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| Swansea 2 v 2 Brighton |
Swansea City failed to gain the first of three home wins in 11 days that could lift them into the Third Division play-off places at the Vetch Field last night.
Twice Swansea took the lead, twice Brighton equalised from corners.
The match was marred by ugly incidents after the 74th minute dismissal of Julian Alsop for a foul on Brighton captain Ian Culverhouse, his second booking of the match.
Three fans, two men and a woman, were arrested for running on to the pitch. They were restrained before they could reach Brighton players. The match was held up and a linesman reported that missiles, including a bottle, had been thrown on to the pitch from the North Bank.
The Swans will be in more hot water with the Football Association of Wales over these incidents. They must already answer a disrepute charge over their mascot, Cyril the Swan, encroaching on to the pitch.
The 6ft 4in Alsop, already suspended for next Saturday’s home game against Carlisle, faces another ban for last night’s sending-off.
Steve Jones scored his first league goal for 25 months to fire Swansea into the lead after 27 minutes.
Full-back Jones ran on to a cross-field pass by Damien Lacey to connect with a low drive from 25 yards.
It was Jones’s first goal at the Vetch, his only other coming in the 3-1 defeat of Cardiff City at Ninian Park in December 1996.
Swansea coped comfortably against visitors boasting more away wins, seven, than any club in the section, six of them in their last eight outings. Jason Jones, deputising for the injured Roger Freestone, did not have a difficult shot before the break.
The 19-year-old former Liverpool apprentice dealt competently with crosses. But he was beaten by a glancing header from Ross Johnson following a corner by Paul Sturgess, which went in off a post to put Brighton level after 55 minutes.
Minutes later, though, Jones narrowed the angle to make a superb save from Kerry Mayo.
Steve Watkin restored Swansea’s lead after 71 minutes, beating Brighton ’keeper Mark Walton, the son of Swansea’s youth team coach, with a superb drive from 20 yards after a pass by Richard Appleby.
John Hollins’s side seemed poised for a vital win, but the game changed dramatically after Alsop’s dismissal.
Eight minutes from time Johnson, who had not scored in his previous 114 senior games for Brighton, bundled in his second equaliser as the Swans again failed to clear a corner.
In the last minute Jones made a fingertip save to deny Johnson his hat-trick. Merthyr-born Walton, unfairly cautioned for trying to calm things down when fans got on the pitch, preserved his record of never having lost during his visits to the Vetch Field with Colchester, Norwich, Fulham and now Brighton.
Swansea: J. Jones, S. Jones, Howard, Cusack, Smith, Bound, Roberts (Appleby 62), Lacey, Alsop, Watkin, Coates.
Brighton: Walton, Mayo (Moralee 78), Sturgess, Arnott, Johnson, Allan, Armstrong, Bennett, Hart, Barker, Culverhouse.