YOUNG Albion fans have experienced the camping trip to end all camping trips – on the pitch of their beloved football team.

More than 250 children and parents have taken up the unique opportunity to spend a night sleeping under the floodlights of the club’s £100million American Express Community Stadium.

Young Seagulls members were invited to attend the free event on a first-come first-served basis last week and scores of youngsters were thrilled to get their chance to play and sleep on the club’s pitch.

The club said they could have doubled the number of participants taking part, such was the interest, and indicated to parents that the club could look to repeat the treat.

Families began arriving at the ground at around 3pm on Sunday to begin unfurling their pop-up tents before Albion in the Community staff began running training sessions for the youngsters.

The club then put on food for the campers in the BUPA lounge before playing the Lego Movie on the stadium’s large screen.

Participants were then given breakfast before leaving the ground at about 10am yesterday morning.

Emma Neno, from Littlehampton, was one of the happy campers taking part with her partner Dylan, ten-year-old son Charlie and eight-year-old daughter Sophie.

She said: “My son is football crazy so it was like having all his Christmases and birthdays rolled into one.

“They set-up training sessions for all the children and then the dads got a go.

“It was very exciting for all the dads, I think they were more excited than the kids.

“The kids were still playing at 11 at night so they certainly slept well after that.”

Vicky Leech, from Goring, and her eight-year-old son Benjamin were also among the Albion fans savouring an experience to remember.

She said: “We asked Benjamin how did he feel about the event and he said ‘I can’t explain it, I can’t say how I feel, I feel so lucky’.

“Afterwards the club staff asked ‘was there anything they could improve on’ and apart from maybe actually having some of the players there, there really wasn’t much more they could do.

“Albion just make the Amex so accessible, the club just gets these things right every time.” Tom Gorringe, the club’s head of marketing, said: “We are keen to engage with our younger supporters and what better way than to get them into the stadium and kicking a ball around.

“We’re keen to do things differently and get as many people to the stadium as possible so this event ticks both of those boxes.”