The Coca-Cola Saga

Ten years ago this month was the closest I’ve got to my Andy Warhol allocated 15 minutes of fame. 

I don't even LIKE soup..

Back in the Spring of 2005, Coca-Cola had been running a competition with the Football League called ‘Win a Player’ whereby if you registered your contact details daily on a special website you had the chance of winning £250,000 for the football league club of your choice, plus £10,000 for yourself – and more or less I had registered every day.

On Friday May 27^th 2005, I was in a very deep sleep (having returned from holiday the day before and suffering from jet lag) when my mobile phone first rang at 915am, displaying a private number – so I ignored it, and rolled back to sleep. Annoyingly the phone rang again ten minutes later so I caved in and answered it.

A really nervous guy spoke and asked me to confirm my name and which football team I supported…

“Why!?” I asked.

“Because we’re checking if you are the same person who entered a Coca-Cola competition recently”

This sounded promising!

“Oh ok – I’m Aaron Berry, and Brighton and Hove Albion” I confirmed.

“Well congratulations, you are the major prize winner!”

I just couldn’t believe it and I literally started to shake as I’d never won anything like this before!

I knew just how much of an impact £250,000 would have for the Albion, as they’d barely bought any players over recent years for substantial fees, and I’d now be helping to change that.

Shortly after, I received a further call saying a rep from Coca-Cola would be coming down to arrange details for my signing confidentiality contracts and attending the Millennium Stadium for the Play Off final the following Monday – I’d actually forgotten that another part of the prize was a trip to the Play Off Final where I’d be presented with the winning cheque for the club on the pitch. Exciting stuff!

On the day of the game we (I’d gone with my son’s older brother) arrived at Cardiff for 9am and were greeted by a guy called Chris, who was to be our chaperone for the day. Hilariously he was a Crystal Palace fan, but to be fair he was a top lad and looked after us well, starting with buying us a substantial breakfast at the Hilton Hotel. Shortly after, the then Albion Chairman Dick Knight walked in with the then Albion Manager Mark McGhee, and by this point I was itching to celebrate with them, but it was explained to me that to add to the excitement, the ‘meeting’ between us would be delayed until a more spontaneous moment later at the stadium. Plus apparently Mark McGhee hadn't been told the news himself yet.

At about 1130am we headed into town, soaking up the atmosphere en route to the Millennium Stadium – it was a bit like déjà vu, having done the same thing exactly a year earlier when Albion had beaten Bristol City in the previous season’s Play Off final. My view at the stadium this time was slightly superior though, as we went straight to a hospitality box for a champagne reception. Nothing like the usual £2.50 chips I’d been used to at Withdean Stadium then...

At around 2pm, I was introduced to Clare, who would apparently be fielding all my phone calls and media liaisons. I thought it sounded a bit excessive, but as it turned out I absolutely needed her as I was bombarded with calls and interview requests for several weeks after the event.

Clare soon took me down to the tunnel area where I was stood amongst several West Ham United and Preston North End players/staff that were milling around getting ready for the game.

Also arriving at that time were Brighton and Hove Albion communications / press officers (Paul Camillin and Tim Dudding) who both came over and introduced themselves to us – clearly as delighted about the news as I was!

Clare asked me to change into my Brighton home shirt, and we started to walk down the tunnel – at which point Mark McGhee came jogging up the tunnel towards me... he shook my hand and kept on saying "well done!" continuously – he was absolutely made up with the news! We then headed onto the pitch, and the legend that is Chris Kamara approached me and said “You must be Aaron Berry!? Well done, we’ll be on in a moment!”

Having just met these two football legends that I knew so much about, and suddenly to have them know MY name and be shaking my hand was totally surreal. I might have been 29 years old, but I felt like a star struck child! Albion Chairman Dick Knight then joined us and gave me a huge hug, continuously thanking me and saying “well done!” over and over again - everyone was just so pleased!

At 240pm Chris Kamara led me, Mark and Dick (and the super sized novelty cheque) out to the centre circle and we did the live Sky Sports interview and loads of photos, before me and Dick walked back up the tunnel and did an interview with Paul & Tim in order to get the news onto the Albion website.

We then made our way back up to the hospitality box in time for the start of the match and to have some dinner too, though I didn’t get to eat much and I barely got to see large chunks of the match as I started getting text messages and mobile phone calls galore. Several friends and family had seen me on the TV and others had seen the news across dozens of websites on the internet, and just after half time I started getting calls from local and national press and TV / Radio stations wanting to speak to me about the win. I believe the first person I spoke to was Andy Naylor of the Brighton Argus newspaper, and I recall bursting into laughter during our conversation that all this was really happening!

It was tremendously overwhelming (but in a very good way) and the adrenalin and shock of being so involved in it all just kept me going – I was determined to thoroughly enjoy every moment.

At the end of the match, I sat in the hospitality box and tried so hard to remember all that had happened as it all went by in such a flash. From the moment I won, the people I had spoken to at Coca-Cola and those who had looked after us had been tremendous in making it an experience I’ll never forget. By the time I got home at 915pm I was exhausted but still totally thrilled about what had happened.

The next morning on the way to work I was still buzzing! It was part of the local news report on Southern FM Radio (now Heart), and when I got the morning edition of The Argus newspaper, I couldn’t believe how much it was emblazoned on the back page! I collected so many newspapers to keep as mementoes and appeared on both TV and radio over the subsequent couple of weeks, including TalkSport, BBC Radio Five Live and Soccer AM on Sky Sports. I went to Withdean on a couple of occasions to have interviews and photo shoots with Mark, Dick and the all-important cheque, and kindly the club also presented me with a personalised home shirt depicting my win for them – an item which still holds pride of place in my home.

A month or so after the event we signed the player my winnings would buy.

Colin Kazim-Richards from Bury was someone I’d admittedly not heard of before, but You Tube evidenced that he was a talented player capable of scoring spectacular goals. Colin was very friendly and was over the moon to be joining us – he thanked me for making the effort as he felt he may not have been a Brighton player without the club having won the competition. He was generally known by his initials ‘CKR’, but was also very soon was dubbed 'the Coca-Cola Kid’.

I couldn’t recall looking forward to the start of a season as much in years and it seemed nothing could go wrong. And to be fair, for the first couple of months of the season, nothing did go wrong.

It’s fair to say though that this particular story comes in two parts. Part one above, was about as good as it gets – I loved all of it. But part two of the story didn’t go quite so well for a variety of reasons.

Unfortunately the boost of signing CKR didn’t really materialise in terms of team performance, and it seemed that maybe this wasn’t the dream move that all parties had hoped it would be. Something didn’t seem to be right and there was apparently great frustration about the way things were panning out. The team had a diabolical season, save for a couple of stand out moments (a 0-1 win at Crystal Palace and a 2-1 win at home to Leeds United.)

CKR finished as top scorer with six goals (which shows how poor the season was for the team as a whole), but never really got to fulfil his potential.

I was a bit caught in the middle as I could understand the frustrations of fans who felt Colin hadn’t done well or shown enough effort, but maybe there were reasons why.

I posted a few vague references (fed to me from CKR’s advisors) about why he was unhappy on the Albion fans’ most popular internet forum North Stand Chat and got a few understanding responses… but my words also attracted some personal criticism (and abuse) against me because I wasn’t entirely telling everyone every little thing I knew - due to the personal nature of some of the issues though, I strongly felt it wasn’t my place to do so. Maybe staying silent might have been a better option, but I was hoping for a happier ending!

A lot of fans were very sympathetic to me, but one or two were starting to give me as much abuse as they were giving Colin. I offered (on occasion) to discuss matters privately, but most were not inclined to take me up on it. In fairness, many more people after the event were very kind and generous, noting that it clearly wasn’t my fault that things hadn't worked out. At times I felt rather under pressure, and almost longed to go back to being an anonymous fan again.

At the start of the following season (August 2006) CKR was sold to Sheffield United with a sell on clause (which subsequently netted the Albion a further £200,000) so by all accounts the prize win was now effectively half a million quid. The money was still in the club so it hadn't been lost, and I was told the profit was ultimately used in part to purchase Glenn Murray… 

Could do a job...

But the end result of what had been a superb experience was rather sad I guess.

Graciously, the Albion chairman Dick Knight phoned me on the night we sold Colin to explain why he had been let go. The reasons were confidential and remain so - I've still never told anyone about what we spoke about.

I know Dick shared the same disappointment as I did, in that it never really worked out. Dick also invited me to be a guest in the boardroom for an upcoming home game, which I gratefully accepted.

Many people had suggested I should get a season ticket for life as thanks from the club, but hand on heart it hadn't crossed my mind. At the time, the club was hard up enough without giving away further gifts! Had we already moved to our much delayed stadium at Falmer by then I might have considered it, but never whilst we were still at Withdean though.

To help the club I love by winning a substantial sum of money at a time when they needed all the financial help they could get, was reward enough.

Besides, there were greater heroes than me as fans – the likes of Paul Samrah, Liz Costa, John Baines, Tim Carder, Ed Bassford, Roz South and not forgetting the sadly departed Sarah Watts and Roy Chuter (and I could go on with many others) who put in so much time for campaigns to help the club – but it was enough for me to have gained the opportunity in the future to say to my Grandchildren: ‘I was lucky enough to win this and it helped the club keep going on the pitch for a little while’

And look how far the Albion has come since. Marvellous scenes!*

*Notwithstanding this season just gone!

I never really had much contact directly with CKR after the day he signed for us. When he left, he spent a season with Sheffield United before moving to Fenerbahçe where he played (and scored) against Chelsea in the Champions League. Kindly he sent me a signed Fenerbahçe shirt and his Dad also offered to fly me out to see a game in Turkey – I didn’t go, but nonetheless it was a very generous gesture. CKR went on to play for the Turkish national team as well as Toulouse, Galatasaray, Feyenoord and Blackburn Rovers – though his appearance for the latter against Brighton at The Amex in 2013 brought about some contentious issues to say the least.

Overall it was a strange saga, but I would not have sacrificed winning the competition as it was such a great experience, and ultimately helpful for the club. On top of that, in later years the win got mentioned in a couple of superb books (MadMan and We Want Falmer) which I was absolutely made up by.Overall it was definitely one of the best happenings of my life. 

As for the £10,000 I won… well it may sound boring but I mainly cleared my debts! The rest of the money was spent on taking a family holiday in 2006, paying for my brother to have the same laser eye surgery I’d had and buying a huge freezer and a food processor. All of which left me with just about enough spare cash for a KFC bucket and a bottle of Southern Comfort!

Simple pleasures!

Falling Into Football

It’s fair to say that my two main hobbies / interests are music and football. Plenty of my blogs have delved into my music tastes, so maybe it’s about time to talk football.

I didn’t really grow up having a direct football influence in my house. My parents have never been into football so by default it was never on TV, save a handful of times as I recall my Dad watching the occasional England Vs Scotland clash, probably due to a sense of patriotic duty.

Nor did I ever really play much football as a child, as I just wasn’t that good, and liable to break into a fit of nervous giggles whenever I actually got passed the ball… though I did get better as I got older and proudly even scored one solitary goal for the school team in a mini tournament when I was about 13. In fact it was a bit like Lineker's first in this clip!
No really!

The only occasions I got anywhere near close to football exposure was via my grandparents – both of whom loved the game. My paternal Grandad was a Tottenham fan (even though he came from south of the River), and his father before him had been a dyed in the wool Fulham fan. My maternal Grandad was a Brighton & Hove Albion season ticket holder, but nothing really drew my attention too much to the sport whilst I was young. Not even the 1983 FA Cup final when my local team Brighton, in unlikely circumstances, actually took Manchester United to a replay before succumbing to defeat. I do recall watching both games, but really I was just a seven year old boy supporting Brighton for geographical reasons rather than actually knowing much about it.

So the tide didn’t turn until I was ten and a half years old, and around about May 1986.

We had a school project running about a month before the Mexico ’86 World Cup and we were allocated teams to write about in ‘news bulletins’.
As I wasn’t particularly fussed about football I just went with the flow, and along with a couple of other girls in the class, I was asked to adopt Scotland. 

Were Scotland any good? I really didn’t know!

I do remember hearing that England had beaten West Germany in a pre-tournament friendly (whatever that meant) so maybe this was a good thing?

As the tournament started I remember learning that England had lost their first game, and then drew the next and was on the verge of going out of the tournament early. ‘So what!?’ I thought. I hadn't watched either England game, or any of the other matches so far – I was just so totally nonchalant about it all.

And then a strange thing happened which I still can’t fathom out to this day. On June 11^th I went to bed as normal – probably around 9pm, but got woken up by my Dad at about 1030pm. My Dad – generally a loather of football and all that was associated with it – woke me up and said:

“Come downstairs and watch the football, England are two nil up!”

I really only went down because it was an excuse to be up late, but as I got downstairs, some guy called Lineker banged in his third goal and England – or we the nation as I instantly now felt – were three nil up! 

Why my Dad brought me downstairs I just don’t know, and I’m sure he doesn't know either, but watching that goal and the second half of the game got me solidly involved with football hook, line and sinker, and I never looked back. It really was just like a switch that someone had turned on. 

England had two more games at that tournament before being knocked out in the cruellest of fashions. The Maradona ‘Hand of God’ goal was hard to take for a young child naïve to the ways of fair play (or lack of it) in football.

Diego Maradona made me cry about football for the first time (though not the last) and I couldn’t understand how such a thing could have been allowed to happen. I’m sure it wasn’t corruption on behalf of the officials, though it was highly incompetent officiating for them ALL to miss such a blatant aspect of cheating.
Maradona was the classic flawed genius whose misdemeanours caught up with him in time; other such talents followed suit in the years to come as England were denied a greater impact on the world stage without the fully realised potential of (for example) Paul Gascoigne, largely due to injuries.

One thing I learnt very early on though in my football education is that there’s one thing you can guarantee from the beautiful game: Football will continuously let you down.

Anyway, I digress.

The tricky thing about getting into football during a World Cup is that I had to learn quickly who these England players actually played for and I quickly wanted a club to support. Whilst I knew very soon that Brighton & Hove Albion was to be my team, it wasn’t out of favouritism for one of my Grandads’ over the other – in fact I still hold a soft spot for Tottenham in memory of my Spurs supporting Grandad – plus my son’s great great Grandfather had actually been a Spurs player.
Add into this I really admired Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle during the World Cup, and they were / are absolute Spurs legends.

Mullet-tastic

My Dad’s Mum was from Islington, which likely explains why his only soft spot for any club football team was Arsenal. Regardless, I was born in Brighton, so I proudly opted to support my local team.

The football season couldn’t start soon enough and my brain soon started soaking up stats like they were going out of fashion. In fact I would suspect this is where my OCD started. I was playing catch up with my friends who had been into football for years and I just had to get my knowledge factually correct or they’d cut me down in a second – because let’s face it, kids can be cruel that way!

During that first full season, I became deeply immersed with it all, culminating in attending my first proper football match ever with my Grandad on April 10^th 1987.

The Goldstone Ground

Brighton and Hove Albion Vs Crystal Palace was a local derby with deadly historic rivalry and I sat in the West Stand at the well loved, but run down Goldstone Ground on the Old Shoreham Road / Newtown Road to see us win 2-0. It was a terrific day and set the grounding for my desire to follow ‘The Albion’ forever, even though we were relegated that season!

That aside, it was largely good experiences in my football journey in those early years, but it wasn’t always wonderful.
Yes, I’d been upset about how Maradona cheated England out of the 1986 World Cup, but that feeling was nothing when compared to watching fellow football fans die on the television. Merely watching the Hillsborough tragedy unfold in 1989 was devastatingly awful, so it's impossible to comprehend how those directly involved must have felt - and still feel. I remember watching the presenter of Grandstand (Bob Wilson) trying desperately to keep it together. He was getting so choked up and I was on the verge of doing the same.

You can’t really go and research to see what it was like through recorded video footage (not that I’d recommend it anyway), because huge amounts of coverage were never broadcast on television or elsewhere again, such were the graphic images being shown. At the time, British football fans had a reputation (rightly or wrongly) of hooliganism, but this wasn’t the same scenario. The outpouring of emotion and grief at this tragedy was heart wrenching and it literally made people ill. I had absolutely no connection with Liverpool Football Club, but I had every connection with the fans as I was one of them. I could have been one of them; a football fan dying on a terrace. This is why the plight of the families directly involved was so enduring in the years that followed.

Tremendously, campaigns were fought and eventually won in helping justice prevail over the circumstances of that particular event, but in the initial aftermath, all fans could do was to pray for common sense and changes so that it might never happen again. It started the slow but sure alteration of how football was perceived and run in this country, which was has been good in many, many ways. It’s fair though to say that in 2015 football has nearly become as elitist sport in the eyes of many, but if part of those changes mean that lives are never lost again at a football match, then maybe that's the right way to go.

I try to detach from the financial side of what football has become, as at the end of the day, I just want to go and watch my local team with my family, whether they are successful or not - but possibly over time football has changed to the degree that the peoples' game has been taken away from many of the people for better or for worse.

I appreciate the highs in football so much because I know that the lows are more frequent, and being a Brighton fan maybe highlights this more than some other clubs! Football for me over the years has gone from being fun and frivolous, to being tense and escapist. That’s fine, because you keep going for the handful of moments that are frankly beyond emotive description.

Even now, aged 39, I still get asked “Why!? Why do you love football – what is it about it that is so good?”

Well I’ll leave the final comment on that, to the broadcaster (and Millwall fan) Danny Baker, who whilst commenting on Manchester City winning the league in literally the last couple of SECONDS of the 2011/12 season, captured the overriding and all too infrequent feeling of all football fans everywhere in one short sound bite :

“Football! F****** football! Imagine not being into it. Those poor, poor half-alive b*******!”

Do you remember the time?

So how is 2015 for you so far?

Enjoying your flying cars, Hoverboard,

Nike power lace ups and inside out jeans?

How about the Pepsi Perfect you had in the Café 80’s?

Not everything forecast in Back To The Future Part II  has come to pass (although the Nike Power Laces are on the way soon!), so whilst I’m taking February off, and replenishing my blogging juices for a proper bit of writing, I’m going to play my ‘get out’ card for this one!

I haven’t done a retro list for a while, so here are a few memory joggers for all you lovely 80’s and 90’s children!

So do you remember the time, when…

… you could watch MTV and you knew EVERY song they played?

...If Clarissa couldn't explain it all, then Sabrina might try instead 

… Comic Relief was genuinely the funniest night on TV all year?

… when Starbuck was male, and not female, and not a coffee house?

… you wouldn’t eat porridge oats, as you thought the Quaker dude was looking at you a bit funny?

… we were apparently 18 months behind the Neighbours storyline?

... virtually everyone liked Band Aid?

... Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks were the best thing on the telly on a Saturday afternoon?

... barely four football matches were televised a month?

... we only had three channels on TV?

... it took half a day to set the VCR?

… you knew what a VCR was?

... Big Brother was a relation?

... kids played in the park?

... all we had were three Star Wars films?

… female celebrities had their original lips?

... The Beano and The Dandy gave away free gifts that glowed in the dark?

... the internet cost £2.50 per hour to surf at home?

…when surfing was something only west coast Americans did?

... Saturday morning TV was for children?

... flat screen TVs were only on Star Trek?

... when 3D was red and blue? Or you’d make your own out of those plastic sun visor hats?

... F1 was competitive between more than two drivers?

... a pound coin was a note?

… school glue was a fashion accessory?

… you knew what a Squarial was?

… a Polo packet cost 7p?

… you only had sausages wrapped in bacon at Christmas?

… ‘Wannabe’ was the only song on the radio all summer?

… Lime Green ruled 1996?

… Twitter was something the birds did?

… Celebrities were genuinely talented in their profession?

… hardly anybody’s parents were divorced?

… there was a pub in every village?

 

I’ll be Back To The Blogging in March!

 Belief.Love.Spirit

XxX

Fickle Football Press (or FFP)

If FFP at club level stands for Financial Fair Play, then for England at International level it surely stands for Fickle Football Press as far as the media is concerned.

I’m as frustrated as the next fan at the nil success rates over the years, so things DO need to improve – but it’s never going to happen overnight is it?

Did the press not see the last World Cup? We gave it a go, and granted we had no luck at all, and in truth but we fell well short of any achievement - but what makes people (and in particular, sections of the English media) think we would suddenly become brilliant again after one match?

Several of the England players in the match last week against Norway had under 10 caps and they will need support and encouragement after poor performances rather than rants.

Thankfully this latter approach does appear to happen from within the camp as the performance in a game that mattered against a very good Switzerland team was the best we’d seen for a while.

How do the press react? They start looking at venues in France where England might be based if we qualify! Fickle.

I don’t buy for a second that the players and staff don’t care. Joe Hart exemplifies what it means on the field, and Gary Neville exudes a huge drive to succeed off the field.

Things are definitely going in the right direction with these guys on the scene.

The trouble is a lack of patience.

Much of the media/press commentary forget (or choose to ignore) that both the Spanish and Germans had spells like this in the not too distant past, when they had to retire many of their own so called golden generations and ‘start again’.

Positive stepping stones are all important.

I often glance at the views of the spuds-flogging, goatee-trialling, former goal machine king of Twitter Gary Lineker to see what his measured views on football matters are:

“Judge this group in 4 years time, not after their first 90 minutes” says King Links.

That’s good enough for me.