7 of the best Brighton and Hove Albion football kit cock ups

Throughout the years, Brighton and Hove Albion have excelled at one thing better than any other club in England – the football kit cock up.

They have ordered a new home shirt in the wrong shade of blue. Made all three of their home, away and third choice shirts blue in the same season and then been surprised by a colour clash against opponents wearing blue.

Votes have been held on the design of a new Brighton away kit, only for the result needing to be dismissed when supporters picked one colour after the football club had already gambled on another being the winner.

And those are only the tips of the kit-related disasters from through the years. Here are seven of the best Brighton and Hove Albion kit cock ups so far.

 

The 2008-09 season “Lets make all three kits blue” cock up

Dick Knight used to love designing the kit and arguably his greatest achievement in that regard came with the ludicrous idea to make all three kits for the 2008-09 season blue.

The home shirt was the traditional royal blue and white stripes, the away kit was a dazzling navy blue and yellow stripes and the third kit was a Coventry City-esque sky blue.

All very nice, except of course what would happen when we played another team who wore blue? It would not be a problem the club said.

Cue an away game at Shrewsbury Town in the Paint Pot four months into the season which meant the club had to introduce a “Special One-Off Edition” white kit as, surprise surprise, there was a clash.

Needless to say that kit did not prove to be a one-off either, the white shirts also being worn away at Millwall later in the season.

The ridiculousness of having three kits all featuring the same colour reached its nadir with the trip to Leicester City when Brighton were forced into wearing the Foxes’ yellow away kit due to a clash.

The cock up was duly noted with a red and black replacement arriving for the next season. Brighton have never had a blue away kit or blue third choice kit since.

 

The 2004-05 season “We’ve ordered the wrong shade of blue” cock up

Picture the scene. You are at Seagulls HQ and excitement is brewing as the new home kit has finally arrived, ready to be revealed to the masses ahead of the 2004-05 season.

Somebody opens the box. It is the first glimpse at the shirts that will be worn for what will be only the club’s second season in the second tier in nearly 15 years. And then it turns out that the whole kit is the wrong colour blue.

At the time, the Albion loved getting their designs and orders in as late as possible. That ultimately led to the late arrival of the new kit which was in the wrong shade of blue. Yes, that monstrosity of a sky blue and white striped shirt was apparently never meant to have been that colour.

This was around the time when, rather than admit that something had gone drastically awry, the Albion preferred to stick their head in the sand and carry on regardless.

Such an approach a few seasons earlier had landed Martin Hinshelwood in the hot seat after former Cameron boss Winfried Schafer pulled out of the job at the last minute.

Rather than tell the assembled press pack that no new manager was going to be presented and that they had gathered at The Grand Hotel for no reason, Hinshelwood stepped into the breach to try and save face.

Unlike appointing Hinshelwood, this latest attempt at saving face did not result in a 10 game losing streak. It did however land us with an Argentina style kit for two seasons during which Mark McGhee’s side played absolutely nothing like La Seleccion as a limp relegation from the Championship followed in 2006.

 

The 2005-06 season “Vote for a new away kit” cock up

Democracy can be a right pain when people do not vote the way that people in power organising the vote expect them to.

Brighton discovered this a decade before Brexit and with a much more important result on the line, namely the design of a football away kit.

The premise was quite simple – from six possible kits, pick the one you like and text the relevant code into the Albion.

At the time, the green and black kit seemed to be the most popular among supporters. There was some surprise then when the result was announced and maroon that had won the day.

We later found out that the green and black design three (left of the picture) gained the most votes, yet the club had gambled on maroon being the winner before voting had even opened.

They had made this fact pretty clear as for a good few months prior to the vote, as all coaching staff had been wearing brand new maroon training gear.

In order to get out of this particular example of democracy not working correctly, the Albion came up with an ingenious solution.

They changed the voting criteria and lumped the total number of votes for the four maroon kits together, so that they could decree it was a more popular colour than green and black and therefore the winner.

Even though there were only two green and black kits to choose from, meaning maroon had a significant numbers advantage over the option that fans actually voted.

We had to wait another six years for a green and black top, which remains to this day one of the best Brighton away kits ever. And there has never been a supporter poll to pick a new away kit since. Brighton fans cannot be trusted to make the right decision.

 

The 2002-03 season “Kit finally turns up in October” cock up

We have already touched upon the Brighton & Hove Albion’s liking throughout the 2000s to leave it until the last minute before sorting out the football kit for the following season.

That reached its zenith in 2002-03 when fans had to wait until October arrived to get their hands on the new home shirt.

Errea were working at full blown capacity that summer and that meant the Albion’s tardiness in submitting their designs resulted in a significant delay – so much so that supporters resorted to buying training tops with the new look Skint sponsor in place of the actual kit.

It was not just in the club shop where Brighton were late to get started that season either – in terms of actual football, the Albion had only one win on the board by the time the kit finally showed up two months into the season.

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The 2017-18 season “One season kit that isn’t in stock for half of it” cock up

Not having a new kit turn up until October is pretty bad. But at least once it did arrive three months into the 2002-03 season, it was then in stock for the next 22 months. Which is a far cry from what happened with the 2017-18 home kit.

Since becoming a Premier League club, the Albion have become determined to milk supporters for every penny they can and that means a new home kit every season.

When that is the case, you probably do not want it to therefore be out of stock between August and December – five of the 10 months in which Brighton would be wearing it.

Even Paul Barber – a man who will always find a reason as to why nothing is the fault of the Albion – struggled to justify charging supporters north of £50 for a shirt that would only be relevant for half a season.

There was also something strangely comforting in knowing that even Nike – one of the biggest football and sportswear companies in the world – was not immune from a Brighton kit cock up.

 

The 1997-98 season “We don’t know who the sponsor will be” cock up

This one is slightly harder to lay at the club’s door given the turmoil that was going on at the time. Homeless and with Knight’s official takeover of the club still not officially ratified, nobody knew who the shirt sponsor for the 1997-98 season was going to be.

The campaign began with Sandtex across the front of the shirt but Knight wanted Donatello to take over once his chairmanship was fully confirmed.

And so the club hatched this ingenious idea to put the sponsor for the initial run of shirts on a bloody great white felt panel.

The theory went that if the sponsor changed, then Donatello’s logo could just be placed over the top of the panel.

Indeed, some supporters handed out Donatello stickers to cover up the name of the paint company who many associated with Focus DIY and the Archer regime.

As it was, Sandtex remained the sponsor for the rest of the season and fans were able to get a replacement shirt with their logo on minus felt panel later in the campaign in exchange for the original monstrosity.

 

The 2016-17 season “Kit revealed a week early by Royal Blood drummer” cock up
In this corporate day and age, over elaborate new kit launches are all the rage. It is certainly something that the Albion love to do, as was the case with the 2017-18 away kit with the club employing blanket secrecy over the colours and design of the first Premier League away kit.

That was until 24 hours before the “launch date”, when photos of Royal Blood drummer Ben Thatcher wearing a brand new yellow Albion shirt surfaced online.

Brighton instantly released a statement, claiming that it was part of “the first ever overseas kit launch”, which had taken place in Australia on the agreed date.

The reason that the photos had surfaced 24 hours earlier was because it was that agreed date in Australia, thanks to the magic of time zones.

Except of course it wasn’t, as the photos were taken at a gig in Sydney six days before the scheduled launch day. Nice try, Albion.

This was proof that Thatcher had inadvertently revealed the new away kit on the other side of the world with as little fanfare as possible an entire week before the club wanted to do so.

To make this turn of events even more incredible, the same thing happened with the Unlucky Yellow away kit of 2020-21.

Blurry photos were leaked from the player’s media day where Sky and BT filmed their vignettes, revealing before the official release that the Albion had gone full-on tribute to 1983 with an away kit to match the all-blue home number.

At least it wasn’t a blue away kit to go with a blue home kit.