Punk band The Clash perform in Mandela Hall on the University of Sussex campus on 25 May 1977.

Paul Cecil during his punk days as a student at the University of Sussex in the late 1970s.

Previously unreleased film footage from a 1977 gig by punk pioneers The Clash at the University of Sussex has just been released as part of a 12-disc box set.

The band – famous for chart-toppers such as London Calling, Rock The Casbah and Should I Stay or Should I Go – have compiled Sound System, which includes a DVD that couples all of their videos with unseen archive footage.

The box set, which came out on Monday (9 September) also collects for the first time all of the band's seminal studio albums, plus three CDs of demos, non-album singles, B-sides and rarities.

The University of Sussex footage is from 25 May 1977, when The Clash played in Mandela Hall as part of their White Riot tour and the gig was displayed live on screens around the venue.

Paul Cecil, who was studying American Studies at Sussex at the time, was among those who attended the gig.

He remembers: “A lot of students bought tickets. On the day of the gig itself, large numbers of London punks turned up without tickets and began piling into Mandela Hall. Students took one look at them and started to sell their tickets to them. They thought it was scary. It wasn’t.

“Inside the gig it was a really friendly atmosphere. There was lots of pogo-ing and jumping around, getting very bruised bashing into people. It was mayhem but controlled mayhem for about 35 minutes.

“The Clash played an outstandingly good set – very short, very loud, very fast.”

The new DVD release features four songs from the gig: I’m So Bored With The USA, Hate & War, Career Opportunities, and Remote Control.

It comes from the archives of Julien Temple, a film and video director who had befriended the band and went on to make The Sex Pistols movie The Great Rock And Roll Swindle.

But if the box set is beyond you at almost £100, you can see footage of the show on YouTube. In part one The Clash are performing Capital Radio, Protex Blue, Cheat and Remote Control; and in part two they play Remote Control, White Riot, and Police and Thieves.

Other big names to perform at Sussex in the 1970s included The Who and The Damned.

The Clash broke up in the early 1980s and front man Joe Strummer died in 2002.