AS A Whitehawk season ticket holder and keen supporter I was interested to read David Powell’s letter arguing that the proposed name change for Whitehawk FC would be a mistake.

His letter contained some great history about the club and how it has evolved over the years but I respectfully disagree with him regarding a fresh identity.

The registered supporters of the club agreed in a vote to take the name change proposal forward and John Summers as chairman was simply the representative to the FA on this.

It was unfortunate that a change of rules gave just a two day deadline to get the application in and this sadly led to some loyal fans being upset who felt that they should have been consulted.

Subsequently after discussions with some fans the application was withdrawn.

The proposed name change to Brighton City or Brighton Whitehawk or whatever a possible compromise may be, has nothing to do with a lack of respect for the local community, of which people are rightly proud, but it has everything to do with taking the club forward.

An old boss of mine used to say ‘change is inevitable, growth is optional’. As a fan I want to see the Hawks do as well as they possibly can for the good of the club and the local and wider community.

I like to watch the best quality football possible, with the best fans possible, which doesn’t come cheap but at £12 a ticket is currently great value.

Huge amounts of money and time have been invested by the current owners, the hard working staff and its fans are a credit to the club, but whilst the average attendance of 300 slowly increases it goes nowhere near towards covering the overheads.

Something will have to give sooner or later.

Brighton has room for two successful clubs, what has been achieved at the Albion has been superb but for them to join in the protest at us trying to update our name seems opportunistic.

I hope that should a name change be back on the agenda in the future that the fans get to have their say, but if we can take the emotion out of the debate and recognise that a more widely known geographical identity will attract more sponsors, investors, new fans and players surely that’s something to be proud of.

Pete Gillman, Friar Walk, Brighton