Gary Hart has been through a lot in eight years with Albion.

He has played under seven different managers, experienced successive titles, relegation, promotion via the play-offs and final day survival in the Championship.

Now Hart cannot wait for another new experience - playing in front of big home crowds at Falmer with Seagulls supporters outnumbering and drowning out opposing fans.

Albion have tasted big match atmospheres in the Championship and at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium in the play-off final against Bristol City two seasons ago.

But Hart said: "I've only played in front of 20,000 fans where you can hear them for the opposition.

"We've never had that many fans, apart from at the Millennium, but Bristol City had 20,000 there as well.

"It will be nice to go to a ground where you are overpowering again. That's something I have never experienced.

"The Championship has given us a taste of what it will be like and, if you look back to the Millennium and all those Brighton fans, you want that every week.

"When I was looking around that day I thought 'bloody hell, we deserve a stadium'.

"The wait has been unbelievable. Arsenal knocked down houses to build their ground and we've just got a couple of rabbits to shoo off to the next field!"

Harlow-born Hart, 29, was signed from Essex minnows Stansted for £1,000 and the price of a team kit in August 1998, a year after Albion began groundsharing with Gillingham at the Priestfield Stadium.

"To me it was brilliant, because I'd never experienced anything like that," he said.

"Then we went to Withdean and I thought that was all right as well, because I'd never experienced a big ground.

"I haven't got a problem with Withdean. The atmosphere is non-existent but that is not down to the fans, it's down to the fact that everything is spaced out and there's no roof.

"But it's nice to get Falmer and hopefully I'll be around for it. I've been here eight years and I want to try to make that 10-year milestone.

"I don't want to stay at a club for eight years and suddenly it doesn't mean anything.

"I want to stay at the club and stay loyal. Obviously I have got to play well to do that."