Thousands of would-be managers have flooded a fantasy football web site ahead of today's Premiership kick-off.

Seagulls fans Jon Trigg, Chris Walters and Vassos Shairlis have had to miss Brighton and Hove Albion's Division One match against Norwich in order to cope with the demand.

The Hove-based trio run the www.freefantasyfootball.tv site, which has been a global success since its launch 18 months ago.

At the beginning of the week, 20,000 fans had entered teams, rising to 35,000 yesterday.

Mr Trigg said they were expecting up to 10,000 more during the weekend.

He said: "It's going to be a hectic time for us. This is when football fever is at its highest and sadly we'll have to miss the match.

"It would be terrible if there were any problems on the first day of the Premiership season."

On the first day of last season the site had 8,000 users, rising to 45,000 by the end of the football calendar.

The trio set up the site purely for their circle of friends and were amazed when so many people joined in, some from as far afield as Australia and Venezuela.

Amazed at their success, they have quit their jobs to run the site full-time and are now based at Hove Business Centre in Fonthill Road.