HARTY: On Tony Bloom's expectation and Gus Poyet

Earlier in the week, chairman Tony Bloom was quoted in a media interview as saying he wouldn't be happy if the Albion made the League One play-offs next season. He wants automatic promotion!

That's a huge weight of expectation on the Albion management and squad, more than four months before a ball is kicked in the next full campaign.

Or, is it merely a simple case of a combination of Bloom's obvious love of the club and a good old fashioned case of mis-quotation?

Every August, ask any football fan what they want their team to do and, to an extent, all logic goes out of the window. I always want the Albion to win the league, even when I know they have no chance, and is Tony Bloom any different?

Although, in this instance, given the way that Gus Poyet has got the team playing and, with a potentially busy summer of transfer activity, it's not that wild a prediction to have the club in the promotion mix in the last season at the Withdean.

A bigger concern could be Poyet himself. In the short time he has been at the Albion, in my opinion, he is fast becoming one of the most professional and competent managers the club has ever had.

That fact does not go unnoticed in domestic football circles and, by the law of football averages, within the next eight months, up to Christmas, at least 10 managerial jobs will become available in the Premiership and Championship. If the current Albion progress continues, then Poyet would surely be a target for a managerless club in either division.

Then again, it all comes back to Tony Bloom. The Albion chairman has bankrolled the stadium and will back his manager with squad funding.

With all due respect to former chairman Dick Knight, I doubt there would any repeat of the "sale" of then Albion manager Steve Coppell to Reading.

Like the rest of us, Bloom wants top grade football at a top grade stadium and rightly thinks Poyet is the man to lead us there.

So, Albion fans, there is, in fact, NOTHING to worry about.

It's more than 20 years since the demise of the annual Dillistone Darts competition, prompted by the sale of the company to corporate owners.

But this Sunday sees the re-introduction of an open Worthing darts competition.

Local pub, the Thomas A'Becket, will host the competition with registration from 11.30am, with the action getting under way an hour later.

There will be a significant cash prize for the eventual winner, as well as a trophy which I, remembering all those great nights of darts down at a packed Assembly Hall, have donated.

For more details, contact Ryan Mayo at the Becket on 01903 266643.

Another indication of how football is spiralling out of control?

It was 15 years ago this summer the Albion faithful had the Goldstone Ground sold behind their backs for just over 7 million pounds.

This summer, Liverpool will almost certainly be forced to pay out in excess of 16million just to get rid of a manager, Rafa Benitez, for failing in his job.

But, had you predicted that kind of expenditure for Liverpool in the summer of 2010, back when the ink was still wet on the Goldstone contract, you would have been carted off by the men in white coats, or should that be red and white?

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