It's scant consolation for the travelling Albion faithful who made the trip to Carrow Road but things could have been a lot worse.

Imagine if the power failure had occurred on Boxing Day rather than last Saturday and Albion hadn't secured that valuable away win.

The bottom of the table doesn't make good reading at the moment but without those precious three points, Albion would be five points adrift of Sheffield Wednesday and three wins from safety. How depressing would that have been?

I am the eternal optimist, unlike a very small minority of Brighton fans who slate the team rather than support them. I still believe Steve Coppell and his squad have the ability and enough games left to escape from the bottom three.

At least Albion made it into the velvet bag for the welcome return of the Monday lunchtime draw. Now Albion have the possibility of a winnable home tie in the fourth round, against either Dagenham or Plymouth.

The return of Paul Kitson from injury means Albion will return to Carrow Road next Tuesday with a stronger squad.

The Norwich postponement was farcical but these things happen. Just think what the reaction would have been if the boot had been on the other foot.

Albion and Ecovert would have been savaged if there had been a power failure at Withdean. I wonder how many times the words "temporary stadium" would have appeared in subsequent reports?

Prior to the lights going out, every person I spoke to connected with Norwich City was convinced it was going to be a walkover for the home team.

That should give Albion even more incentive to make it through to the next round, even if it means a Withdean third round replay on fourth round day.

In the space of seven days, two separate darts players can legitimately claim to be world champion. It was the end of an era on Sunday at the Circus Tavern in Purfleet, Essex, when Phil "The Power" Taylor was defeated for the first time in nine years at the Professional Darts Council World Championship.

He lost to Canadian John Part 7-6 in perhaps the most exciting darts match ever seen on television.

Taylor, now managed by Barry Hearn, intends to become the sport's first millionaire.

He arrived at the championships having had a complete makeover. He has lost three stone in four months and was sporting peroxide streaks in his hair and a curtain ring in his ear. At one point, I thought he was going to announce: "Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be George Michael."

Nothing lasts forever and "The Power" was scratching round for another 50p to put in the meter.

This week it's the turn of the original darts body, the British Darts Organisation, to its Embassy championship at Lakeside, Frimley Green.

For the uninitiated, the split in darts occured because the old, established faces, like Bristow, Lowe and Deller, wanted wild card entries. This was refused because it went against the grain and edict of the competition.

The stars, realising a new crop of players would eventually replace them on television, broke away and formed the PDC.

Sky put on a championship but in the first year or so, there were so few players it was played in group stages before a last eight knockout.

The Embassy is the only true World Championship of darts because it is open to every darts player in the world and there are no wild cards or invitations. Every player at Frimley Green is there because he has legitimately qualified.

No one can stay at the top forever and there has to be new talent coming through every year. Without it, any sport will stagnate.