That homage to 1960s concrete creativity, Hove Town Hall, is the sort of building that most of us normally cross Church Road to avoid.

This week, however, with the stadium inquiry getting under way, it's become the "place to be" for those fans who want to show solidarity for the Falmer cause. This is impressive, since a public inquiry can usually be guaranteed to provide excitement on a level considerably below that of watching paint dry.

There is no doubt, though, that this particular public inquiry could produce some interesting moments and already, Martin Perry has found himself in agreement with the opposition.

But before shock and horror set in, you need to know that the statement that provoked his agreement was hardly earth-shaking. He was invited to confirm that Brighton and Hove Albion, as a Division One football team, might be promoted to the Premiership or relegated to Division Two.

Indeed they might, agreed the chief executive, although he did think that the chances of promotion were now rather slender. He didn't dwell on the possibility of relegation but we are now getting to the stage in the season where all the Albion "statisticians" can apply a more accurate probability factor to their spreadsheets. We are not doomed yet but there is not much margin for error.

Unlike a public inquiry, supporting the Albion rarely provides opportunities for boredom, especially in recent years where cliff-hanging and "up to the wire" results have become almost commonplace.

By never daring to get complacent, watching our fortune turn around in the last two Championship-winning seasons was especially sweet but somehow unreal at the same time. This is why, when the season started, I found the whole Division One experience equally unreal, almost dreamlike in fact, because of the very speed of this turnaround. Even that terrible period between Burnley and Bradford seemed to be happening to another team for how could we lose our grip on the stars and descend so rapidly back towards the gutter?

With Steve Coppell in charge, reality did start setting in and suddenly we were watching a team that had all the elements for success, or at least survival in this division, and even thinking about relegation became unbearable, let alone the thought of revisiting all those familiar teams we had waved goodbye to, accompanied by a cheery chant of "We'll Never Play You Again!" so recently.

For the club, the economics of surviving in Division One probably consumes most of their energy and there is no doubt that the back to back promotions must have been something of a mixed blessing. A quick calculation of crowd numbers at away fixtures shows an average, total, attendance of 16,000.

There is little point in doing the same sums for home matches while we are playing at Withdean. Even though Brighton avoided catching the ITV Digital cold, hiring the stadium takes a healthy bite out of the ticket revenue, and that is before the wage bills and running costs come into the equation.

Getting permission for the 2,000 extra seats is still only a drop in the revenue ocean.

The economic issues will certainly be discussed at length during the public inquiry but, in the run-up to it, the anti-stadium campaigners look to have conscripted anyone capable of doing joined-up writing.

How else can you explain a recently published letter suggesting that, since the Albion had done so well at Withdean, there surely wasn't any need for a new stadium?

Rather than ask Martin Perry, this question is probably best left with Mr Homer Simpson who has the only reasonable answer - "D'oh!"

Roz South edits Brighton Rockz fanzine. Email roz@southspark.co.uk