Brighton and Hove Albion provided the inspiration to help pupils at a local school boost their writing skills yesterday.

Teachers gave the pupils from Patcham High School a new goal to write about football in a scheme to help them hone their literacy skills.

The aim was to channel the obsession of football-mad youngsters into a creative writing lesson based on the beautiful game.

Their teachers believe it made the ideal subject to give students a chance to improve their writing and presentation.

The school, Brighton and Hove City Council and the football club's community officer teamed up to give 18 students, aged 11 to 13, the chance to write from different perspectives.

Their topic was Brighton and Hove Albion on the brink of promotion.

First they were invited into the players' changing room for a pre-match team talk before a vital promotion-deciding clash with fictional rivals Chesterbarn Orient.

Then they became sports reporters up in the Press box to write radio commentaries on the final two minutes of the game, when Chesterbarn had just equalised.

They also got to try some real-life broadcasting when a film crew turned up and let them do their pieces to camera. Their final task was to write a match report for The Argus, which will be put forward for publication in a future match programme.

Chris Marshall, Brighton and Hove's literacy consultant, said: "Since September all ten Brighton and Hove secondary schools have been participating in a pilot literacy project for 11 to 14-year-olds to improve reading and writing skills. We are one of only 17 councils in the country to be doing this which means we are in the vanguard of development work for secondary literacy."

Brighton and Hove Albion hopes to help boost learning in the local area, and joins other football clubs such as Premiership Arsenal and First Division Watford, which run similar schemes.

They have been developing learning centres where pupils can work on improving literacy, numeracy and computer skills.