Joe Royle's departure from Manchester City was, on the face of it, a little surprising.

Admittedly the Blues had been relegated from the Premiership but their chairman, David Bernstien, talked about stability and after the examples set by both Charlton and Ipswich, you would have thought Royle warranted another year.

But lo and behold the axe fell and the saga took a suspicious twist when new Man City boss Kevin Keegan unwittingly revealed he had been approached 24 hours before Royle was sacked.

Should anyone really be surprised?

The 'done deal' phrase, famously coined by Florida governor Jeb Bush during last year's dubious American Presidential election, has been commonplace in football for years.

It has even affected the Albion on more than one occasion.

Back in May 1986 it was decided to dispense with the services of the then Albion boss Chris Cattlin. The fury of the supporters at the inexplicable sacking forced the Goldstone boardroom into a hasty re-think.

Weeks before they had already lined up the relatively unknown Worthing boss Barry Lloyd to be the next incumbent. The Goldstone faithful had not taken Cattlin's dismissal well and the board realised that they would have anarchy on their hands if Lloyd was brought straight in.

Someone had to be found who would placate the supporters, sell season tickets, put bums on seats, then be sacked in place of Lloyd. Step forward Alan Mulllery.

The rest is history. Not the first time it happened at the Albion I'd imagine and certainly not the last. Earlier this year I was told by a young lady who is a Port Vale fanatic and Radio Five Live reporter, that Vale actually targeted Brian Horton eight weeks after he got the Albion job.

Let's hope the 'Dome deal' syndrome might actually work in the Albion's favour this summer. It wouldn't be a complete shock if Harry Redknapp got the job at Southampton. I certainly wouldn't bet against it all being arranged before Redknapp attended that final and ultimately fateful board meeting at Upton Park.

The final whistle at the Dell signalled the end of a long and eventful season for the Albion. Firm foundations have been laid internally during the last couple of years and the Albion, finally, are no longer a joke to the rest of football.

It appears that slowly but surely all the knockers and doubters are coming back on side, including the individual who famously spouted on BBC SCR back in August that he would have his head shaved if the Albion got promoted still playing in their early season style. He has certainly become a convert, constantly mithering me to get him a ticket for next season.

Great news for wives and girlfriends everywhere, it all starts again in just 10 weeks and will mark a new chapter for the Albion.

Dick Knight, ably assisted by Messrs Chapman, Pinnock, Griffiths and Perry, has done a superb job taking the club to its current position. But with the extra costs incurred by the ongoing Falmer saga and Division Two football, Dick is standing alone like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. The Albion needs new money and now.

I once suggested that perhaps, albeit on a smaller scale, Norman Cook could do for Brighton what Elton John had done for Watford. Stranger things have happened. Watch this space.

If anyone in our darkest hour at Hereford, had said to me that four years later the Albion would be playing, all be it in a friendly, a Premiership side and at the end of the game the Albion line-up would include seven products of the club's youth policy, five of them teenagers, I would have had them tested for drugs.

Yet in Saturday's final game at The Dell that happened, which is a testament to the hard work of Martin Hinshelwood, Dean Wilkins, Les Rogers and everyone else in the youth set-up.