Wimbledon boss Stuart Murdoch is planning to teach his Albion pals a lesson by guiding the Dons to their first win of an already turbulent season at a near deserted Selhurst Park.

Murdoch has been plotting the Seagulls' downfall this week from the sanctuary of his home, tucked away in the corner of a quiet street a few miles west of Withdean.

The likeable Lancastrian with a self-deprecating sense of humour moved to Sompting with wife Sue three years ago, via his home town of Blackpool and Watford.

Not too many garage owners can claim a couple of Football League managers as customers, but Albion boss Martin Hinshelwood fills up at the same service station just off the A27 on his way back to Selsey.

The Murdochs own a beach hut and for Stuart his quiet neighbourhood is the perfect place to unwind, far away from the madding crowds of Croydon and the furore created by Wimbledon's proposed move to Milton Keynes.

Murdoch, accustomed to coastal life at Blackpool, headed for the sea again after he was appointed Wimbledon's full-time goalkeeping coach by ex-Albion defender Joe Kinnear.

"We looked at where we could afford to live and it wasn't Wimbledon village," he explained.

"We set off southwards. We looked at houses at Crawley and Tonbridge and goodness knows where. I told the estate agent I couldn't see myself living there, so I asked where the coast was. We just got in the car, drove down here and that was it.

"It's very good for somebody involved in a high pressure career like football. As you come down the A27 and through the tunnel and you see the sea everything goes out of your head and you just switch off. It's very relaxing."

Murdoch's unconventional background has a touch of the Jeremy Beadles, which is rather appropriate. Most of the Albion players have been framed, so to speak, by his other half.

"My wife Sue frames football shirts, so when they won the championship a lot of the boys wanted their shirts framed," Murdoch revealed.

"I met quite a lot of the boys that way. I wanted Watford to sign Robbie Pethick before he went to Portsmouth and, of course, we had a player down here on loan last season in Wayne Gray, so he is familiar with them.

"Over the years I've come across Martin (Hinshelwood), Bob (Booker) and everybody else. They are all good football people."

Murdoch had a shortlived career at Blackpool. The legendary Stan Mortensen, manager at the time, thought he was too short to be a goalkeeper.

He dropped into non-League and went to college to become a PE teacher. By the age of 29 he had become a head, taking charge of two schools in Ipswich for seven years.

When Steve Harrison, a close friend, became Watford's manager, Murdoch had no hesitation in swapping school for football and a full-time coaching role at Vicarage Road.

He spent nine years at Watford, doing everything from "bottle washer" to reserve coach. "I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life, then all of a sudden they changed everything around when Graham Taylor came back," he said.

"I spent some time out of work then, as always happens, you are waiting for a bus to come and two come at once."

Murdoch turned down an offer from Burnley to become youth team coach when Wimbledon wanted him as full-time goalkeeping coach.

Last Christmas, following the departure of Stewart Robson, he became more involved with the first team, helping out his colleague from his Watford days Terry Burton.

Once Burton parted company with the club in the summer, Murdoch was not keen on chairman Charles Koppel's idea of putting him in temporary charge. He reluctantly agreed and was surprised as anyone when, several weeks later, Koppel offered him the post.

So surprised in fact that he took it with a pinch of salt at first and spent 20 minutes discussing all sorts of other issues before Koppel politely pointed out he had not been given an answer.

"I was shocked to get this opportunity," Murdoch admitted. "People with my background don't normally end up as a manager."

"It's not the ideal situation to come into your first job, but then they are not usually ideal situations. It is because something is amiss, all be it that this one is a little bit unique.

"I'm trying to just concentrate on the football. It has been a little bit more difficult to do that than I thought. Certainly the first game against Gillingham was exceptionally difficult with the atmopshere as it was.

"We are just looking forward to the time when we can get away from Selhurst Park and get into a stadium where the fans are supporting us.

"It's been well chronicled, the why's and wherefore's, and I don't really want to go into that. It's not of my making.

"As an employee I have just got to get on with the job. I said in the press conference after the first game there were not a lot of First Division clubs going to offer me a manager's job in the summer.

"It's an opportunity in management and I want to do as well as I can at it. I've been in the game for 15 years, I've got experience in every other position except this one, so in many ways it was a logical step."

Murdoch believes his teaching experience will be a big benefit. "It's always been a thing of mine that ex-footballers become managers with absolutely no experience apart from playing on the park.

"They haven't got any experience of management and how to deal with people. In football you are an individual. Although you are playing in a team it is very much a self-centred career.

"When you go into management it's totally different. You have got to look after not only the 11 players on the park but to make sure the whole squad is functioning and stuff like the kit man knowing what time the bus is leaving.

"Teaching certainly prepared me for those organisational, everyday nuts and bolts things you have got to be aware of. Then the experience I've had of football prepared me for the other side.

"The only thing I'm not prepared for is what is happening at the moment, which I don't think anyone could be prepared for."

So what exactly can the Albion fans and players expect in Wimbledon's second home match on Saturday?

"They can expect to be in the majority!" Murdoch joked. "I've heard they are not running any supporters' coaches and that sort of thing because a lot of the Brighton fans agree with the Wimbledon fans. Everyone has to make their own choice on that and I understand that.

"It will be quite an eerie atmosphere. I remember going to Gillingham when Brighton were there and I think there were 1,022 people in the ground.

"Anybody who experienced that will find this even stranger, because it's a much vaster stadium. Anybody who has been to a reserve team game on a Premier League ground will understand what it's like.

"It will be an interesting game, I would just probably have preferred it to be at Withdean at this stage."

Murdoch will surely be the only First Division manager saying that this season.