However, I find myself having to criticise a group of supporters of similar ilk to the Albion.

On Saturday, December 15, we travelled down to Swindon, home of the late great Diana Dors and the Robins, for a League One fixture which, owing to their off-field problems, could have been Swindon's last.

I last attended the County Ground for the first leg of the play-off semi final in May, 2004.

The ground was packed with more than 14,000 fans.

On Saturday, it was just 6,000.

Even allowing for the respective Albion contingents present, it still resulted in almost 7,000 "missing" Swindon supporters.

The kind of fans so very supportive when the team were going well — yet, when it could be the end of the entire club, they are were nowhere to be seen.

Yes, the Albion's level of support, in the main, has been poor this season.

But I guarantee this: if Dick Knight suddenly turned round and said it had all gone wrong and the club was folding, Withdean would be packed to the rafters with large numbers outside attempting to purchase tickets.

But is the Swindon situation really that surprising?

There's no doubting, within the last 15 years, having played Premier-ship football, they had a healthy fanbase.

But has that been eroded by the live TV saturation of football?

It's been said before, but will the floating fan, who used to fill grounds up and down the country, leave the comfort of his living room where he has top-flight football six feet away on his TV screen at a fraction of the cost of live football?

But the quest for the Premiership can also cost a lot more than stayaway supporters.

In early 2006, I visited the Ricoh Arena, home of Coventry City — a breathtaking stadium.

I had the Sky Blues' chief executive Paul Fletcher as pre-match guest on the radio.

He was upbeat.

The club had moved into the stadium the previous August, Micky Adams was the manager, and although results were patchy, things were moving forward.

He did, however, state that while 2005-06 was the dry run, promotion was the agenda for the following season.

I asked what if it didn't happen?

He didn't really give me a direct answer.

Promotion never materialised, Adams was sacked, and at the start of this season it's revealed that Coventry have debts of £38million, don't own the ground, and were within minutes of going into administration.

The often misquoted phrase "All that glisters is not gold" springs to mind, and makes me even more concerned about the Albion overstretching themselves in their quest to get the stadium at Falmer.

With even Liverpool downsizing plans for their new stadium, it certainly suggests worrying times ahead for all of football, and the fans deserting their respective clubs will only make matters worse.

This column has never been the place for gratuitous backslapping, so therefore when I congratulate Worthing United manager Paul Curtis for releasing a first-team player, Warren Levy, for yet another sending off, the words are not hollow.

Levy is a good player, the kind of player that United need to climb up the County League, but his disciplinary record makes Joey Barton look like Shirley Temple.

Curtis' message is loud and clear and, hopefully, will reverberate right through all the club's teams.

If the youngest players in the club see that the first-team manager will not tolerate certain behaviour, I believe it sends out the right message.

But enough of that message. It just leaves me to wish all my readers a very happy Christmas and prosperous New Year. Have a good one . . .