In case you haven’t noticed, 2026 has started colder than a penguin’s toenails. If it wasn’t for Burgess Hill splashing out on their fancy new 3G pitch this season, we’d have had no game at all yesterday.

Today’s Women’s game at The Dripping Pan was called off yesterday, with at least half the pitch more frozen than Captain Birdseye’s finest. And unless the Met Office’s Commodore 64 is on the blink again, there’s roughly sod all chance of Tuesday’s home match against Billericay taking place either.

All of which makes me wonder whether Keith Rapley was right all along. For those who aren’t familiar with the name, Keith is a lovely man who ran for the board a good decade or so ago with a manifesto pledge to convert The Dripping Pan to a 3G pitch – right about the time we were installing a 3G training pitch on the Convent Field.

The idea didn’t gain much support at the time, the “football’s played on grass” lobby still holding sway. But if you look around the league now, roughly half the clubs are playing on 3G. Mainly the half that played games yesterday. What’s more, they get week-round usage of the pitch, with the club’s bar and changing facilities within easy reach of the ground, not a long, dark walk away across the moors. I know there were funding reasons why a separate 3G training pitch made more financial sense at the time, but you do wonder over the decade whether we’d have made that money back… and more. Keith Rapley for president, I say. The man’s a visionary.

If the board do decide they need a bit of Rapley foresight, there’s certainly plenty of room in the boardakabin. Ahead of yesterday’s game, it was announced that Roger Warner had become the latest resignation from the board because his brewery had recently moved to Burgess Hill, where it’s working in partnership with Burgess Hill Town. As this created “a bit of a conflict of interest”, it was Roger and out.

We’ve lost a few players to Burgess Hill over the years (more on that later), but it’s coming to something when we’re shipping board members to them, too. What next? Will Burgess Hill attempt to headhunt Barbara Arnold to run their raffle? I’m telling you now, Hillians, we ain’t selling.

One reason we’re not willing to send anyone else to the Hill is because they keep coming back to haunt us, and so it was yesterday, when former Rooks striker Ben Pope gave Burgess Hill the lead, poking home a cross from the right after only 13 minutes.

Pope is, of course, a satirical commentator’s dream of a surname, so when he was later booked and subbed off, we could dust off the old material from his Rooks days.

Money for old Pope, you might say. (In fact, Sinclair said it, but the line was too good not to steal.)

The Rooks equalised on the half hour, Charlie Walker swazzing one in from 20 yards out, a lovely strike that I had the perfect view off stood right behind the goal. Did I capture it on video? Of course not. I was too busy looking up old Ben Pope puns.

The memory of Charlie’s Thunderbastard was about all we had to cling on to in the second half, when the home side took almost complete control and we shrivelled in the cold. Their 80th minute winner had more than an element of “that was coming” to it, a corner which (I think) Louis Rogers punched into one of our own defenders, allowing George Vorster to bang home.

Given the lads won every game they finished in December, I think we can cut them a little slack for a sub-par second half.

Lewes: Rogers, Bernal, Burchell, Watson (Christian-Law), Kpakpe, Allen (Taylor-Crossdale), Muirhead, West, Bassett (Hamouchene), Unwin (Bennett), Walker (Franzen-Jones)

Supporters Club man of the match: Charlie Walker for tonking home the equaliser

Video highlights from Hillians TV:

Boysey’s brilliant photos: