Of all the plans Dick Knight has for Albion there is one the chairman is going to have to organise sooner than he could have dared hope.

There is at last a legitimate reason for a trophy cabinet.

You have to go back a long way for when Albion needed space for silverware, back before Sir Alf was plotting English football's finest moment.

The performance wasn't quite as vintage as the champagne Micky Adams sipped in hospitality afterwards.

In fact the scoreline was misleadingly emphatic, but nobody at a sun-kissed Withdean was bothered about that.

The only thing that mattered was the Seagulls sealing their first championship since 1965.

It was wholly appropriate that the player who has done most to make it happen played the leading role.

Bobby Zamora made sure Albion got all three points when they only needed one with a hat-trick to add to those he scored against Torquay at Withdean in September and at Chester last season.

Macclesfield arrived as that rarest of species in the era of the play-offs, a team with nothing to play for.

They had not managed a goal or a point against the bottom three in their previous three away matches, but for 20 anxious minutes they threatened to fulfill the part of party poopers.

That all changed when Paul Watson caught their defence napping with a swiftly taken free-kick, which Zamora headed in unchallenged.

It was a replica of Zamora's goal against Darlington on Easter Monday and launched a curious afternoon for Watson comprising two assists, a careless mistake and a wonder strike.

Richard Tracey pushed him over to present Albion with a penalty.

Watson would have taken it himself earlier in the season, but he lost the job to Zamora after blazing over at Barnet on Boxing Day and the young hotshot calmly sent Lee Martin the wrong way.

Watson went from hero to zero when he was caught in possession by Tracey five minutes later.

Tracey advanced to tuck the ball past Michel Kuipers from close range, thereby ending the Dutchman's run of four successive clean sheets.

Kuipers produced what Adams described as the key moment early in the second half, a fine reflex stop to foil Lee Glover.

Chances were then few and far between until Zamora chipped straight into the arms of Martin when he was clean through, with the keeper stranded yards off his line.

Zamora held his head in his hands yet within seconds was celebrating his latest treble, via a deflected knock-in from Kerry Mayo's left-wing cross.

Watson provided the perfect finale three minutes from time, a delicious left-foot curler into the roof of the net from 25 yards.

Macclesfield must have realised it wasn't going to be for them when, with an hour gone, Tracey and Kevin Keen talked their way into referee Paul Rejer's notebook in crazy circumstances.

You had to sympathise with them, because Rejer allowed play to continue when Kuipers blatantly picked up a Danny Cullip backpass.

Adams, ever the perfectionist, said: "It was a tremendous occasion spoilt slightly by the performance, but I will once again forgive my players for that.

"Macclesfield played the more relaxed football, but we kept on going.

"We started sloppily, but the sign of a good side is that even though you don't play well you keep going. The key moment was Michel's save. What a stop!"

Adams' attention to detail has to be admired. He wore a different shirt and tie for a pre-match interview on Football Focus and the post-match press conference.

"I was expecting a lot of champagne in that dressing room," he explained.

Adams' preparation for his second full season in charge was similarly spot-on and he is already looking ahead.

"I went for quality," he said. "I wanted a certain type of player.

"The policy has always been to get the ball down and play. People said you cannot get out of this division by playing football, well look at us.

"Myself and my backroom staff have been out watching Second Division games. We are already preparing for it."

Knight probably wasn't quite so prepared to build that trophy cabinet, but at least he has a Carpenter handy.