Forget the Athens Olympics - Sussex is preparing to host the Quidditch World Cup.

Film-makers working on the latest instalment of the Harry Potter movie sensation have picked the Downs as the backdrop for the boy wizard's favourite sport.

Scouts for the £170 million blockbuster movie have spent months scouring the country looking for locations for The Goblet Of Fire.

Now location managers at Warner Brothers have picked downland near fee-paying St Bede's School to film scenes for the exciting airborne sport.

Filming near the £13,400-a-year school in Duke's Drive on Eastbourne seafront is scheduled to start in the autumn and last about a week.

The Argus has agreed not to reveal full schedule details because of fears swarms of Potter enthusiasts will interrupt play.

With the majestic 535ft-high chalk cliffs of Beachy Head nearby, the downland is an ideal filming spot to translate scenes from the epic 636-page book.

It is the fourth film adaptation of JK Rowling's series and is scheduled to be released in November 2005.

Previous Potter films, including Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, have elevated Rowling to Britain's ninth richest woman and raked in millions at the box office.

Yet film experts predict the movie, starring Ralph Fiennes as the evil Lord Voldemort and Miranda Richardson as journalist Rita Skeeter, will eclipse them all.

Directed by Four Weddings And A Funeral film-maker Mike Newell, shooting began in June, with Daniel Radcliffe as the boy wizard and Harry's friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Eastbourne has hosted many multi-million pound productions, including Pearl Harbor, Robin Hood and Bond movie The Living Daylights.

Yet Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire - which will be the most expensive film ever made - is undoubtedly the town's biggest coup.

The resulting publicity could be a hugely lucrative boost to Eastbourne's tourism industry, which underpins its economy.

A borough council spokesman said Eastbourne was Warner Brothers' first choice.

One person who gave her approval to the film being shot in East Sussex was 16-year-old GCSE student Natasha Neeson.

She beat 4,000 young actors from across Britain to reach the last eight bidding to star as Harry's love interest Cho Chang in the film.

However, Natasha, of Beauport Gardens, St Leonards, was left disappointed in March when directors said she looked a little too old to play 16-year-old Cho Chang.

Natasha, a pupil at St Richard's Catholic College in Bexhill, told The Argus: "I think filming in East Sussex would be cool. There are lots of decent locations to choose from.

"Perhaps I could pop along and watch the filming."

A spokesman for Warner Brothers said: "We never discuss filming schedules or locations."