Peter Ward is looking forward to a Friday afternoon spent watching two of his former clubs open the Football League season.

And, if he hears his name being sung by the crowd, it will mean as much to him as it ever has.

The little frontunner from the 1970s and early 1980s is your latest selection for our all-time Albion XI.

And, perhaps predictably, he won the contest by a mile.

Ward polled 75% of votes for what you might call the second striker – the predator to buzz around off the target man for whom you are voting this week.

He is the fifth member of the side to come from the Seagulls’ top-flight days or before.

Now based in Tampa, Ward said: “It’s nice to be voted in.

“I get to games and I watch a few here on TV and it means a lot when I hear they still sing my name.

“It was a special time we had and you would expect a few players from those days to be in all-time Brighton team.

“I saw a few games on TV last season and I got over for Watford at the end of the season.

“Of course it was disappointing after being in the play-offs two years in a row.

“I know the fans were expecting a lot more than that but I don’t think the play-offs are out of the question this season.

“The first game of the season, against Forest, is on TV here so hopefully I’ll see that.”

He will have to clear space in his afternoon schedule, with kick-off at 2.45pm on the USA’s East Coast.

How you voted

  • Peter Ward 75%
  • Garry Nelson 10%
  • Sergei Gotsmanov, John Byrne both 4%
  • Gordon Smith 3%
  • Others 4%

Team to date: Kuszczak; Calderon, Lawrenson, Foster, Bridge; Penney, Horton, Vicente, O’Sullivan; Ward, ?.

But it will be worth it to watch one club he played a bit for take on another where he was and remains a legend.

Back in 2005, when we last asked you to vote for your all-time XI, Ward topped the poll for strikers with 49%. Bobby Zamora came second.

We have done it differently this time, splitting the front pair into two sections.

Of the strikers playing off the target man, Ward totalled a massive 75% of votes.

It is hard to remember many strikers who have played in that role in the decade since our last vote, certainly over any period of time.

It could have been Craig Mackail-Smith. In fact, one sensed some fans were willing CMS to be the new Wardy with his all-action style and penchant for goals when he arrived in 2011.

But it’s not that easy. Ward’s 95 goals in 227 appearances at a time when there was such a buzz about the club and the town mark him out as very special.

Garry Nelson did very respectably in the poll this time around. He tallied 59 goals for the Seagulls in second and third tiers and, like Ward, won promotion.

There was a similar end for the two as well. Ward tells of how Forest boss Brian Clough stubbornly refused to extend his loan back to the Goldstone in 1983 as they closed in on the FA Cup final at Wembley.

“Young man, I never played in an FA Cup final and neither will you,” Clough famously told Ward (although he might not have actually called him “young man”).

Nelson’s days were numbered when he was told by manager Barry Lloyd he would not be part of the 1991 play-off final, also beneath the Twin Towers.

Two players shrewdly snapped up by Lloyd from overseas tied for third place – John Byrne, who had just had three seasons at Le Havre, and the then Soviet star Sergei Gotsmanov.

But we never doubted Ward would top the pile.

Will he see the clash of his former clubs on TV on August 7? Don’t bet against it.

Just sing up because, live or recorded, a Seagulls idol in Florida will probably be watching and listening.