Controversial winners of Brighton Player of the Season

Ben White has been a busy young man. In the space of five days, the defender has made his England debut, secured a place in the squad for Euro 2020 (in 2021) and been named been Brighton & Hove Albion Player of the Season.

More than a few eyebrows were raised about that last part. White as Player of the Season? He has been good, but the best Albion player in 2020-21? Seems like something fishy has gone on…

Of course, this would not be the first time that a Brighton Player of the Season award has ended in a controversial outcome. From ignoring the vote to changing the rules of the competition to avoid certain individuals winning, on occasions it has featured vote rigging on a scale that would make Vladimir Putin blush.

1991-92: Albion have the Gall to take the award off John Byrne
The 1991-92 season was played out amongst supporter unrest and serious financial problems. To balance the books, Brighton began selling off the family silver with the result being that the Albion went from being a Wembley play off final away from returning to the top flight in June 1991 to being relegated to the third tier in May 1992.

Manager Barry Lloyd had guaranteed after defeat to Notts County under the twin towers that Brighton would get out of the old Division Two a year later, so he did at least keep his word.

Anyway, amongst those players flogged in the summer of 1991 were the strike force who had taken the Seagulls so close to promotion. Mike Small moved to West Ham United for £400,000, Garry Nelson was off to Charlton Athletic for £50,000 and in mid-October, John Byrne followed them out the door after he was sold to Sunderland for £225,000.

As a means of protesting against the board following the Albion’s slide down the footballing pyramid, a concerted effort was made to vote for Byrne as Player of the Season.

Before his departure for Sunderland, he had weighed in with seven goals in 15 matches. That was the start of an excellent campaign for the Irish international as once at Roker Park, he scored six times in seven FA Cup matches to fire the Black Cats all the way to the final where they lost to Liverpool.

The Brighton board’s answer to the uncomfortable ballot declaring a bloke who left the Goldstone two months into the campaign as Player of the Season was to simply ignore it. Byrne’s replacement up front Mark Gall was declared the winner having scored 14 goals after signing from Maidstone United for £45,000.

If Byrne couldn’t win (and he couldn’t, what with him being a Sunderland player and everything) then Gall was at least the next best thing having been one of the only bright spots in a dire season. Little did anyone know at the time that things were going to get a lot, lot worse…

1995-96: Here’s your award Ian Chapman – and here is your P45
Four years on from Byrne v Gall and the off-the-pitch situation at the Goldstone Ground had become so bad that protests now involved smashing up the board room, invading the pitch and snapping the goals in half rather than voting for an ex-player as Brighton Player of the Season.

The board of Bill Archer, David Bellotti and Greg Stanley had bigger stuff to worry about than who was winning Player of the Season, like asset stripping the club.

Had they of not been so busy lining their pockets, then they might have stopped to wonder why Ian Chapman was being presented with the award just a few days after Jimmy Case had decided to release Chapman on a free transfer.

The sight of Chapman on the pitch before the York City home game receiving the standard Brighton Player of the Season glamour prize of a colour television at the same time as being handed his P45 remains very underrated when it comes to ridiculous moments in Albion history.

2008-09: Changing the rules so Lloyd Owusu cannot win
For Brighton & Hove Albion Player of the Season 2008-09, the club could foresee a potentially embarrassing situation unfolding and so they decided to avoid it by changing the rules of the voting.

The Albion were God-awful for the first seven months of the campaign under Micky Adams, leaving relegation into League Two a very real possibility.

Russell Slade arrived in February but not even a change of manager looked like it would arrest the slump. With eight games to play, Brighton were seven points adrift and looked doomed.

What followed was the greatest of Great Escapes. Slade masterminded a run of five wins, one draw and two defeats from those final fixtures, spearheaded by six goals from Lloyd Owusu. Alongside Owusu up front was Gary Hart, rolling the back years to his best days a decade before.

It was fairly obvious that even though Owusu had only played in 14 matches after arriving from Cheltenham Town in March, he would win Player of the Season at a canter.

Hart probably would not be far behind with other individuals who barely had a look under Adams but played huge roles in the survival effort – hello Doug Loft – featuring highly.

The club decided that they could not have Owusu take the crown – even though he clearly deserved it – as it would be the ultimate indication of what a cock up 2008-09 had been, all of which started with the decision to reward Dean Wilkins for finishing seventh in League One by replacing him with Adams.

And so they introduced a new law whereby you could only vote for a player who had played in more than a certain amount of games. What should have been Owusu’s award instead went to Andy Whing, largely because he was the only player who appeared to give a toss about staying up when Adams packed the side with mercenaries like Jason Jarrett and Chris Birchall.

2008-09 remains the only season where such an appearance-related rule was implemented in the voting for Player of the Season. Whing was still a popular winner based on effort alone, but Owusu was well and truly robbed as without his goals, the Albion would have dropped into the bottom tier for 2009-10.

2020-21: Vote rigging gives Ben a White-wash
Yves Bissouma. Lewis Dunk. Pascal Gross. Robert Sanchez. Solly March. Five players who all had a better 2020-21 season for Brighton than Ben White and yet it is England’s newest star who has been voted as the Albion’s Player of the Season.

When the result was announced, there was a lot befuddlement amongst Seagulls supporters.

“Did you vote for Ben White?”
“No. Did you vote for Ben White?”
“No.”

Conversations like that were taking place all over Sussex when it dawned that the poll had been hijacked by fans of 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United, who had taken time out from their daily routine of walking their whippet and drinking pints of Tetleys to vote for White.

In a piece of election fraud that would have had Bashar al-Assad roaring with approval, it turned out to be enough to win White the award.

White has had an excellent first season as a Premier League football. He has covered multiple positions, been consistent, hardly put a foot wrong and is now going to Euro 2020 (in 2021) because of it.

Has he been better than the likes of Bissouma, Dunk or Gross though? No. Proof that democracy can be a dangerous game.