All that was missing were a few tumbleweeds, the stark silhouette of a booted and spurred rider and an invisible orchestra playing the theme tune of High Noon.

Where were we?

On any street in Brighton over the period when the showing of the World Cup matches was on our TV screens. It didn't have to be a match in which the English were involved, though if that were the case it probably meant you could have robbed a bank with impunity. Just as long as there were 22 men and a football and the usual blind referee, without whom no game is complete.

I've never enjoyed shopping so much as I have during the last fortnight, because by timing my forays just right, I could actually get to the checkout on the same day on which I had entered the store.

By then, of course, the canned beer shelves were empty of stock, packets of crisps were down to a tattered few and the tiny collection of men bullied into accompanying their wives were doing their despairing best to get through the shopping list with a speed which would have left even Michael Owen breathless.

I found myself actually searching the papers to find the optimum time to collect my friend and sally forth. It made a pleasant change from searching The Argus to find out when Brighton and Hove Albion are playing at home so I can warn visitors my neck of the Place To Be has become the Place Not To Be on home game days.

It is no good Martin Perry saying his fans are law-abiding and do what they are asked to do. I've no doubt they behave impeccably once they are in the grounds of Withdean but if you live in or near Carden Avenue and its side roads, prepare to go into part-time purdah once the season starts again.

This is not the first time this column has commented on the lack of traffic control and I doubt it will be the last because the dangerous state of those roads on home match days needs to be addressed.

This is no criticism of the Albion players - they have brought distinction to the city. It is the supporters who seem to think they can ride roughshod over the environs of their ground.

Wherever the team finally ends up in their new ground, no one should be in any doubt the life for the locals will ever be the same again. I look forward to the day when life becomes as tranquil as it has been in recent weeks while the dramas have been played out on the world stage and what is, after all, only a game, has dominated the nation's life.

If only as much effort could be harnessed to the daily life of this nation, how successful we might be in commerce and industry worldwide. If the city streets were to be cleaned with just half the energy that went into singing We Are The Champions (forget that the singers were largely overweight gentleman, whose prominent beer bellies would probably prevent them from seeing the ball, let alone kicking it) one could forgive a lot.

It is difficult to remember football is only a game, not the meaning of life, the universe and the law according to St Beckham. Now England are out of the World Cup, perhaps we can settle down and go to work in order to actually do some work and not gaze at a TV screen.

I shall miss the excitement of being able to shop without actually cannoning into my fellow man or woman and I guess the tumbleweed will roll for ever down a rubbish-strewn street till it disintegrates under one of the many cars in the inevitable traffic jam now everyone has decided to go back to work.