There are certain things in football you can always rely on.

Manchester United, for instance, winning the Premiership, Leicester City losing, Rodney Marsh making a complete fool of himself on Sky TV by talking utter rubbish and the Brighton and Hove Albion team coach breaking down! According to the lads the split water pump that curtailed Tuesday night's journey home from Nottingham was the fourth time in the last 12 months our coach has failed to complete the course.

That wasn't the end of the journey from hell though. After waiting two hours for a replacement coach we then found our passage blocked by the closure of the M1.

I finally staggered home, among the early morning milkfloats, at about 4am (as usual the missus didn't believe my excuse for getting home late!). Thank heavens we hadn't lost!

Our courageous comeback earlier in the evening ensured spirits remained high.

Those of you who travelled up to Meadow Lane may have been wondering why the lads on the bench were laughing so much during the latter stages of the game. Unfortunately the gaffer fell foul of the curse of the new manager, forgetting the names of your new set of players.

So it was that "Kirk" Lehmann was constantly being urged on to score! Obviously nobody thought to point out his error. Bobby Robson is renowned for making such mistakes. When I reported for England under-21 duty (many, many years ago) he welcomed me as Willie Morgan and Robert Lee was called Bruce!

We were happy enough to leave Nottingham with a point in the end. In Sunday's papers, Micky Adams was quoted as saying Brighton defended better than his new charges at Premiership Leicester City. We disproved that theory on Tuesday night!

Two set-pieces, two free headers, two goals. That is not like us and we will all be working hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

There were one or two other moments of mis-judgement, my ridiculous handball being the main one. I misread the bounce of the ball by at least ten yards and had to stretch up as far as I could to fingertip the ball away from their striker, Harlem Globetrotter-style.

At least it gave everybody on the pitch a good laugh. Even the referee asked, "what the hell were you doing?"

The magnificent travelling support was in good voice as ever. My brother has enjoyed becoming part of our away support so much that he rang me on Tuesday lunchtime to say that he was going to make a mad dash from his Oxford office to sample the atmosphere again. Being an Aston Vile fan he isn't used to the fans singing! I think the second half comeback made it worth his while.

Things went a little more smoothly last Saturday. The first 30 minutes were as good a spell of football as I can remember being involved with.

We tore Oldham apart with Bobby, Steeley and Bozzie in great form.

They were impossible to defend against and Steeley was unlucky to miss out on a hat-trick.

Mind you, would you keep scoring if it meant you had to keep being on the receiving end of full-blown smackers on the lips from Charlie!

Some supporters may ask why we can't play like that every week but if we could we would all be earning our living in the Premiership.

Finally, the gaffer is slowly bringing in his own ideas.

We now have a yellow shirt awarded to the donkey voted as the worst performer in the Friday morning young versus old match.

The 'winner' has to wear the shirt for the entire week.

The first victim to have the honour was Jonesy.

The Welsh Wizard was very upset by the decision but he really must start wearing his boots on the correct feet!