Albion fans were fuming after Saturday's FA Cup third round match at Norwich was called off following a power cut.

The power failure caused the back-up generator at Norwich's Carrow Road ground to fail.

The problems began when the power supply went down inside the stadium as the players were warming up, half-an-hour before the scheduled 3pm kick-off.

The match was eventually called off over an hour later for safety reasons by stadium operations manager Leon Blackburn after discussions with Norwich chairman Roger Munby, chief executive Neil Doncaster and police.

Around 1,100 Albion supporters had made the three-and-a-half hour journey to Norwich along ice-bound roads.

Former council leader and government whip Lord Bassam was hoping to watch the game with his son Tom.

He said: "This has not been very clever. A lot of people here are very frustrated after having driven nearly 200 miles from Brighton through snow to get here."

Mark Currier, from Westdean, Brighton, said: "This has been an absolute shambles. What a waste of time. They must have known long before we were told that it was impossible for the match to go ahead."

Albion columnist Ian Hart said: "This has been a complete pantomime. I almost expected Timmy Mallett to appear on the pitch."

Bob Booker, Albion's assistant manager, said: "We had power in the dressing rooms and we were waiting for the floodlights to come on.

"It's frustrating for everybody but it was out of our hands.

"The beauty of it at the moment is that we are still in the Cup and go into the draw on Monday, so that should be quite interesting."

Referee Alan Kaye discussed the situation at pitch side with both Albion boss Steve Coppell and Norwich manager Nigel Worthington shortly before the announcement of the postponement was made to the crowd at 3.38pm.

The tie has been rearranged for January 14, kick off 7.45pm.