The champagne flowed long into the night at the County Ground on Friday after Sussex finally gave their long-suffering supporters a moment to remember.

Shortly after 3.15pm, Murray Goodwin drove a ball from Alastair Bressington through extra cover to complete a ten wicket win over Gloucestershire and clinch the County Championship second division title.

It might not quite rank with Yorkshire's achievement in winning the whole thing a couple of weeks ago, but not too many of the overjoyed supporters who enjoyed the celebrations before dragging themselves reluctantly away late yesterday afternoon will care about that.

The country's oldest first class county have won six one-day trophies in their 162 years so moments like yesterday have to be savoured.

For Sussex the wheel has turned full circle in the space of a year.

Twelve months ago they crumbled to an innings defeat against the same opponents and finished bottom of the table.

But the side has been transformed this season and while several outstanding individual performances have formed the corner-stone of their success, what has shone through more than anything is the superb team spirit and work ethic which Chris Adams and coach Peter Moores have developed right from the moment they sat down with the squad on the pre-season tour of Grenada in April and outlined the plan of action.

Their hunger for success was evident even before yesterday's play began when Adams sat them all down on the outfield to ask whether they should enforce the follow on or not. Batting again would have insured them against the possibility of defeat, but Adams' players rejected the soft option. They wanted to go for the jugular.

And who better to press gently onto an opponent's throat than James Kirtley who rounded off a summer of outstanding personal achievement by taking a season's best 6-34 as Gloucestershire were bowled out for 173.

Kirtley's afternoon burst took him to 75 wickets for the season, a figure which only Surrey's Martin Bicknell can now overtake with four against Glamorgan today.

But even Kirtley was happy to step into the shadows after he'd ended the innings by removing Roger Sillence and allow Mark Robinson the finale to his career this outstanding professional deserved.

Robinson finished with 54 wickets, his best haul in 14 years on the circuit, and as the players formed a guard of honour in front of the pavilion, Robinson, took his leave of the first-class game to a standing ovation from supporters who recognise the contribution he has made to the re-birth of the club in the last five years.

A few minutes later Paul Hutchison, who signed a three-year deal yesterday, was introduced to the supporters. The 24-year-old, who has joined Sussex from Yorkshire, must have felt a bit like an outsider looking in as the celebrations began in earnest.

But it didn't take too many beers in the dressing room with his new team-mates to persuade him to delay his return to Leeds until today so he could enjoy the promotion party.

Hutchison will have also got some idea, in the hour or so's play which he saw, of the reasons behind Sussex's success and the difficult task he will face just trying to establish himself next season.

Gloucestershire had moved to within eight runs of making Sussex bat again with only four wickets down thanks to Dominic Windows, Matt Windows (27) and Ian Harvey (37).

Adams threw the ball to Kirtley and in a five-over burst he dismantled the visitors' batting. In his first over Mark Alleyne mis-timed a pull to square leg and two balls later Martyn Ball fell into the trap when Kirtley dropped short and the batsman pulled the ball straight into Richard Montgomerie's hands at deep square leg.

Suddenly the force was with Sussex again.

Reggie Williams steered Kirtley straight to point and then Robinson had Hewson's caught at bat-pad. Bressington's stumps were spreadeagled by Kirtley's yorker and Gloucestershire had lost their last six wickets for 22 runs in 8.1 overs when Sillence top-edged a pull and Montgomerie pouched his fourth catch.

The size of the crowd must have swelled by the time Montgomerie and Goodwin came back out to complete the formalities and a good number were still milling around an hour later when the sponsors turned up with the trophy.

The task of trying to establish themselves in division one will be difficult. But all that can wait. For now the players should enjoy the spoils of a deserved triumph which will have made a lot of people in the county very happy today.