Who pulled the plug on the 66-year-old season ticket holder’s MyAlbion TV?

Now it was a slightly different experience for this 66-year-old season ticker holder when it came to Brighton v Leicester City.

It is our timeshare week in Madeira and, having missed out on last year’s visit because of obvious reasons, the wife and I have jetted off to Portugal to enjoy some sunshine.

Which meant missing the vital home game against the Foxes. Was there a way around this? Well, I thought to myself, I can install a VPN (virtual private network) application and tune into MyAlbion TV through the Albion website.

This allowed me to listen to Johnny Cantor and Warren Aspinall’s commentary on BBC Radio Sussex, and so there I found myself on Sunday afternoon, sitting ready for the game in the shade with a nice cool drink.

Unlike whilst listening to Brentford 0-1 Brighton a week earlier, there were no settee springs to damage thank goodness; I just had to be a little careful with the apartment furniture.

Leicester was Brighton’s fifth game of the Premier League season with three of the previous four already won.

It seems to me that the national press is not quite sure what to make of us so far as, despite the flying start, they are still not giving many column inches to the Albion. We will have to put this down to it being early days yet, as Graham Potter quite rightly points out.

There was of course sad news earlier in the day of the loss of a football titan Jimmy Greaves, and the club paid their respects to him with a tribute before kick off.

Once Greaves had received the applause his life and career deserved, I heard the roar of the crowd in the background of the broadcast.

In an instant, I wished I was at the game like all supporters would. The singing in the North Stand to start with could be heard behind Johnny and Warren.

I still think we can sing louder than that though – and we must make plenty of noise to cheer the team on as the weeks drift by and the games become tougher.

The commentators described the Amex pitch as being like a carpet. Warren Aspinall commented: “If you can’t play football on this Johnny, you cant play football anywhere.”

I listened intently, so pleased that I could at least hear the commentary from over one thousand miles away even if I could not see the game.

In the first six minutes, it sounded like the Albion had limited possession and were struggling somewhat. My the nerves started to build as the feeling from the commentary was that Leicester City had all the play.

When Johnny then said that the Albion had started to come to life, I felt a sigh of relief. Central to that appeared to be Marc Cucurella who was making a big impact on his first home game for the Albion.

He could be heard over the airwaves doing his best to create chances and opportunities. One of those came from Robert Sanchez claiming a Leicester corner and launching a counter attack.

Cucurella took control of the ball direct from his goalkeeper and then fed Neil Maupay, leading to a shot and a Brighton corner. The resulting corner found Shane Duffy whose header was unluckily wide.

Shortly after this there was excitement as Solly March had the opportunity to take a first time shot. Instead, he took an extra touch and the chance went begging, much to Warren’s anguish.

Adam Lallana was next to be wasteful on the 30 minute mark when he hit a shot which was described as flying into the South Stand. That one made me spill my drink.

I sat there wondering if we were going to grab the game by the scruff of the neck or if this would be a return to last season of not making the most of dominating.

We had at least settled into the game after that strong Leicester start, something which Warren confirmed. Warren also continued to gush with praise about Cucurella, so it was no surprise when Cucurella ended up being the sponsor’s man of the match.

With half time approaching, Shane Duffy put a really good header on target which needed the arm of Jannik Vestergaard to keep it out. Neal Maupay struck a confident penalty past Kasper Schmeichel, sending the Leicester goalkeeper the wrong way.

Watching the highlights back, there was plenty of gamesmanship going on from Schmeichel before the penalty could be taken. Maupay did well to not let this deter him in any way.

There was a deep sigh and concern all round when the commentators reported that Yves Bissouma had gone down with a knock on the rear of his knee.

With a hobbling Bissouma and seven minutes of the first half to see out, I began crossing my fingers, biting my nails and praying that we could keep concentration and make it to the break with the lead intact.

And then… someone pulled the plug out of MyAlbion TV. Johnny and Warren’s commentary was gone, the last noise heard sounding like a large amplifier being unplugged followed by a partial male voice and then nothing.

What is going on I thought? You cannot seriously tell me this has happened just before half time. I grabbed my mobile and pulled up MyAlbion TV on that. Once again, dead with nothing coming through.

Next I took the tried and tested approach of switching everything off and back on again. Still nothing. I tried connecting to the Albion website via 4G rather than WiFi to see if the internet was at fault. That did not work either.

By this point, I was tearing my hair out. It must be half time by now and although I had no idea if we were still winning, surely somebody would realise the plug had been pulled out once the action stopped for 15 minutes.

I then decided to try and call the club. I suspected this would be a waste of time and so it proved as the recorded voice gave no option of anyone to speak to.

With all options exhausted and the commentary not coming back, I was left with no choice but to spend the second half constantly refreshing the live blog on the Albion website. It turns out this is a stressful way to follow a game.

Suddenly, there was an explosion of news five minutes into the second half. Solly March had been brought down by Ryan Bertrand on the right hand side, Leandro Trossard sent a free kick over and Danny Welbeck headed home.

The problem with the live blog is that it hardly updates. This left me very twitchy until the next update came through with 61 minutes played, revealling that Jamie Vardy had pulled one back.

Staring at the screen waiting for it update again, I was left fearing the worst about what the next sentence would say when it appeared. Would we be on the end of another unlucky decision like those of last year that went against the Albion?

Next, the blog told us that March had been replaced by Enock Mwepu. My thought process told me this was Potter beginning to think about shoring up the defence to try and see out the game.

Reading that Leicester had two goals disallowed for offside – both correctly in my opinion after watching back – and that Big Dan Burn had come on for Welbeck confirmed that we must be under pressure.

When the blog said there were five added minutes, I did not know what to do with myself. When it then updated to confirm a final score of Brighton 2-1 Leicester, it became clear that a great team effort had delivered three points.

Hopefully, they get my MyAlbion TV up and running again for the Swansea game as my nerves cannot take another game being updated through the live blog.

Finally, a word of warning if you are a new season ticket holder like me and are not fully aware how the ticket exchange works. I put our two season tickets up for resale as I knew we would be away for the Leicester game, thinking they would appear for another supporter to buy.

This is the not how resale works though, apparently. The ground has to completely sell out before the ticket exchange is open and your seat appears for sale. With tickets still available, there was no chance for us to sell our seats to another fan.