The final whistle has blown for a football team after more than 40 years of providing players for the Albion and collecting its own array of silverware.

Lower Bevendean Football Club in Brighton was one of the city's most popular and successful teams.

Its players were gleaned from the close-knit Bevendean community and at its peak the club was attracting up to 50 players battling for first team status.

The club was started in the late Fifties by the late George Smart with the help of former Albion player Frankie Howard.

Mr Howard was known as The Blond Flash and the fair-haired winger was one of the fastest players the Albion ever had.

When he retired from playing, he became a groundsman with the Albion and coach to the Lower Bevendean team.

Under the duo, the squad scored numerous successes.

They filled a cabinet with silverware, winning the Sussex Junior Club in 1967 and the Sussex Intermediate in 1970 and 1973 as well as numerous honours in the Brighton League.

Throughout the decades, other teams which sprouted from similar estates such as Moulsecoomb Rovers, East Moulsecoomb, Falmer and Brighton Ramblers, fell by the wayside.

Jeff Gillam, of Channelview Road, Woodingdean, who has been associated with the club since 1966, said: "Frankie Howard used to delight in sending us all off on a run up the hill that surrounds Bevendean Park pitch. "

Throughout its history the club became a source of home-grown talent for the Albion.

Tony Towner and former Albion defender Stuart Tuck both turned out for Lower Bevendean as lads and both went on to have professional football careers with the Seagulls and other clubs.

However, Lower Bevendean struggled to attract players in recent years and chiefs put it down to a number of factors, including the closure of the White Admiral pub on the estate, which was once the team's headquarters.

The pub was flooded in October 2000 and has not reopened.

Mr Gillam said: "Near to the start of the current season, it was soon realised that this local catchment was no longer going to be the source of players that it had been.

"Possibly paying to play local soccer did not appeal. Maybe it was the closure of the White Admiral or the lack of training facilities, originally Bevendean School, then Bevendean Pitch, and in the latter years the all-weather pitch at Wilsons Avenue in Whitehawk, which finally became too expensive."

The last straw for the ailing club was lack of sponsorship.

The club's chiefs decided it was time to let the squad fall into the realms of history.

Mr Gillam added: "We withdrew in August. Saturdays in Bevendean must be very quiet, with one of the most sheltered pitches and playable surfaces unused."