By Andy Heryet

The third annual Football League Awards, in association with FourFourTwo, took place earlier tonight at the London Hilton in Park Lane, and it was a great night for the Albion, with first place awards in two categories.

The Albion's Community team took the Advance Performance League One award for the Best Community Initiative, while Paul Samrah won the EA Sports sponsored Fan of the Year award.

Samrah said, "I am absolutely delighted. This award is as much for the thousands of fans around the country who helped us in our hour of need, as it is for me."

The Community team picked up their award as a result of their highly successful RSL project, where they have joined forces with various housing associations in Sussex to deliver football sessions to disadvantaged residents.

It is the second year running that the team have come away with an award, following on from their Community Club of the Year success in 2007.

Darren Teague, of Albion in the Community, said, "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."

Henfield-based tax specialist Samrah is well known to Albion supporters, not least for his chairmanship of the ground-breaking Falmer For All campaign team and his leadership of the Seagulls Party.

He is currently playing a leading role on Gary Hart's Testimonial Committee and is also the "Voice of Withdean", heading up the voluntary PA team at every home match.

Albion missed out on a hat-trick of awards: the matchday programme Seagull was nominated, but was pipped by Bristol City, but was the best in League 1 & 2.