Albion are well-placed to deal with the sort of drama that horrified the footballing world last Saturday.

Christian Eriksen needed emergency treatment on the pitch after he suffered cardiac arrest during the Denmark v Finland game at Euro 2020.

The Amex is equipped and staffed to cope with such emergencies involving players, fans or staff.

That should not be any surprise. Back in the late 1970s, the old Goldstone led the way in that respect.

Albion’s ground was then the first in Europe to have automated defibrillators and the first anywhere that relied on non-medical personnel for their use.

As a result, between November 1976 and Mach 1979, the lives of four fans were saved after they suffered cardiac arrest at the ground.

The man behind that pioneering move was Professor Douglas Chamberlain, who also ensured defibrillators were on hand at Brighton and Victoria railway stations.

He told The Argus the story.

“In the late 1970s a friend of mine who worked for British Caledonian Airline said he had been in America and met a guy who had invented a small defibrillator, a device to get rid of ventricular fibrillation (the usual cause of sudden death by cardiac arrest), but nobody in the States was interested in using it.

“I looked at the booklet he brought over and said, ‘My God, if it’s half as good as it says here, it’s bloody marvellous and well merits the word automated’.

“The man from Oregon was contacted. He came to Brighton and stayed to dinner. He leant back and broke one of our very precious chairs - for which my wife never forgave him!

“But subsequently he sent us several of his defibrillators.”

Chamberlain added: “It got to the ears of the Secretary of State for Health who said they were going to order 300 to be delivered to my house.”

The professor, who is now 90 and lives in Hove, managed to head off that potential domestic disaster and the defibrillators were sent to a more suitable venue in London. But he played a large part in putting them to good use in sites that were believed to be vulnerable.

He said: “Here in Brighton, we were the first in the world to have automated defibrillators to be used not by doctors, as the Americans did, but by anybody.

“They are very small and compact and everyone can use them without any instruction. I had heard of an earlier collapse at the football ground and I thought, ‘What a pity they don’t have one of these new-fangled machines.’ “I therefore contacted St John Ambulance, who were responsible for First-Aid at the stadium and we went ahead.

“Back then the machines we had were very similar to what we are using now. Easy to carry; you can run with them. Originally, defibrillators had been huge machines that one person couldn’t carry.”

Prof. Chamberlain recalls the policeman being entrusted with use of the defibrillator at the Goldstone.

He added: “He was called Inspector Lane and he had an eye for when there was a ripple in the crowd.

“He used to run there and use the defibrillator if indicated, thereby saving the four lives as mentioned above.

“Nowadays there is even a very well-equipped intensive care unit at the Amex run by a very experienced physician, Rob Galloway.”

Emergency staff and match-referee Anthony Taylor have been praised for their response when Eriksen collapsed.

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Chamberlain goes along with that and urges any members of the public faced by a similar emergency not to be afraid to use an automated defibrillator.

He said: “Anyone can use one. All you have got to do is open it and it talks to you.

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“The only way you can do anyone any harm with a modern automated defibrillator is if you use it to hit someone over the head!

“Otherwise it cannot do any harm. If you do the wrong thing it corrects you.

“They are wonderful things. There are now many defibrillators in public places, including at least one at every railway station.

“For some machines you have to ring a number to get a code to open the cabinet to get it out.

“Every second counts in terms of likely success, so that is very stupid!”