The proposed and eventually abortive take-over of Carlisle United by Scottish curryhouse bartender Stephen Brown must have evoked a few memories for Albion fans.

Down the years Brighton have had their fair share of 'Walter Mitty' figures attempting to get their feet under the Seagulls boardroom table.

It's quite ironic that one of the take-over bids that never really got off the ground came from a man, who to quote Bill Archer, certainly had the wherewithal, and was not living in a fantasy world of his own creation.

I wonder where the Albion would have been playing last Saturday and in what division had Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page had his offer for the club accepted by Mike Bamber in the mid Seventies?

Page asked Bamber to show him the books, the then Albion chairman showed him the door.

Jimmy Melia tried the door handle of the boardroom once Bamber had sacked him with a father and son partnership of Howard and Jeffrey Kruger. Little was really known about this consortium.

Melia went for the people power approach, turning up on the North Stand the game after he got the bullet. He and the Krugers were going to take the Albion back to the promised land, as far as Melia went that could have meant the Top Rank Suite rather than Division One.

But the bid appeared to be nothing more than a lot of talk and a few column inches in the local rag and soon fizzled out. Nowadays, the Krugers are rumoured to be in the growth industry of selling Sinclair C-5s.

At a time when the Krugers had become a dim and distant memory, a young man exploded on the scene in the shape of Simon Chamberlain. He duped a lot of people, who didn't notice that this 'city high-flier' was doing so well in business that he didn't have an office and had to conduct all his interviews in bars or restaurants.

On joining the board he made the bold promise that he would inject £100,000 into the club every year for the rest of his life. Needless to say, the Albion never saw a penny and this blue and white blooded 'super fan', his words not mine, has all but disappeared off the planet.

Current chairman Dick Knight believe it or not, wasn't universally accepted by everybody when he first appeared back in 1996. After Bill Archer, a consortium led by Saddam Hussein would have got a fair hearing, but Knight's arrival happened so quickly that there was degree of scepticism from certain quarters.

Almost five years on and he's still here, he's certainly not a Kruger or a Chamblerlain. But even now there are still a small minority of doubters who think he's not what he should be. What it will take to silence these detractors remains to be seen.

The David Beckham wage demand saga has prompted a huge debate. I am surprised there is quite a large amount of support for Beckham, they cite the Bosman ruling and the possible collapse of the transfer system as mitigating circumstances.

No player anywhere is worth £160,000 a week. If United give in, then the already high wage structure in this country will go right off the scale. If Beckham gets his wish, how much will Keane, Giggs, Owen and Robbie Keane want? The agents will be queuing up, calculators in hand.

Sir Alex Ferguson is never short of something to say, on this occasion I hope he keeps it brief and merely says "You good son, very good, but no one is that good!"