Brighton and Hove Albion has won the Advance Performance Best Community Initiative Award for Coca-Cola League 1 at the 2008 Football League Awards incorporating FourFourTwo's Top 50 Football League Players.

The club received the award at a gala dinner at The London Hilton, Park Lane on Sunday 2nd March 2008 in front of over 800 attendees from clubs, sponsors and the football industry.

For their winning entry, Brighton and Hove Albion have developed a new target specific Registered Social Landlords (RSL) Football Inclusion Project, to offer football as a positive activity for young people in targeted areas of deprivation, emphasising the values of teamwork, inclusion, achievement, respect and self belief. Regular funded football sessions have been established to provide young people within the opportunity to participate in regular physical exercise. Over 800 young people have been engaged in the project since August 2007.

Darren Bernstein, Customer Services Manager of The Football League and judge in this category commented that "Brighton's project is an innovative approach to putting a targeted structure behind a great community development initiative".

On winning the award, Darren Teague commented: "It's brilliant, we picked up the community club award last year and this is a phenomenal achievement to do it again. We are appreciative of the support we receive to all of our individual projects. We could not do this with organisations like the East and West Sussex Fire Services. The Football Foundation also deserve a mention because they have been brilliant and we are delighted to be recognised in this way."

Commenting on the 2008 Football League Awards, The Football League Chairman, Lord Mawhinney, said: "For the third consecutive year, The Football League Awards has been an enormous success. Once again, it has given us the opportunity to recognise and reward the outstanding contributions made by fans, clubs and players to the continued growth and development of league football."

The number one spot in the FourFourTwo Top 50 Football League Players went to West Bromwich Albion striker, Kevin Phillips, followed by Andy Gray of Charlton and Michael Kightly of Wolverhampton Wanderers. The full list of The Top 50 Football League Players can be found either in the April issue of FourFourTwo which is on sale now, or on the FourFourTwo website www.fourfourtwo.com.

The Football League Awards show will be aired on Sky Sports 1 on Thursday 6th March at 8pm.

To find out more about The Football League Awards please visit www.footballleagueawards.com.

Advance Performance sponsored the Football League Best Community Initiative Award for the Coca-Cola League 1 at the 2008 Football League Awards. Advance Performance helps businesses learn how to work just like world class sports teams, and as a result, inspiring the work force, the customers and the shareholders.