Sussex pitch expert Steve Moore has revealed it would cost £40,000 to get the Withdean playing

surface up to scratch.

But he says the work should have been done last summer, before Albion had kicked a ball.

The Withdean pitch saga plunged to new depths on New Year's Day.

It resembled a swamp as the Seagulls' promotion surge got stuck in the mud against Southend.

Worthing-based Moore's company, Sportsturf Maintenance, is responsible for a number of League pitches up and down the country, including Wolves, Northampton, Watford, QPR, Millwall and Wycombe Wanderers.

He believes a pitch design fault at Withdean, which is first and foremost an athletics stadium, could be rectified at relatively low cost.

Moore, Sportsturf's managing director, said: "Withdean is designed to take javelin, discus, shot and so on and some local usage.

"It needs a new drainage scheme, which would cost between £12,000 and £15,000.

"You would also have to take off the top two or three inches. We did that at Wolves last year and that is very good now.

"That costs £25,000, which means a maximum of £40,000 to get it back to some sort of reasonable surface."

The problem now is time. Albion have a home match against Lincoln on Saturday, then another against Brentford in the LDV Vans Trophy next Tuesday.

With the season past its halfway point there is no breathing space for fundamental pitch repairs.

Moore said: "Pitches predominately made of sand have been the good ones in the recent bad weather.

"It is the pitches, like Withdean, where there is a large percentage of soils, where they have the problems.

"The further up the Leagues you go they have all got purpose-built pitches to deal with heavy rainfall.

"At Withdean the soils have swollen to saturation point and they cannot take any more.

"It should have been dealt with in the summer. It's a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

"Oldham have faced a similar disaster. They have been putting drainage in and still playing.

"That is an extreme measure. I don't think there is anything you can do at the moment. It's match to match maintenance.

"I have lost count of the number of times I have been involved in initial discussions with clubs and financial restraints have come into play.

"They spend lots of money on players, yet the pitch can cost them promotion or relegation. If you are a football playing side you've got have a decent pitch."

Albion sought Moore's expertise during the close season.

"I was asked to meet with Martin Perry," he added. "I attended the meeting, but he failed to appear. There has been no contact since then."

Perry, Albion's chief executive, said: "I was delayed and he (Moore) didn't wait. That is why the meeting didn't take place.

"We have our own consultants, a company called Hewitt Sportsturf. They looked at it when we were actually developing Withdean.

"We will probably call them in again now to make sure any long term measures we take are satisfactory.

"In terms of cost it depends whether Steve Moore is talking about short term measures or long term measures and what measures are taken to deal with the water once it has been removed from the pitch.

"Ultimately it has to have a proper drainage system put in. The problem is getting the water away when the pitch is at such a low level. That is the big issue and I don't know the answer to it."

The other big issue is who pays? It is believed to cost Albion around £24,000 per match to play at Withdean.

Under the terms of the contract Stadium managers Ecovert South are responsible for the pitch.

They spent thousands on emergency drainage repairs prior to Christmas on two particularly bad areas either side of the halfway line in front of both the South and North Stands.

More bad weather prevented them finishing the work on the patch in front of the North Stand, which was the worst-hit on Monday.

Martin Burholt, Ecovert's leisure contracts manager, explained: "Drainage work helped on the south side.

"We lost a week to the weather during the three-week gap and the north side is bad.

"We need some dry weather to get a tractor on it and to do some more drainage work."

The problems were compounded on Monday when the water-clearing Whale, borrowed from Sussex CCC, broke down.

Burholt added: "That didn't help, although it should only be used in extreme emergencies.

"It compacts the ground and stops the grass growing. We've got some smaller ones now, which can roll by hand."

The home matches for Wolves, QPR, Millwall and Northampton, four of the clubs Sportsturf look after, survived the Big Freeze last Saturday, when a trio of Premiership matches were among a plague of postponements.

Albion's game against Southend on Monday was one of only five which survived in the Third Division, but at what price in terms of irrepairable damage?

You can only sympathise with the intense frustration felt by manager Micky Adams.

He has complained about the pitch virtually from day one and has been encouraging his players all season to play a passing game.

"I'm not going to keep banging the drum. Maybe people will start listening to me eventually," he said.

"If the groundstaff had the proper equipment and they were specialised groundstaff there would have been no problem on Monday.

"We had to adapt to a game that doesn't suit the type of players we have at the club.

"We are going to have to get better at it, because the pitch isn't going to improve. It can only get worse now.

"Last season Darlington's pitch cost them promotion. Have we got the mental strength to adapt to any sort of game in any sort of conditions?"

It's worth remembering Albion won seven matches on the spin at Withdean before Monday's setback, but the conditions against Southend were the severest yet.

It would be the cruelest of ironies if, after all the fuss surrounding the Seagulls' return to the city, the pitch ends up costing them promotion.