STEVE COPPELL AND Micky Adams, the former managers of Brighton & Hove Albion, and Peter Ward, the club’s legendary goalscorer of the late 1970s, will join Mark McGhee and the present squad plus 6,000 supporters this evening in a march on the Labour Party conference, which is being held at the city’s conference centre.

The demonstration is seen as a final opportunity to lobby John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, to rule in favour of the club’s application for a 22,500-seat community stadium in Falmer, on the eastern boundary of the city. “Everyone wants the stadium with one or two exceptions,” Coppell said.

Prescott called in plans despite an 11-1 vote in favour in June 2002 by the city council, which is reluctantly continuing to allow the Coca-Cola Championship club to play at the 7,000-capacity Withdean Stadium. He then reopened the inquiry last July, asking for alternative sites to be considered. A decision has been promised by the end of October. A barrage of postcards, letters, Valentine cards and publicity stunts can have left Prescott in little doubt about supporters’ feelings.

“I can’t believe the stadium saga is still going on,” Ward, who flew in from his home in Tampa, said. “In the US it would have been built ages ago. For a country that’s hosting the Olympics in 2012, it’s important this Government shows it’s serious about sport and not just in London but across the UK.”