Green and black should have been a Brighton away kit in 2005-06

Democracy. It is a great idea until the people vote for something they are not supposed to. Like Brighton & Hove Albion fans wanting a green and black away kit for the 2005-06 season.

Your correspondent’s first thought upon seeing the 2023-24 away shirt in those colours (a stunner, by the way) was not how good it looked, but that it bore a remarkable resemblance to the away kit the Seagulls should have had nearly two decades ago.

These were the days when Dick Knight would have a heavy involvement in personally designing each and every kit, often with superb consequences.

There was the year Brighton ended up with a blue and white home shirt, a yellow and navy blue away shirt and a sky blue third-choice shirt – begging the question, what happens when the Albion play away against one of the many League One teams wearing blue?

The answer to that was they had to produce a “special edition” white kit worn at Shrewsbury Town and Millwall. They also had to borrow Leicester City’s yellow away kit for a game at the artist formerly known as the Walkers Stadium.

Knight was also responsible for the infamous Batman Kit, an all-black away shirt which was meant to have a white seagull across the torso. Said seagull was so big and weirdly shaped that it ended up looking like a pregnant bat instead.

And who can forget the Argentina home kit. Depending on who or what you believe, it was either designed inadvertently or deliberately in the wrong shade of blue. Either way, it was horrid.

The criticism over that ghastly light blue effort introduced for the 2004-05 campaign was still ringing in Knight’s ears when it came to deciding what to do with the away kit for 2005-06. And it undoubtedly played a part in the Brighton chairman deciding to democratise the process.

What followed was a very simple premise. Three different kits were designed with two variations on each design; one variation incorporated the club’s shield badge of the time and the other that single seagull which Knight was bizarrely keen on but most supporters detested.

Two of the three designs were maroon and the other was green and black stripes; fans were asked to email or text in their favourite, and whichever of the six ended up with the most votes would be the new Brighton away kit.

During the voting period, the green and black kit design seemed the overwhelming favourite. It came as something of a surprise then when it was announced that maroon was the winner.

It was later discovered that green and black had indeed won, but in true Brighton & Hove Albion kit cock up style the club gambled on maroon being the most popular before voting even opened.

They had even decked out the coaching staff in new maroon training gear a few months prior to the poll. It had long been decided that maroon would be the new alternate colours of the Albion; the club just needed supporters to ratify the decision.

When those pesky fans did not do that and instead wanted to go down their own route, Brighton came up with an ingenious way to overcome the result of the vote.

They changed the voting criteria and lumped the total number of votes for all four maroon kits together, thus declaring it the most popular colour.

This was clearly absolute bollocks. At no point during the process was it said Albion supporters were voting for their favourite colour.

And in any case, maroon consisted of 66 percent of the options, giving it an advantage over green and black. Even North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was said to be impressed with the vote rigging.

Unsurprisingly, there has never been a supporter poll to pick a new away kit since. Brighton fans cannot be trusted to make the right decision.

It would be another six seasons before the Seagulls sported a green and black away kit – and although one of the most popular shirts the Albion have ever produced, traditionalists would say it was not a proper shade of green.

So, after 18 long years, the Albion and Nike have finally given the people what they asked for back in 2005. Green and black stripes.

Democracy in action, just a little bit… delayed?