Brighton want to trademark the 2,600-year-old word ‘Albion’
If you believe what you read in the papers, then somebody at the Amex Stadium has lost their mind. Brighton are to attempt to trademark the 2,600-year-old word ‘Albion’ according to reports in the Daily Telegraph.
In a move which has generated much public ridicule, the Telegraph exclusive reveals that Brighton are hoping that West Bromwich Albion and Burton Albion will jump on board to help copyright the word.
Brighton claim it is “a move designed to protect supporters”. Those of us who have tried to buy a Brighton shirt but accidentally been conned into purchasing a Stirling Albion mug, a night at the Albion Hotel or an album by 1970s folk group The Albion Band will no doubt appreciate the decision.
The rest of football will however suspect that is simply a further attempt at profiteering by a football club. Quite how Brighton can claim ownership of a word dating from the 6th century BC is anyone’s guess.
Albion is the ancient Celtic name for the island of Great Britain, used for over 500 years before the Romans invaded. It is intertwined with myths about giants who used to walk the land and appears in numerous poems and writings referring to Britain.
William Blake, writer of Jerusalem, frequently uses the word Albion in his work. If he were alive today, one of Britain’s best loved writers could now find himself being slapped with a cease and desist order by the legal team at the Amex.
The word has fallen out of use in recent times, although Canada was nearly named New Albion. Paul Barber trying to sue an entire nation of 37.59 million people would have made for interesting viewing.
There are countless other football clubs across England and Scotland who use the term Albion in their name. Where they will stand should Brighton be able to trademark Albion remains unclear.
Albion Rovers, Ossett Albion, Stirling Albion, Tadcaster Albion and Witton Albion all exist. Albion Rovers, Tadcaster and Witton all used the term Albion before Brighton were even formed – and the first of those could find themselves in real trouble should Blackburn or Doncaster decide to attempt to trademark the world Rovers too.
In Uruguay, the second-oldest club in the country is called Albion FC. Plymouth’s rugby team is Plymouth Albion, there is an Albion FC playing Aussie Rules in Sydney and an Albion Cricket Club in New Zealand.
The biggest irony about Brighton trying to claim ownership of the word Albion is that the Seagulls’ founding fathers actually stole it from somewhere else back in 1901.
There are two theories as to how Brighton came to be known as the Albion. The first is that it was decided to copy everything about West Bromwich Albion – founded 23 years before Brighton – right down to their blue and white stripes.
The other theory is that because the word Albion was prevalent in many local businesses in Brighton at the time the football club was formed, it made sense to adopt it.
The Albion Hotel already existed, there were many pubs in the city bearing the name and the Albion Brewery was one of the city’s first great beer producers.
Several of those who founded the club owned and had stakes in these various businesses, and so from a publicity point of view they were very keen to incorporate the name into that of a brand new football club.
That is a tradition that has continued to this day as many Brighton have supporters have subsequently named their businesses after the Albion in honour of the club.
At one point, Dick Knight almost encouraged them to do so when setting up the Friends of the Albion scheme, a listing for Seagulls fans to pick a fellow Brighton-supporting company whenever they needed work done in a specific field. Goodness knows where the trademarking of Albion would leave those people.
To try and trademark as its own a 2,600-year-old word that the club took from elsewhere in the first place as seems a completely bonkers idea.
We all know it has nothing to do with ‘protecting supporters’ and everything to do with making money from the word itself.
Even if Brighton are successfully able to trademark the word Albion, this is a move that will be filed along with introducing a £250-per-season fee for supporters to access Seven Stars Bar and charging £15 to enter Boxpark Wembley as being driven by pure greed.
As one fan wrote on Twitter in response to the article: “At least sport will be more in touch with its fans and supporters when This Thing is over… Football: ‘hold my beer’.” The last three months do not seemed to have changed much when it comes to football’s obsession with money.
Incredibly, Brighton’s attempts to trademark Albion isn’t even the most ridiculous example of football clubs thinking the world and language revolves around them.
Last September, Liverpool tried to trademark the word Liverpool, thinking they could own the rights to the name of an entire city of over 500,000 residents which is also home to another Premier League football club.
The Intellectual Property Office chucked that application out based on the fact that one football club could not really claim as its property the name of a city founded in 1207.
It will be interesting to see what the IPO makes of Brighton trying to do likewise with the ancient name of an entire country which has existed for over two millennia.
