer. Enjoy the moment, but this is just the start.

But for now, we offer our thanks and we remember our history. Sunday’s trip to Villa Park will be a redemptive celebration. A chance to lay ghosts to rest, six years in the making. Yet, as always on special days like this, it’ll be impossible not to reflect on comrades and loved ones that are no longer with us.

I was accompanied by my Uncle John to the fateful fixture against Aston Villa, May 2017. I’m sure we all have our Uncle Johns. People that we shared special moments and memories with, both good and traumatic.

Football memories are created just as much in the trains pubs and concourses as they are on the pitch. When I look back on that day one of the brightest moments I can recall was joyfully sharing a packet of Bombay Mix with my Uncle John on the train up to Birmingham (me with a can of M&S lager, him with a cup of tea) - noteworthy, to me anyway, due to the 7.30am Sunday morning departure time.

This Sunday morning I plan to repeat this ritual. Our bread and our wine, poured broken and consumed in memory of my lovely Uncle John and as a sign of my gratitude and devotion.

So, if you see someone on the train to Birmingham Sunday morning with an M&S lager, a packet of Bombay Mix, and a tear in his eye, this will be me.

The happiest saddest proudest boy in the world.

For John, for always and forever.

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