England hat-trick hero Sir Geoff Hurst joined hundreds of supporters across the country in calling for a new stadium for Brighton and Hove Albion.

Fans decreed Saturday to be National Falmer Day in support of the campaign to persuade Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to approve the community stadium.

With the Seagulls' match being postponed because opponents Tranmere were playing in the FA Cup, supporters travelled to games as far away as Berwick to win support for the stadium.

Albion follower Brett Mendoza travelled to Upton Park in London for the West Ham Utd versus Walsall match.

There he bumped into Sir Geoff, who agreed to have his photo taken with a placard for the campaign.

Brett, 23, from Hove, said: "If I'm honest, I don't think he really knew the whole situation about the Albion but I gave him a quick speech and he was only too happy to pose for the picture.

"It was quite amusing posing for the photo with about 100 West Ham fans looking on, wondering what their legend was doing with a Brighton fan."

Also at Upton Park, fan Ben Payne met former England and West Ham star Trevor Brooking and explained details of the campaign. Mr Brooking was happy to pose for a picture with Ben.

Elsewhere, Seagulls supporters were allowed to carry a banner around the pitch at Bury in Greater Manchester, while scores more attended Crawley Town versus Weymouth.

About a dozen Albion fans handed out almost 3,000 leaflets at West Ham's game against Walsall.

At Oxford, a further 1,000 were distributed.

Paul Samrah, chairman of Falmer For All, said: "We had people from Berwick to Bournemouth, Colchester to Crawley.

"We even had some at our big rivals, Crystal Palace, and the reaction there was fine.

"Everyone recognises this transcends rivalry - it's about the survival of a club.

"We had programme entries for at least eight games plus stadium announcements and people on pitches.

"Getting Geoff Hurst on board as well was brilliant."

The next stage of the campaign is a postcard blitz of Labour MPs.

Tim Carder, chairman of the Albion supporters club, has asked people living in Labour constituencies to contact the club, which will send postcards on their behalf.

Mr Samrah said: "We have produced a postcard with four scenes of Brighton explaining why Falmer should go ahead.

"We've had 6,000 to 7,000 of these printed and are collecting a list of names of people to send them from."

To add your name to a postcard, visit homepage.virgin.net/tim.carder and follow the instructions.