HARTY: On Poyet's superb start at The Albion

Clearly an early Brighton exit will give the knockers and detractors welcome ammunition, but I really don't think I'm sticking my neck out saying that by the time you are reading this the Albion will be looking forward to a second- round home clash with Rushden and Diamonds.

As I touched on last week, parallels can be drawn with Gus Poyet's arrival at the Albion alongside the respective appointments of Brian Clough and Alan Mullery in 1973 and 1976.

The media bandwagon has well and truly rolled with the culmination being the Albion's Sky Sports Sunday south coast showdown with Southampton.

Perhaps we should all return to our schooldays and write one hundred times "I must not get carried away", but seeing is believing and what I saw against Saints was some of the best football I've seen from the Albion in recent years.

One swallow does not a summer make but I firmly believe that Poyet could prove to be the most significant managerial appointment in the last 25 years, if only for the reason that he get Glen Murray to play like the player he clearly is, week in, week out.

His finishing on Sunday showed what many have said for a long time '“ that when he is on his game he is one of the best strikers outside the top two divisions.

At the other end of the pitch, it's clear one of Poyet and his management team's first priorities is to shore up the defence and it was apparent that the first step in this process was on Sunday with the recall of keeper Michel Kuipers.

This won't happen overnight but, given time, the Albion might consistently start playing in a manner which will see ticket sales each week on a par with this weekend's home fixture with Leeds.

The potential near sell-out crowd is a double-edged sword. It's great to have a big crowd and a great atmosphere, it's just a shame that a number of supporters like to pick and choose, namely the big games.

Unless the long overdue FA Cup run develops this year, Saturday's game is one of the biggest of the season, partly due to the fact that a number of Leeds fans still delude themselves that they are, on paper, a big club.

However, as we all know, football is played on grass rather than paper. Bring on the league leaders...

MANY thanks to Ken Benham and his colleagues at the Sussex County FA who invited me as their guest for the Sussex Sports Awards in Brighton on Friday evening.

Locally, it turned out to be a very successful evening, with Sion senior school's games teacher, Julie House, winning coach of the year for her work in her specialist sport of netball, the Worthing VI form college sports department also received a team award in recognition for their work.

Both recipients thoroughly deserved in their awards. While I was personally very pleased for Julie, the success for the college certainly makes amends for previous issues.

I know members of the specific department may have joined the college at the time of the Asda saga, when they may have been led to believe that the proposed superstore would have been followed by a building of a new state-of-the-art college with top quality facilities.

Cleary, as the Asda plans were scuppered, so were the new college proposals, but that certainly hasn't affected the teaching staff's performance.

NOT wanting to take anything away from his obvious achievement in winning the world heavyweight championship but to put David Haye on an instant par with Muhammad Ali is like comparing John and Edward to Simon and Garfunkel.

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