Northwich Victoria's players must have wondered what all the fuss was about.

Why were Albion's players running en masse to mob the scorer of just another late goal in Saturday's 8-0 FA Cup romp at Withdean?

Why the ecstatic scenes? After all, they were already five up before that goal went in.

The answer, of course, was in the identity of the scorer.

Joe Gatting, hitman extraordinaire in the youth team and a pretty impressive member of the reserves too, had just scored the first of what several judges believe will be many senior goals.

It was a real striker's finish, following up greedily in the goalmouth as a ball ran loose following Adam El-Abd's shot.

Knowing what the moment meant to him, every outfield player ran across to mob the scorer.

Michel Kuipers might have joined in as well had he not been 90 yards away.

Now the battle for Gatting, who will not even be 19 until later this month, is to build on that goal in a squad which suddenly boasts all sorts of options in attack.

Dean Willkins is among those who reckons he can do it and Gatting himself comes over as quietly confident.

Make that very quietly confident.

Not a man of many words, Gatting admitted: "It has taken a long time but I'm just pleased it has happened now.

Hopefully I can score a lot more.

"I thought I would get a couple of chances and I did in the end.

"You have to let the goal come. If you think about it, it affects you."

Wilkins has admitted that, given Gatting's diffident nature, he could not really tell whether he had let the wait for a goal bother him.

His team-mates were rather more forthcoming in expressing their delight when he hit the net.

They did the same for Sam Rents a few minutes later.

That too was a great moment but, being a striker, it was Gatting's effort which brought the most relief.

"We were really pleased for Joe and for Sam when they scored," said defender Joel Lynch. "There wasn't really any banter or anything afterwards, just people saying well done.

"We're team-mates but we're mates as well, we've come through together."

Gatting's strike came on a landmark day for Albion strikers past and present.

Not only did three of them score at Withdean but Chris McPhee (Torquay) and Colin Kazim-Richards (Sheffield United) got off the mark for their present clubs.

Bobby Zamora did not hit the net for the very good reason that he did not play due to injury.

He was watching at Withdean while his West Ham colleagues were losing at Middlesbrough.

Zamora scored on his Albion debut back in 2000.

Gatting had half chances to do that when given his first start against Leicester last season. That first goal eventually came in his 20th game for the Seagulls, though many of those have been off the bench.

He scored a fabulous goal for the reserves at QPR earlier in the season ("But that seems like a long time ago,"

he admitted) and had a header just off target before his golden moment on Saturday.

How will having a goal to his name affect him?

Wilkins reckons the benefits have been seen already.

"I'm sure it was a burden for him," said the Seagulls boss.

"But once he scored his goal his build-up play in the middle third was absolute quality and he played a part in two more goals.

"I'm really pleased for Joe and hopefully now he can kick on from that and start producing the sort of form he showed at youth and reserve team level at the back end of last season."

Albion's players know what Gatting can do when he is firing. And that explains the celebration that must have mystified Northwich.