If the events of the past couple of weeks have proved anything, it’s that we live in a rules-based society. You can go out setting fire to a KFC because you think Nigel Farage has a point if you like, but you’re gonna spend the next five years slopping out in Wandsworth if you do. (These match reports have gone a bit woke, haven’t they Steve? Don’t worry, it’s early doors. He’ll bring it back to the football soon.)

Rules. Them’s important. But it seems our new management team are intent on ripping up the old rulebooks. The first rule Craig “Pitts” Nelson has torn up is that you don’t win your first game in charge. Tony Russell got his arse handed back to him at Cray, Hugo Langton pulled off a creditable draw against Hornchurch, Darren Freeman got a hiding at Grays. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Steve Brown in 2015 to find a manager who won his first game in charge, and even then he did his best to chuck it away by finishing a 1-0 win over Kingstonian with only nine men on the field.

What makes this win over fancied title contenders Chatham Town even more impressive is that they did it with an almost entirely new squad. When Pitts first put his feet up on Tony’s old desk and opened the top drawer, he’d have seen the following note:

Yes, we might still have ex-directors ligging around university campuses, lecturing the poor sods on “financial sustainability”, whilst glossing over losses that would make Nick Leeson wince and taking the ex-manager’s Tesla down to WeBuyAnyCar, but the truth is “there is no money”. Or, at least, not nearly as much as was swilling around the playing budgets previously. Asked why he didn’t retain much of last season’s squad at the pre-season fans’ forum, Pitts said it would have meant putting out a five-a-side team. Ouch.

So, with a squad of new faces we need to lay down some rules, to give the paying punters on the terraces half a chance of learning their names. These rules are:

1. The first XI must remain entirely unchanged for at least six games, despite results or injuries
2. No player may change their hairstyle until Christmas

Them’s the rules, lads. If you don’t like ’em, you can sod off down to Whitehawk. They’ll sign anyone for £500 a week, as long as you don’t mind hod carrying on a Monday morning.

Still, a few of the new lads already made a name for themselves in this game, with arguably our best defensive performance in many a year.

We pressed from the front and were rewarded almost immediately. Chatham tried titting around with it at the back before being struck by the shuddering realisation that they were Non-League players from Kent, not Barcelona. Shae Hutchinson shut the keeper down well and he kicked it straight to Matty Warren, who chipped it beautifully into the top-left corner to give the Rooks the lead.

With a sharp wind behind our backs, we edged the rest of a scrappy first half, although the visitors had a moment or two. Former West Ham starlet Freddie Sears passed up a glorious opportunity to equalise, after a rare shanked clearance from Kaiser fell at his feet, but his attempted chip had less weight on it than one of the skinny fries from the Chuck Wagon. We also had to hook one off the line from a corner, but the visitors really weren’t creating much.

The second half entered a more predictable pattern, with Chatham forgetting all about the Guardiola-style tippy-tappy nonsense now they had the wind behind their backs, and instead launching long balls and long throws into our box at every opportunity. The back four stood up to the barrage magnificently, even when Chatham threw on a third forward to keep the ineffectual Sears and Sach company.

It looked like they might nick a largely unmerited point when they were awarded a scrawny penalty late on. To be fair, on first inspection, I thought it was a penalty too – Kaiser sliding in and clipping the attacker. But the video replay shows the striker swinging and missing, and Kaiser collecting his follow-through.

Enter Toby Bull. The new goalkeeper has been mustard in pre-season and he continued his condiment form here with a tremendous low save, after substitute Yila tried one of those ridiculous ‘What’s The Time, Mr Wolf?’ run-ups and got his just deserts. And how nice to see the management team doing their homework on penalty takers and a young keeper taking the info on board. Great stuff.

The cherry on the cake came five minutes from the end of regulation time, when Antonio sneaked a lovely ball down the wing for Hutchinson, whose rather tame shot befuddled the Chatham keeper and spilled into the path of Danny Bassett, who either tapped it home or ran into the rebound, depending on how generous you’re feeling. But when you’ve just beaten one of the fancied teams 2-0 on a sunny opening day, Who Gives A Crap?

Lewes: Bull, Mundele, Kaiser, Puemo, Enkh, Warren, Sablier (Allen), Antonio, Allsopp (Ghannam), Hutchinson (Muirhead), Bassett (Jeffrey).

Unused subs: Morris

Supporters Club man of the match: Several strong contenders, including Bull, Warren and the two centre-backs but left-back Jack Enkh swings it with a Duracell Bunny-like performance and for hooking that goalward-bound header from the corner off the line.

Video highlights from Your Instant Replay:

Boyesy’s brilliant photos: