The curse of Craven Cottage hits Brighton once more - and our columnist Ian Hart

Picture the scene, an unbeaten Albion scrapping with the big boys at the top of the Premier League, travel to Fulham for ‘matchday five’ – sorry, still can’t get my head round this obvious Americanism.

Craven Cottage is the only London football ground I’ve never watched the Albion and my 97th ground at a competitive Seagulls fixture.

I was accompanied for a rare footballing outing by my daughter Amy, fresh from her ‘baby’ news on Monday, after a very kind invitation from our accountant to join his party in a box at the Cottage.

We left Chez Hart at 3.30pm with the SAT NAV telling us we’d be in West London just before 5.30.

What could possibly go wrong?

A lorry crash on the A3...Thankfully no one was seriously injured in the accident, but the traffic carnage it caused saw us at kick off time still gridlocked on the A3, with an ETA on the navigation system of 8.29.

Not really moving at all, it was when the SAT NAV was still saying just under the hour, but an arrival time that would have given us about 10 minutes of football, we ran up the white flag and turned back, and looking on social media we weren’t the only supporters affected.

Thankfully, we had the good old car wireless to hand, and rolled back the years listening to the excellent BBC Radio Sussex commentary.

Like Lenin’s Tomb at the 2018 World Cup, am I destined never to go to Fulham?

Unfortunately Brighton couldn’t match the vocal quality of Messrs Cantor and Aspinall on the pitch – clearly missing the rested Danny Welbeck and the injured Adam Lallana – the Albion were distinctly off colour and lost their first game of the season 2-1 to the hosts.

So Fulham continue to be one Albion’s Premier League bogey team, are they to us what we are to West Ham?

Part and parcel of football’s rich tapestry.

Bogey’s aside, after the great victory against Leeds, most fans would have thought that the next two games, Fulham and Leicester City, would have been a nailed on six points.

Clearly not, maybe it’s the curse of going top, not once but now twice in the last 12 months have the Albion had the chance to go top, at Palace last September we could only draw, Tuesday we didn’t even manage a point.

Onwards and upwards and with the transfer window shutting Thursday, who knows, there might yet be a last minute surprise purchase at the Amex.

After that Sunday beckons, the visit of the up to now woeful Leicester City, unfortunately the footballing pessimist in me can almost see the iceberg.

But no, stay positive, the Albion will get back to winning ways with an emphatic 3-0 win.