So Craig Nelson’s second coming is well underway, and not only is the gaffer back but he’s seemingly rebuilding the same squad of players he recruited in his first term, with Parish Muirhead joined by Alfie Allen and Bobby Unwin this week.

So what if the appointment of Bradley Pritchard was some kind of managerial turning point for the club? That we’re now going into full Benjamin Button mode, going back in time through our managerial appointments?

Pitts will naturally stand down in October 2026, having received an offer he couldn’t refuse from Glebe, and back comes Tony Russell for three years of European adventures, sexy wingers and bants with The Supporters Club.

In 2031, Darren Freeman returns, trying to coax Jamie Brotherton out of retirement by wafting a Ginsters pasty under his nose. And then in early 2039, it’s the third coronation of Steve King. If the board thinks they’ve got financial problems now, they’d better start saving for that one immediately…

And, yes, if you haven’t already spotted it, all this waffle about reverse manager timelines is simply an excuse to postpone talking about what happened yesterday.

This was undoubtedly the most frustrating game of the season; genuinely more frustrating than the 6-0 thumping at Folkestone, because we knew we were going to get a good hiding there.

Here we started really well, definitely had the better of the opening 28 minutes, with Bobby Unwin looking a threat down the right and Charlie Walker proving a handful for their centre-backs. Yes, Louis Rogers had to make a decent save or two, but we were well in the game and playing well.

Then came the game’s big turning point when another ex-Rook, Chatham keeper Nathan Harvey, earned himself an early splash of the Radox for racing out of his box and bringing down Charlie Walker. I’ll be honest – from my viewpoint, it looked like Harvey had won the ball. Neither I nor the gaggle of supporters cowering from the rain in the main stand appealed for a foul, and as anyone who’s ever stood near me on the terraces will testify, I’ll appeal for anything. If a passing pigeon farts in the direction of one of our forwards I’ll scream for a penalty. But given the lack of protest from the Chatham lads, I’m guessing we just had a duff angle and the referee was spot on.

One of the great delights of Isthmian Premier football is we’re now the highest rung on the ladder where teams don’t routinely have a sub keeper on the bench, and there’s nothing – nothing – more entertaining than watching an outfield player flap around in goal. Unless, of course, you don’t make that stand-in keeper do anything of note for over an hour.

The sending off seemed to utterly flummox us. It’s understandable that in the short time managers have with part-time players they’re not doing (m)any sessions on how to play against ten men with a full-back in goal, but you’d hope common sense would kick in. Instead of testing that keeper at every opportunity, we just didn’t create opportunities, shuttling the ball from side-to-side and sapping all the pace out of the game by taking far too many touches on the ball. Leggings McJeggings in the Chatham goal didn’t have a decent save to make.

Chatham defended well, of course. And they also created far more chances in the second half than we did, not least about 30 seconds after the restart when Tope Fadahunsi banged one in at Rogers’ near post. They had to wait until the 89th minute to wrap it up with Ben Allen’s goal, but they utterly deserved it.

And so the only thing we’ve got out of playing against nine men and a dodgy keeper for an hour is an awful sense of foreboding when we look at the league table. Oh, and half a pound of bananas and some smashing tangerines that were part of a fruit box that the Chatham board brought as a gift. We handed them three points in return.

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

Unused sub: Asiedu

Supporters Club man of the match: Nathan Harvey for getting sent off and inadvertently killing any momentum we had in the game