In 1885, a few fellas got together in a pub in Lewes and decided to form a football club. If you’d told them that, 138 years later, that pub team would be travelling to Belgium to play their first ever competitive game in Europe, they’d probably ask: what took them so bloody long?

I’m joking, of course. The past couple of days have been nothing short of extraordinary for a men’s team that plays at the seventh tier of English football and is about as close to conventional European qualification as I am to the Nobel Prize for Literature. But then there’s nothing conventional about this unique football club that we follow.

KSK Beveren play about half an hour’s drive outside of Antwerp. I can say that with authority, because I’ve done that drive (almost) three times now and I was only meant to do it once. More on that later.

First, however, we’re paying a visit to Antwerp’s most batshit bar, just to make sure we’re suitably lubricated for the evening’s action. Bonfire Neil is sat in the window, with a couple of other blokes, so we know it’s open. But when we go to open the door, it won’t budge. Richard’s not as strong as he used to be, so I give it a firm shake too, but the door’s not for moving. “Press the bell,” mouths one of Bonfire Neil’s companions.

Roughly 36 minutes later, the door creaks open a few inches, and behind it is a tiny, elderly woman who’s more effective than any six-foot wide bouncer you’ll find cluttering a doorway in a Brighton nightclub. She’s already sent a pack of our fans on their way, we subsequently learn.

“Are you here to taste, not drink?” she asks.   

Richard and I glance each other a bemused look, but nod an uncertain “yes”.

“Do you have cash not card?”

Rich fumbles in his pockets and finds 30 Euros. She looks us up and down, considers the situation for what seems like the duration of the average Netflix series, and finally relents. We’re in.

It appears we’ve stumbled into the Belgian Beer Archives, a cross between a library and an off-licence. We’re handed a binder as thick as a 1980s Yellow Pages that lists all of the ales on offer, while a bloke who resembles Geppetto sits behind the world’s untidiest desk, glaring at us over a soundtrack of classical music. While Richard runs his finger down the list of 2003 vintage stouts, Bonfire Neil pours us a small glass of 10-year-old something, which is seemingly decanted from a gerbil’s coffin.

It tastes like sherry.

“How strong is this stuff?” I ask.

“13%,” comes the reply. I’m beginning to understand why Doris the Doorwoman doesn’t want anyone drinking this stuff.

 A few snifters later, we’re on our way, both literally and metaphorically, off in search of fellow supporters, beers that it’s safe to drink more than a thimble of, and glorious European football.

“How’s your Flemish, Baz?”

The Essex comprehensive I went to thought Flemish was a word to describe kids with a stinking cold, not a language, and so my chances of working out the meaning of the three words written under our train on the departures board was extraordinarily slim.

Google Translate is pressed into service and soon we discover they mean “not running today”. How’s your luck? You travel all the way to Belgium, only to discover Southern Rail is still in charge of the trains.

Luckily, Richard remembers that the team bus is taking the players to the ground shortly and so he puts in an SOS call to Club Sec John. Any chance you’ve got room for five stowaways? Indeed, they have, and so we travel to the ground with Tony and the troops.

When we arrive at the ground, we’re first off the bus to be greeted by beaming Beveren officials, who can’t believe their luck. Lewes have sent over a team of vets who smell like they’ve been in a distillery all afternoon! Their spirits are are swiftly crushed when the actual team follow us down the steps, looking precisely 367% more spritely.

We, of course, make our way to the bar, where the delightful staff tempt us with more double-digit ABV beer. If we even get to see this game, it’s going to be nothing short of a miracle.

As the beers are quietly sunk and the bar begins to fill, it becomes apparent quite how many Rooks fans are here. All day we’ve been bumping into each other on trains or trudging through Antwerp; the @lewessupporters Twitter account has been regularly pinging with pics of people making their way over. And now we’re all here and there must be 100 of us, if not more. It is wonderful.

So wonderful, I’ve had to have a little sit down while the group photo is taken. Told you those beers were strong…

One thing that’s not wonderful is the weather, just as the match is about to kick-off. Heavy showers in the days before the match meant the game had to be shifted to a 3G pitch, and it’s got about as much shelter as The West Pier. It’s tipping down, but two things prevent this from being an utterly miserable experience: the quality of our football and the considerable beer insulation.

I say the quality of our football was good, but in truth I’m largely guessing or relying on third-party accounts. The rain is coming down so hard, my visions is basically reduced to watching water run down my glasses.

When I cheerily tweet that Tommy Wood has put us in front midway through the first half, I’m entirely wrong. It was apparently Luke Dreher who slammed the ball home.

When Kalvin Lombombo-Kalala slaloms his way past two defenders and pings home the second, I can only tell its KLK when he runs over to celebrate.

I’ve travelled through two countries to get here, and I’m seeing less action than a Swiss submariner.

Thankfully, the rain sods off for the start of the second half, although this unhappily coincides with 20-30 minutes of Beveren dominance. They flash a few shots across our goal and force Nathan Harvey into a decent save, before they finally peg us back with a powerful strike, leaving what looked like being an uncomfortable final 15 minutes – and not just because my coat was 86% rainwater.

However, the worry was lifted just a few minutes later, when a whipped Archie Tamplin free-kick was met by a powerful goal-bound header from Arthur Penney (or 0.5 Cents as they call him in Europe).

The Beveren fans were so warm in spirit(s?) that they even let off some pyro to celebrate our goal.

And so back we went to the bar, topping up the incoming hangovers and swapping scarves with our amenable hosts.

And then a ripple of edginess spread through the Rooks fans. The club had kindly laid on a coach back to Antwerp, where the players and most of the fans were staying. But even a cursory headcount of Rooks fans in the bar suggested there was more than a coach’s worth here. Would it be a bunfight to get a seat on the bus, not least because the players, management and staff were getting that same coach too?

Wet coats were suddenly being donned, pints finished up. It was like that scene from Only Fools & Horses, where the Jolly Boys realise there might only be one or two rooms left in Margate and everyone starts slowly edging towards the exit…

The players – keen to get away for their night in Antwerp and about 20 years younger than the rest of us – pile on to the coach. A breakaway pack of Rooks fans (including yours truly) stagger on shortly after. And before you know it, the coach doors close and the driver is out of the gates like Lewis Hamilton on a promise, with the coach still half empty.

About ten minutes down the road, the players realise Tony and Joe aren’t on board. Neither are Stuart and Maggie. Nor about 40 fans. Archie Tamplin is swiftly appointed as Players Union rep and heads down stairs to inform the driver of his error.

But the driver’s having none of it. He’s coming off shift at midnight. He hasn’t got time to go back and pick everyone up. He’s gonna drop us off at Antwerp and leave the rest to get themselves home from the arse end of nowhere, with all public transport finished for the night.

Well, this was a red rag to Dave Lamb’s bull. Dave – clearly a Green Beret before he became the nation’s favourite Aldi voiceover artist –firmly reminded the driver that no man or woman should be left behind. And so we did a hairy 360 on a roundabout and set about getting back to Beveren again, this time with a driver very much on the clock.

The occasional travel fiasco aside, this was a glorious trip. How often does a non-league club get to see its team play in Europe? I’ve seen this described as a vanity exercise by critics on the forums, but try telling that to anyone who went on that trip last night. It was a possibly once-in-a-lifetime chance to see our team play abroad (OK twice, we’re going to Oslo in March; and maybe the finals in Italy after that, but for Christ’s sakes don’t tell my other half), and we loved it.

Huge credit to everyone at the club for getting this on, especially Stuart Fuller. We’ll always have Beveren. And minor liver damage.

Lewes: Harvey, Olukoga, Salmon, Elliott, Oguntayo, Penney, Dreher, Tamplin, Moore, Lumbombo-Kalala, Wood

Subs: Pritchard, Whelpdale, Murtagh, Vint, Hall.

Supporters Club man of the match: On the field, KLK had his best game in a long while, tormenting Beveren before he was withdrawn; off the field, take a bow Mr Chairman (retired).