I was taken, or rather sent, to the Goldstone ground with my father when I was eight or nine years old.

He was a member of the band that played before the game and again at the interval. It was a wonderful atmosphere. After the war, they were complete in red uniforms with brass buttons and packs which had to be whitened with great thoroughness.

The marching was serious, with every man upright and in time. It was only a few years since they were being drilled during the war, where they practised at Queens Square Drill Hall once a week.

Having played football with the kids from school, we had acquired a football for ourselves by saving 50 Oxo cube covers and sending them away. My uncle Billy was allowed on to the pitch to sell the cushions. I don't know what it cost but I suppose the ground was hard.

I am now 83 years old and still a supporter. My youngest son, a foreign language teacher for 20 years, lives on the Isle of Wight. They signed him on to the Albion but he only played prior to university. I am sorry to say his youngest child, aged 17, has changed to rugby and plays regularly. His daughter plays yet another game, badminton, for Oxford University but has shown Cambridge we are good at something in Sussex.

-W D Wheeler, Osborne Road, Brighton