Still pretty

Of course, the six-lane trunk road going through its centre has changed its character but, fortunately, you can't see the roaring A27 from the beautiful duck pond and church.

It's a hundred yards or more distant, hidden by trees.

The new stadium will be much further away than that, beyond the road to Rottingdean, in a dip close to Brighton University and the A27.

Unlike the A27, it won't be open for business 24 hours a day and, unlike the great swathes of rather insensitive housing surrounding other old downland settlements - Ovingdean is a good example - it won't in itself change the role of the village.

Mr Blackman asks where the stadium car parks will be, raising the worrying thought that he hasn't actually seen the planning application. For his interest, they won't be in Falmer village, just as the stadium itself won't be.

Nearly all the car-parking spaces will be either on the other side of the A27 or several miles away.

Perhaps he reveals his real agenda - and his prejudices about those who watch football matches - when he asks who will pay for vandalism.

Well, the Albion's poet in residence is called Attila the Stockbroker, not Attila the Hun, and there has been no evidence of mayhem and destruction in Withdean.

They said it would happen and it didn't. We even take our litter home.

-Andrew Ward, Nutley Drive, Goring by Sea