A superfan attending his 1,000th Albion game has tipped his team as a Premier League force.

Jon Vallance first saw Brighton and Hove as a nine-year-old at The Goldstone when a terrace ticket cost 75p.

He has hardly missed a game since 1988 and has painstakingly documented fixtures in notepads and spreadsheets.

Jon hopes the club can maintain their fighting spirit and not become a “bland corporate franchise”.

The dad-of-two said: “I’m well aware that there are plenty of Albion fans who will have been to more games than me, but I’m not sure how many of them will be able to pinpoint the exact number.”

Describing his highs and lows he said: “I’ll never forget the first game at The Amex with the last-minute winner against Doncaster. You couldn’t have written a better script.

“The game at Hereford in 1997 when a defeat would have seen us relegated out of the Football League and in all likelihood disappear from existence as a club was a horrible, gut-wrenching experience.

“But the sense of relief after we got the point we needed was almost overwhelming. It’s all a bit of a blur but we could win the Champions League final and it wouldn’t touch the emotion of that day.”

As a football-obsessed youngster from Littlehampton, Jon was torn between Albion and Portsmouth but chose the Seagulls for the friendly atmosphere and trendy town.

He bought his first season ticket aged 15 and started avidly travelling to away games – coming close to visiting all 92 league grounds.

During the years of exile in Gillingham he helped produce the ‘Scars and Stripes’ fanzine with profits generating vital income for the club.

Abandoned journeys to Newcastle blighted by blizzards and bomb threats have made him question his sanity.

But he has never looked back and hopes children Gemma, ten, and Daniel, six, might catch the bug.

He added: “Now we have this fantastic stadium and growing fan-base, I hope we strive to retain some of the character of the club which evolved over the ‘war years’ when we were fighting for our very existence.

“It’s a difficult task, but one that needs to be achieved to avoid becoming a bland corporate franchise.

“On the pitch there’s no reason we can’t become an established Premier League team within the next five to ten years.”