Seagulls Scene: Micky follows Fabio in rotating the captaincy

Well Micky Adams will apparently try sharing the Albion captaincy before deciding on a permanent club skipper. Just as Capello has Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, and Gareth Barry to consider so our Micky has Nicky Forster, Steve Thomson, Adam El-Abd, new signing Colin Hawkins and youngster Tommy Elphick to weigh up.

The current captain, Forster, is probably the favourite but over the pre-season Adams says he may try a share-around. He wants to be sure to choose a leader and recognises that Forster leads by example. Being a striker doesn't influence the manager as he did play with Alan Shearer as captain and he was a winner. It all adds to a little bit of interest.

Adams' first signing is "no-nonsense" Irish central defender Hawkins (pictured) from Coventry. Adams says he is delighted to get Hawkins who is a strong character and should be a good influence in the dressing room. He had a tough time with injury at Coventry and was on loan at Chesterfield before being released by the Sky Blues. Adams did in fact sign Hawkins when he was manager at Coventry, but had departed himself before the player arrived. At 30, some may question the sense of signing an older player, but Chairman Dick Knight backs him to help our young defenders with their progress.

Whilst Adams may be following Capello, there is the little matter of Euro 2008 on the horizon. Who do we follow? The media is full of this tournament and coverage will increase as all the TV rights were purchased BEFORE all the British teams were knocked out! They are legally bound to screen practically every minute, in which England (and Scotland, Wales and Ireland) play no part! Your favourite programmes will disappear and there will be two hours of Switzerland vs Turkey, or something similar. We wont be able to pretend it isn't happening, so who do we support?

The most obvious Albion connection is, of course, former player Colin Kazim-Richards, who plays for Turkey. We could cheer for teams in blue, but who plays in blue and white stripes? We have had French connections through David Martot and Therry Racon, but France have won enough already. Best is probably to go for underdogs. However we certainly can't back Croatia as the pain they inflicted at Wembley just won't go away.

I'm sure there is a "Group of Death" (probably Group C, featuring Italy, France, Holland and Romania) and a group with the most premiership players in it. But do we want to support Spain because Fernando Torres plays for Liverpool or Portugal because Cristiano Ronaldo is at Man U? For many then every group will be regarded as the "Group of Indifference"!

I think I'll support Holland. The Dutch are a nice lot, from a small country, they have a Queen, orange is easy to spot, and we don't want their close neighbours to win, do we?

And then there's Michel Kuipers of course, our very own Former Dutch Marine. He has just signed a new two-year contract with the Seagulls which will keep him with us until 2010, give him 10 years and a testimonial (at Falmer, hopefully!).

He was in fact signed by Micky Adams in his first spell as manager. Michel has gone on to play 228 games so far, beating the record for a "foreign" player which was held by Dennis Foreman on 219. So cheering for the Netherlands it will be (despite an amount of gloating by Dutch friends when we lost to Russia whilst they qualified!).

Guy Butters, our popular 38-year-old defender, has joined old mate Charlie Oatway at Havant &Waterlooville, where Charlie is assistant manager. Butters was a great reliable player for us and in many tough games over recent years was the rock in our defence. Young Tommy Elphick probably learnt a great deal from Guy.

He also scored the odd vital goal for us and I'll always remember the late one at Upton Park when his headed goal beat West Ham in November 2004. We wish Butts well. He will in fact have another chance to say goodbye to his friends as Albion travel to Havant for a pre-season friendly on Tuesday 22nd July, kick-off 7.45pm.

Guy also hopes to make the Gary Hart testimonial match versus Charlton Athletic at Withdean on Saturday 26th.