WAGERING AT WITHDEAN

At the weekend, my little sister was given a Withdean Wager. She is only seven but now looks set to become a gambler for life - ignoring as she did the majority of the first half and instead looking at the piece of paper dreaming of the £660 prize money (incidentally, you get 28 pieces of paper for a quid with the fanzine). At least she could possibly end up as friends with Tony Bloom.

I noticed, during the Portsmouth match last weekend, that the Wager had a prize money of £700 - a staggering amount I thought compared with the relatively paltry £443 I won on the Wager back in 2001. Luckily I was only 17 back then and that amount of prize money was awesome, even if it didn't last that long - spent as it was on underage bottles of Hooch and cigarettes within two weeks. It got me to thinking, when the Albion has a full house at Famler, what sort of prize money will we be looking at - in excess of £1,000? Maybe more.

It sure is exciting times to be an Albion fan. Dressed in little more than a blue and white scarf on Saturday morning, I wandered into two seperate shops and on both occasions the shopkeepers in question enquired as to who we were playing; whether we would win the game and the league and whether I was excited about Falmer, which of course I am. This kind of thing rarey happened even in the Micky Adams/Bobby Zamora glory days. Not to mention the fact that we won comfortably again and Falmer is so close I can almost feel it.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the Wager - what will it be called at Falmer? The Falmer Fortune? The Amex Bingo? The Ghost of Goldstone Gamble? Who knows, but the financial prize might be excellent so we'll be buying a few. And anyway, as I have bought another Wager at almost 25 games a season for ten years, I have still only paid back the club £250 of my £443 winnings. It means I could do with winning it again by 2021. And if it's a Palarse home match at Falmer chances are the prize would be so massive, I wouldn't need to win it again in my lifetime to break even with the club.

Thanks to all those that purchased TSLR026 at the weekend and to all those that attended the Historians' and Collectors' Society fair and auction at the Withers yesterday. The excellent wearebrighton blog tells you everything you need to know about our feelings on Elliott Bennett here. And the fact they've plugged their interview in this month's issue of our fanzine has nothing to do with it.