One of the things I really miss about not writing for a fanzine is the old rumour grapevine.

In the nine years that Gulls Eye ran I must have heard every conceivable piece including John Lees dating all three Beverley sisters during his national service days.

Ninety-nine per cent of these rumours were, whilst very entertaining, totally untrue and therefore unprintable - well most of them weren't printed!

However it was like rolling back the years the other Saturday when I chaired a very 'heated debate' on BBC Southern Counties Radio between Martin Perry and Falmer Parish Council's Tom Carr.

It appears that the vast majority of the anti-Falmer case is built on the same sort of rumours and not many hard facts. They range from Dick Knight and the Albion not having any money to neither University being prepared to go into partnership with the Albion.

Anyone who thought that the Falmer faithful would take these plans lying down would have been very naive. The main issue is not the Albion or the area of outstanding natural beauty being blighted, it all comes down to money. The good people of Falmer are basically worried that the building of the stadium will effect the price of their precious houses.

They seem to be prepared to try every trick in the book to stop this stadium happening, but whatever happened to the wishes of the majority? I was under the impression that as a result of a referendum in this fair city nearly two years ago an overwhelming majority wanted the stadium at Falmer.

It gives me no great pleasure at all to even contemplate taking the 'I told you so' stance but what is actually going on at Brighton Bears basketball club?

Less than 18 months ago there was this big blaze of publicity as the Bears left the good basketball folk of Worthing and moved on to 'bigger and better things' at the Brighton Centre.

Bigger and better things? I think not. The team are now firmly rooted to the bottom of the league, showing the same sort of form as the team who used to get thrashed every night by the Harlem Globetrotters.

One of the big selling points of moving to Brighton was the fact that crowds would return in their thousands. Needless to say attendances are not that different to when the team were at Worthing Leisure Centre.

I really think this is a classic case of a sport, and in particular a club, having ideas way above their station. No matter what way the spin doctors try and dress it up, basketball will never be a mass spectator sport in this country.

The Bears were more than surviving at Worthing with healthy crowds. They had previously had some success and it would have almost certainly returned. The bottom line was the then owners thought they could attract huge crowds at the Centre as well as the money from Sky television.