Something unusual happened at Selhurst Park last Saturday.

A manager received a rousing reception from both sets of supporters.

Tony Pulis took Stoke into the Premier League, to an FA Cup final and into Europe during his second spell at Stoke.

The away fans saluted him before and even after his Crystal Palace team had beaten Stoke.

I hope something similar happens - with a different result - a short distance from Stoke this Saturday when Albion visit their Potteries neighbours Port Vale in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Some of the younger Seagulls supporters making the journey to Vale Park may be oblivious to the significant part played by Vale chief Micky Adams when he was in charge of Albion.

The gritty little Yorkshireman was the starting point for the club's on-field revival.

Adams, running Nottingham Forest's reserves at the time, was the man former chairman Dick Knight turned to in the dying embers of the despised groundshare with Gillingham to deliver a transformation in fortunes.

He did not disappoint. Albion's homecoming at Withdean coincided with Adams lifting them from the bottom end of League Two to the title and the top end of League One before he departed to be reunited with Dave Bassett at Leicester, then a Premier League club.

The team Peter Taylor took over and steered into the Championship by winning League One as well the following season was not his but the one Adams assembled.

In contrast to Pulis at Stoke, it did not work out second time around for Adams at Albion. The club had changed and Knight's influence had waned.

Adams has kept his own counsel over how it all ended but is less than impressed by Knight's version of events in his recently published autobiography.

Deep down inside he will be as desperate to beat Albion as Pulis would have been to beat Stoke.

Even if the Seagulls are dumped out by Vale it ought not to prevent supporters acknowledging the role played by Adams in where the club is today.