Albion cannot wait to throw open the Falmer doors to their most loyal fans and tell them: "Go and choose your new seat."

If all goes to plan, the Seagulls will be staging home games at Falmer in August 2010.

Before that, the club will invite season ticket holders for a tour of the ground and invite them to choose where they want to sit.

Albion have yet to reveal their pricing strategy for Falmer but have confirmed there will be no restricted-view seats.

Chief executive Martin Perry has offered fans a tantalising glimpse of some of the new venue's features.

After years in exile, no doubt the place will feel like Wembley for long-suffering fans.

If the players get the same sensation, there will be good reason.

The Falmer pitch will be 110m long and 68m wide, exactly the same size as that at the new national stadium. Players will strut their stuff on a mixture of grass species put together by head groundsman Steve Winterburn and the pitch will be laid as soon as possible to give it plenty of time to bed in.

Behind the scenes, the changing rooms are likely to be in the basement of the West Stand at pitch level. A tunnel will lead directly on to the pitch on the halfway line.

Either side of the tunnel will be dugouts and seating areas for the manager, coaching staff and substitutes.

The changing rooms will include showers, toilets, massage areas and warm-up areas for both the home and away teams, plus changing areas for male and female match officials.

Albion's manager will have an office in this area together with his own changing room.

There will be a fully-equipped gymnasium for the players and a medical room and drug-testing area.

It will, of course, be an improvement on Withdean and Albion are eager to make the big move.

But they point out their current home has been vastly improved as part of the deal which has allowed them to use the stadium since the summer of 1999.

Perry said: "The club have now spent over £3million on Withdean with a new permanent North Stand, changing rooms and the refurbished minor clubhouse.

"The PA systems, floodlighting, emergency lighting, other life support systems and the accesses have all been substantially upgraded.

"In addition to this we have considerably upgraded the athletics facilities. They have a new clubhouse, new long jump pits and a new pole vault.

"The three athletics clubs and all the other users of the stadium have benefited considerably from the improvements that we have made to the stadium.

"These improvements are permanent and will be there for the benefit of the city for many years to come."

Albion players and off-field staff have already toured other stadia seeing what they liked and disliked.

But, for all the massage areas and sparkling changing facilities, Falmer's best feature for many fans will be something they will have been without for more than a decade - the roof.

The singing will not drift away on the breeze and supporters will not get soaked on those wet winter afternoons, of which there will no doubt be many.

Supporters up north, though, might be green with envy when they find out it is not considered cold enough in Brighton to install undersoil heating.

Perry said: "Provision will be made under the pitch, with ducts, etc, for undersoil heating but this may not be installed initially because the number of times we suffer from either frost or cold weather in the south if England is very limited.

"We will have good quality pitch covers available similar to the ones we have at Withdean."

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