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!