ALBION fans have been accustomed to a sense of deja vu in the last few seasons. It has been one defeat after another.

They witnessed another repeat performance at the McCain Stadium yesterday. This time though it meant celebrating all the way home from the Yorkshire seaside.

Albion won, they scored two goals and Jeff Minton and Gary Hart were on target. Rewind 48 hours and it was just like against Torquay at the Priestfield Stadium.

The all-round team performance was equally good which, in the contest of the season as a whole, is probably the most important fact of all. The only consistency about the Seagulls before their Bank Holiday boost was inconsistency.

Now, following the arrival of the cultured Ian Culverhouse, Brian Horton has discovered a system which seems to suit the players at his disposal.

The support have found a new hero as well. It would be unfair to burden a raw recruit like Hart by comparing him with that other No 8, the legendary Peter Ward.

What this potential high-flyer from Stansted does possess though is the commodity which frightens defenders to death- blistering pace. He had no right to reach Jamie Moralee's pass before the covering John Kay.

And the finish? Side-stepping the keeper before calming finding the empty net. It was almost Owenesque. If Hart's clincher resembled one England star, Minton's clinical free-kick which paved the way to Albion's first away win this year was reminiscent of another.

David Beckham would have been proud of it.

Horton is right, of course. We musn't get carried away. This was, after all, Scarborough's third straight home defeat and they were certainly no great shakes.

Albion were only really tested in the second half once the hosts abandoned their own sweeper system and switched to 4-3-3 by pushing Jamie Hoyland into midfield and Gareth Williams upfront.

The defence, and Derek Allan in particular was more than equal to the task. It was without doubt Allan's best match for the club.

If there was a fault, it was Albion's failure to retain possession in the last 20 minutes, when they had the game well and truly won. Fortunately Wayne Bullimore's untidily-created consolation came so late that it merely made the scoreline misleadingly close.

Consecutive victoryies and into the top half of the table. Much more of this and we will all be suffering nose bleeds.

Roll on Swansea!

Star man: Derek Allan (colossal).

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.