An anonymous letter fluttered on to my desk claiming our Cross the Ball competition is rigged to suit ourselves.

That can be the only explanation why no one has scooped the jackpot for 15 months, a figure now at £38,500. With so many carefully ballpointed crosses, somebody must have landed dead centre of the missing ball.

Sorry, Frustrated Reader, but no one has been spot on yet. And there was no need not to sign your letter because you thought it might spoil your chances. I resent your implication we would contrive to blackball you from winning if we knew who you were.

Cross the Ball is a game of skill, simple as that. I've written about this before but I'll spell out again how the competition works.

Each Monday, a senior manager chooses an unpublished picture from an Albion match for the following Saturday's contest. No trick photos. As you will have seen from published solutions, we don't pick one with the ball just about to disappear off a corner.

With the magic of computers, the ball is removed and a see-through grid is made to match the picture. The cross-hairs of a gunsight-style target show the ball's exact centre.

When entries flood in, our scrutineers get cracking. Every entry is checked. Once those closest to the ball's centre have been identified, out come magnifying glasses. The checking goes on, and on, and if anyone is dead centre, they get to trouser the wonga.

Often several entries are within a hair's breadth of winning, so I can understand why some people are convinced they should have had the jackpot. If it looks like we have a winner, a senior manager verifies the entry. Be assured Frustrated Reader, it is not a case of the editor or any one else deciding on a whim who, if anybody, gets the cash.

It's down to the skill of entrants. In fact, I know the editor has been called in only once in recent months when it looked like someone might have won. There's no cheating here. If your cross is dead centre, you win. If not, better fortune next time. Give tomorrow's competition a go.

It has been a long haul for the parents of Peacehaven in their fight for a secondary school. So you can imagine their anger at the suggestion the 830-place school opening in 2001 might not be big enough. Our story last week revealed a discussion document for governors said if the new school was oversubscribed, some potential pupils could be excluded.

They would have to pass the new school on their way to classes at Newhaven or Seaford. Denise Stokoe, East Sussex County Council's Director of Education, has asked me to make a point she thought was absent from our story.

The education authority has proposed the community area for the new school should be East Saltdean, Telscombe, Telscombe Cliffs and Peacehaven. The governors have agreed.

The authority will work with the school to secure places for children who live in that area and whose parents want them to go there. It hopes all local children will get a place.

Preferences for secondary places in September 2001 will be sought this autumn and the position should be clear by the year end. I hope the sums add up. It will be a poor return on 30 years' campaigning if the spanking new school is too small.

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