So Billericay it is, and normally one of the better attended away games. But there’s a fly in the soup: the trains are up the spout, the alternative being a replacement bus service going via Bristol. In the car it is, then, meaning a later than usual arrival at our first stop: The Coach and Horses.
Look up “old-fashioned boozer” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of The Coach and Horses, but it gets rave reviews on TripAdvisor.
Our form’s been a bit iffy recently, but we’re not quite in funeral mood, so we move on to The Billericay Brewery, a cracking little micro down the road. Here we find a fellow Rooks fan and thoughts soon turn to the match. “Anything could happen here,” opines Big Deaksy, and the history books suggest he’s right.
Tony’s boys took a 5-0 hiding here last season, but we’ve had decent results here in the past. I have dim memories of Garry Wilson’s side nabbing a win with only ten men on the pitch here years ago. Jack Walder was sent off, if memory serves. (Let’s be honest, it’s a credible plot, even if untrue.)
When Big Deaks suggested anything could happen, I’m not sure inverting the back four was what he had in mind, but here we started with regular right-back Matt Warren at left-back, with Izzy Jones switching from left to right. Even Spinks and Meeres switched their normal sides.
It was certainly unconventional, but early on it looked like it had worked. Calvin Ekpiteta dropped a lovely ball over the top for Hassan Jalloh to gallop on to. He took his time and calmly slotted beneath the keeper to give us an early lead.
It didn’t last long, though. Less time than it takes Jamie Brotherton to finish a fry-up. Former Chairman Stu tells me Elliot Long tore us a new one when he played for Wingate & Finchley last year and he had our inside-out defence tied in knots with a mazy little run, before prodding a ball through for Femi Akinwande to nab the equaliser.
Long applied the finish himself for the second goal, curling a lovely shot into the side netting, and prompting much gnashing of teeth in the away end, wondering if we were in for another shellacking.
The dentists were temporarily stood down at the start of the second half, though, as the Rooks started very brightly. Ekpiteta banged one off the bar before he nabbed an equaliser. Danny Bassett had scuttled to the byline, pulled the ball across the face of the goal, and Ekpiteta tapped it home from a yard or two out.
False hope? Of course. Billericay largely took control from then on. Akinwande got his second when they moved down the right and placed a ball in his path to wallop past Bull. His hat-trick arrived after sub Kaiser was caught in possession and the ball was prodded to him in wide open space to apply the finish.
Dead and buried. Still, they do a lovely wake at The Coach & Horses…
Lewes: Bull, Jones, Spinks, Meeres (Kaiser), Warren, Sablier, Antonio (Muirhead), Jalloh (Finney), Starkey (Hutchinson), Ekpiteta (Unwin), Bassett
Supporters Club man of the match: With a delightful assist and a goal for himself, Calvin Ekpiteta gets the gong.