The wild celebration more than the goal is vivid in the mind of Rob Reinelt after nearly 20 years.

'Kerry Mayo jumped on my back and yelled: 'You've just saved my effing life',' said Reinelt. 'His exact words. I don't know where he came from because he was playing left-back that day.

'The rest of the game was a blur because you're all hyped up realising what it could mean. Then it went absolutely mental after the final whistle.'

Rob Reinelt (left) celebrates after scoring the goal to keep them in the Football League

Brighton hero Reinelt, pictured in conversation with Sportsmail's Matt Barlow

Twenty years later, the Anthony Knockaert-led Seagulls are on the brink of the Premier League

When Brighton trailed at Hereford to an own goal from 19-year-old Mayo with less than half-an-hour of the 1996-97 season remaining, they were not simply heading out of the Football League.

Mired in crisis and about to be rendered homeless, relegation would probably have been followed by liquidation.

Mayo's skin was saved and Brighton lived on thanks to a goal in the 62nd minute by Reinelt, signed on a free and sent on as a sub with nothing to lose, who pounced on the rebound when Craig Maskell hit a post.

'I thought I was further out,' he said. 'I've seen the video so many times. I was actually quite close, which is good because it was on my left foot. Any further out and I would probably have missed. I just hit it. 'Hit the target', I thought.

'I was wearing blue boots which my wife had bought me for my birthday. I'd said: 'Get me something I'll remember'. So she bought me these Cica boots in Brighton colours.

'Then somebody ran on field after the match and said: 'Let's have yer boots' and I gave them to him. Lisa was in the crowd and she saw it happen. After the game, I came out all happy-happy and she said: 'Why did you give your boots away? Couldn't you have given him your shirt?'

'I'd only had them for two months. It was the first time I'd played in them. I hadn't even stretched them in. I'd been saving them to wear them on an occasion. So I wore them on an occasion and gave them away.'

Reinelt joined Brighton as a free agent and left after scoring a goal which changed their future

Reinelt's deal at Brighton was his last professional contract and he now works for Network Rail

His shirt fetched a four-figure sum when it was auctioned for charity a few years later and there was a fleeting reunion with the chancer who made of with his blue boots.

'I was at Brighton Races for one of Kerry's testimonial events and that guy was there,' said Reinelt. 'He said: 'You won't recognise me because my hair's shorter but I've got your boots'. I said: 'My missus wants to speak to you'. I never saw him again.'

Steve Gritt was thrilled at the chance to get back into football management but as he pulled up at the Goldstone it was impossible to miss the graffiti inviting him to return promptly from whence he came.

'The position was perilous,' said Gritt. 'We were 11 points adrift with 24 games to go. I wasn't a big name and I was portrayed as a puppet for the chairman and the chief executive.

'I didn't know what I was getting into with all the turmoil and not many thought we could turn it round but I was out of work and this was an opportunity.'

He replaced Jimmy Case and started in mid-December with a 3-0 win against fellow strugglers Hull.

Steve Gritt celebrates the draw at Hereford which ensured Brighton stayed in the League

Brighton's great escape in 1996-97 was their last season at their old Goldstone Ground home

'The club photographer came into the dressing room before the game asked to take a photo of me outside,' said Gritt. 'I thought it would be by the dug-out but when he walked me into the middle of the pitch to a chorus of boos I thought: 'This might be harder than I imagined'.

'Two-up at half-time and someone chained themselves to the goalposts in protest. I was worried it might be abandoned but they got him free and we won.

'The second game at Leyton Orient was Peter Shilton's 1,000th game. We lost 2-0 and our supporters refused to leave. The police came into the dressing room and I ended up on a megaphone asking them to go back to Brighton.

'It was not going to be a normal job.'

Protests were aimed at majority shareholder Bill Archer and chief executive David Bellotti. Brighton had been deducted two points for a pitch invasion earlier in the season.

Archer kept his distance. Gritt saw him only twice, once in his second interview for the job and again at a game at Chester but he convinced the board to back two free signings: striker Reinelt from Colchester and veteran defender John Humphrey from Gillingham.

Results slowly improved and the ninth win in a 17-game run was an emotional one against Doncaster in the Goldstone's final game, which lifted Brighton above Hereford on goal difference and sent them to Edgar Street in the knowledge a draw would be enough.

'The game was horrible and nervous,' said Gritt. 'Going 1-0 down was tough having come so far but we regrouped at half-time. There's nothing much you can do in those situations except keep plugging away.

'We brought on Robbie and changed the system a bit, and he made one hell of a mark he made on the club's history. It is amazing how one moment can change a career.

'Kerry Mayo was a young lad just about on the transfer list and he was nearly known as someone who sent them down. He came through to have a great career at Brighton, stayed for 10 years and got a testimonial.

'If Brighton had gone down at that particular time, with its financial situation and no ground, I don't think it would have come back from that for an awful long time.

'Thankfully it all ended well and it's great to see how they're doing. To reach the Premier League would be fantastic for the fans and the people who brought the club back from the edge of extinction.'

Fish and chips were washed downed with beers on the coach back to the south coast and the young players spilled into the night amid pleas from senior colleagues to keep the celebrations in context.

They avoided relegation but only by two goals and were the second worst team in the Football League. Still, it had been emotional. They rolled back in at 6am.

Chris Hughton's side could have their promotion to the Premier League confirmed on Monday

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Gritt started the biggest in day of his managerial career by taking a phone call to say Millwall wanted him to be their next manager. It was followed up with a firm approach at 9am the next day.

He was at the end of his short-term deal at Brighton but in the afterglow of an epic survival felt a loyalty to the club and signed a new deal.

They sacked him eight months later and he joined the coaching staff of Billy Bonds at Millwall.

At 59, he is now assistant manager at Ebbsfleet United, chasing promotion from the National League South.

Mayo stayed at Brighton to make more than 400 appearances and left in 2009.

Reinelt works for Network Rail. He and Lisa live in Kent and have a nine-year-old daughter called Mabel.

The 18-month deal he signed at Brighton was the last professional contract of a career which began as a teenager at Gillingham. When he signed, he was promised improved terms if things went well but this failed to materialise and Brian Horton soon replaced Gritt as boss.

Reinelt on track during a shift at work - he lives i Kent with his wife and daughter

'I did feel let down when I left,' said Reinelt. He skipped briefly through Leyton Orient, into non-league with Stevenage and a prolific spell at Braintree before joining Grays where he started working on the railways.

'At first I was working in the stores getting stuff ready for the night guys,' he said. 'Then I got my PTS (Personal Track Safety) card, which you need to get onto the track.

'It was a killer playing on Saturday and then going to work. I'd drive back from the game, pick my gear up and go straight out for a 12-hour shift, physical work, a lot of digging, changing sleepers and rails.

'In the end it was too much and I gave up the football. The last time I played was Kerry's testimonial at the Withdean Stadium.

'It's a bit less physical now. I'm 43 now and there's not so much digging, with three of us in the gang. We do have a laugh but you've got to be serious when you've got 100-tonne trains running past your head at 90 mph.'

He has always been a Tottenham fan, and football plays only a small part in his life these days but his place in Brighton folklore is safe and the club will always have a place in his heart.

'It will be a nice story to tell my grandkids,' said Reinelt. 'And it's really good to see they've gone on and prospered.

'In Tony Bloom they have a chairman who loves the club with all his heart. You can see what he's doing with the fantastic new stadium, miles from what we had. They've got proper ice baths. We used to have ice baths because the hot water was broken.

'Promotion would be absolutely fantastic. It's like a film and this is the finale. A perfect end to the story.'