One down, still five to go.

Albion missed their first opportunity to win the Championship at Norwich on Friday.

They have several more chances in the closing fortnight of a record-breaking season to become the most successful Football League club of the 21st century.

The Seagulls are on the cusp of their fourth league title in 16 years since former chairman Dick Knight brought them back to Brighton and Hove at Withdean from the soul-destroying groundshare with Gillingham.

The sequence started in 2000-01 in League Two with Micky Adams, the following season in League One with a combination of Adams - before he left for Leicester - and Peter Taylor (below).

The Argus: Albion's farewell season at Withdean, in 2010-11, coincided with another League One triumph under Gus Poyet.

Now Chris Hughton's promoted Championship heroes are poised to add silverware for the first time in the Amex era.

None of the other current 71 clubs in the Football League can match that level of success.

In fact, Manchester United are the only club in the country to have outstripped Albion's run of titles. They won the Premier League eight times under Sir Alex Ferguson between 2000 and 2013.

It has become a case of when, rather than if, Hughton's class of 2016-17 are crowned.

It could even happy as soon as this evening, although the odds are stacked in favour of Hughton's old club Newcastle joining the Seagulls by securing a spot alongside them in the Premier League next season.

The task has been simplified for Rafa Benitez and his players by defeats on Saturday for Huddersfield and Reading.

Their form has been suspect at St James' Park but a fired-up home crowd will be expecting them to get the win they need to be promoted against injury and suspension-hit Preston.

That would narrow Albion's lead to four points. It would also leave Newcastle in exactly the same position Albion found themselves in at the Amex on Easter Monday - with four days to recover from a promotion celebration.

The Seagulls were forgivably sub-standard and lacking in intensity in Friday's 2-0 defeat at Norwich.

The Argus: Hughton (above), a meticulous planner, said: "The simple answer is you just don't know. Our preparation was good, there was a good period of time between the games.

"You hope to perform that the levels you think we can. Was it a hangover from Monday? Possibly, but I don't like to look for too many excuses."

Benitez may find it equally difficult to rouse his players after a promotion party against Neil Warnock's Cardiff in Wales on Friday night.

A win and draw, or two wins, for the Toon against Preston and Cardiff will keep the title race alive until Saturday, when a second opportunity to end Newcastle's interest falls into Albion's own hands.

A far more advantageous one than they faced in Norfolk, back at a sold-out Amex where they have been so dominant, with a full week to prepare for the visit of a Bristol City side as good as safe from any relegation worries.

If, by next weekend, Newcastle have still managed to eat into Albion's lead by at least four points, then it will all come down to a high noon showdown on the final day of the season when they play simultaneously with the rest of the division.

In the unlikely event of it getting that far, the fixtures favour Newcastle. They host Barnsley on Sunday May 7, while Albion face a tricky trip to Aston Villa.

In all probability, the match signalling the conclusion of the Seagulls' six-year stay in the Championship will count for little more than a contrast to the promotion-missing despair they felt exactly 12 months earlier at Middlesbrough, together with the prospect of emulating or breaking more records.

Several club landmarks are in jeopardy in the remaining two matches. Most significantly, the 28 wins Hughton's Albion have accumulated is one fewer than the all-time record in 1955-56.

Remarkably back then, that haul was not enough for Billy Lane's Albion to win Division Three South. They finished runners-up to Leyton Orient.

Another long-standing record would be equalled with a victory at Villa Park, the 12 away wins achieved by Pat Saward's side in 1971-72 when they finished runners-up in League One. Coincidentally, it was Aston Villa who were above them.

Albion also require four more points to top the total of 95 reached by Poyet's champions, a goal against Bristol City to overtake the 46 scored at Championship level at home by Lane's mid-table team in 1958-59, two in the last two games to exceed the same side's overall tally of 74.

The number of times club historian Tim Carder has been referring to the archives illustrates what an extraordinary season it has been for Hughton's Seagulls - and they are not quite done yet.