Seagulls fans have united to condemn hooligans who went on the rampage hours before the club's great victory against its long-standing rivals.

Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club supporters who attended Tuesday night's game against Crystal Palace said the behaviour of a minority had unfairly cast a shadow over their landmark achievement.

The Albion beat Palace 1-0 in Brighton's first win over its arch-enemy in 17 years and its first victory at Palace's Selhurst Park ground since 1983.

But two hours before kick-off, violence broke out among supporters of both sides ten minutes from the stadium.

One pub was trashed and another had its windows smashed.

At 9pm police ordered all pubs in the area to close. Some shops had already decided to shut.

Yesterday the worst-hit Crescent Arms in Whitehorse Road was still closed and boarded up. The nearby Duke of Cambridge in Holmesdale Road had reopened but was waiting for windows to be repaired.

Albion spokesman Paul Camillin said the people who caused the damage were not typical Albion fans.

He said: "I went to the game. The vast majority of supporters were extremely well-behaved and got right behind the team and enjoyed the game. It was a tremendous game for the team and the supporters played a massive part in that, as they always do.

"The vast majority were a credit to the football club."

Tim Carder, chairman of the Albion supporters' club, said: "There is always a minority of people who latch on to football clubs and Brighton and Hove Albion is no different to any other. All decent fans condemn what happened.

"I am not aware of the facts but if it is as I read it then certainly of the 3,500 fans that were there, 99 per cent behaved very well."

Mr Carder, a historian of the club, said the Seagulls-Eagles animosity dates back more than 40 years and there have been violent clashes in the past.

He said: "There has been fierce rivalry which has at times resulted in that sort of thing but not in recent years.

"It was principally in the late Sixties and Seventies going into the Eighties.

"It has been suppressed by the authorities and by the revulsion that other supporters felt for these actions."

He said the two clubs were rivals because they were so near each other and because in the Seventies they were both promoted from the then Third Division to the First.

People writing on Tuesday night on North Stand Chat, an internet chat forum about The Albion, also criticised the violence.

Yesterday businesses in Croydon were still recovering. John Kichenside, 57, joint licensee of The Duke of Cambridge, said Albion fans had kicked off on Tuesday after he followed police advice and refused to let in away supporters.

He said: "It was very scary. They were smashing chairs and windows and trying to get inside the pub.

"We shut the door so that they couldn't get in here and we rang the police. I thought football hooliganism and violence was a thing of the past."