I was such a poor footballer that opposing captains used to haggle over who wouldn't have me in their team.

There were two reasons for this. One was a towering lack of talent. But the other was a tremendous lack of anywhere to play sport.

At my primary school in Notting Hill there was not a blade of grass and we could not play games.

At my secondary school in London, the school playground was bisected by the A4 dual carriageway and the playing fields were more than two miles away, needing to be reached by a mixture of Tube and trolleybus.

So starved of sport was I that, with friends, I started my own football and cricket clubs.

But even then we were hampered by a shortage of space and Kensington, my home borough, had its playing fields ten miles away on the fringe of the capital in Northolt.

Chris Brasher, the Olympic gold medallist and journalist, highlighted our problems in The Observer when I was still at school and later became the cricket club president. I have remained passionate about this issue ever since.

When I moved to Brighton and Hove, I was glad to see plenty of playing fields, many of them belonging to schools. But they have been whittled down over the years and, if we are not careful, the process will continue.

What has happened is the closure of many old schools in the conurbation, such as the Knoll in Old Shoreham Road, and the placing of new buildings on open spaces.

A classic example was the relocation of the old Aldrington School from Portland Road to a green site next to Blatchington Mill School.

There have been so many expansions at Hove Park School that the once extensive green spaces on both sites have been eaten away and the school could do with more.

Every other secondary school in the city has expanded and still more buildings are planned.

People who are worried about playing fields had one victory a few years ago and it was a big one.

Plans to build a whole new school on part of the grounds of Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College were defeated after a public inquiry.

Now there is an equally important issue which will come to a head next month. It is the proposal of Varndean College to use land for housing so that finance can be raised for more expansion.

Varndean is an excellent college with an outstanding head teacher. Its continued expansion has been caused by its great popularity which has extended well beyond the confines of Brighton and Hove. Children are flowing there because of its good reputation.

But there is no doubt about the strength of the opposition to this scheme. Not only the neighbours but organisations such as Sport England are worried about its implications.

The Varndean campus is one of the best remaining green sites in the city.

Dorothy Stringer School, which is part of it, has just gained specialist status for sport. Yet at the same time, it is proposed to take land away.

Once land has been removed, whether for housing or school expansion, it will never come back.

If this process continues, there may be future generations of children as lacking in opportunity, if not in ability, as I was.

Campaigners could find Chris Brasher, as keen on sport now as he was all those years ago, a useful man to have on their side.