I won’t lie. A murmur of concern spread among the Rooks fans I was standing with when, moments before the teams came out, down the dressing room steps strode stalwart supporter Lee “Spooky” Harris. We know the budget isn’t in rude health, but surely the club hadn’t resorted to appointing Spooky to pull us out of the brown stuff?

It turns out Spooky was actually drafted in to give the boys a pre-match pep-talk. I caught up with Spooky after the game and asked him what he said to the players. He told me he drew inspiration from the different managers he’d seen at The Pan over his many years of supporting the club.

He drew strength from Kingy’s integrity and honesty:

Darren Freeman’s ever-placid demeanour:

And Tony Russell’s self-effacing modesty:

Whatever Spooky said, it did the trick. (Granted, we should probably give some credit to Pitts and the players.)

This was arguably the performance of the season, and not before time, given we were sliding perilously close to the positions that have a little R against them at the end of the season.

Pitts freshened up the starting XI after Friday’s poor show at Potters. Ryan Bernal, Tyler Christian-Law, Beaux Booth and Charlie Walker were all back in the side, as Pitts wisely decided to go for his biggest, strongest boys against Whitehawk’s ever-muscular line-up.

We didn’t give them time to settle and took the lead after only six minutes. Booth’s cross was headed goalward by Charlie Walker and pawed away by keeper Dion Henry, before Devonte West pounced with a low shot to put the Rooks in front.

The rest of the first half was remarkably controlled. We weren’t exactly battering them, but we rarely looked in any serious danger either. In fact, we were on the attack right at the end of the first half, when the referee decided he’d seen enough and blew for half-time.

I’m never quite sure why fans get angry when a referee blows for time when a side’s attacking. The time’s the time. There’s no rule that says the ref can only blow for half-time when there’s bugger all of any consequence happening. But the packed Philcox and the players were furious with the ref for blowing up when they were in the final third, and when the crowd started singing songs questioning the referee’s parentage, he bit back – the first time I’ve ever seen a referee give a hand gesture to the crowd. He should probably have booked himself for ungentlemanly conduct.

We expected Whitehawk’s Big Angry Boys to be pumped up for the second half, but they were flatter than a pint of mild in the Pelham Arms. Credit to John Peel or whoever decided to move Potters Bar back to Good Friday, giving us an extra day to recover over the visitors.

Meanwhile, we were playing some lovely stuff, no more so than when we strung together about a dozen slick passes before scoring our second, which ended with Charlie Walker squaring the ball across for Alfie Allen to tap in from a yard out.

The cherry on the cake came from sub Bobby Unwin, who stroked home a lovely through ball to put the game beyond even Big Deaksy’s doubt in the 78th minute, letting 1,500 fans soak up the sun and enjoy the end of a game for once. Although Spooky Pitts was making sure we finished with a clean sheet, ending the game with two right-backs and two left-backs on the field, as well as the centre-backs.

With other results going our away, it’s going to take a mathematical meltdown for us to be relegated now, meaning we can go to Cray and Chatham, and entertain Wingate here, without nibbling our fingernails and refreshing Footballwebpages every eight seconds. And if you need a motivational speaker to give your colleagues a lift, Spooky is available at very reasonable rates (no timewasters).

Lewes: Rogers, Bernal (King), Paye, Watson, Enkh, Allen (Muirhead), Christian-Law, Booth (Roberts), West (Kpakpe), Bassett (Unwin), Walker

Supporters Club man of the match: Lots of good performances, but Charlie Walker barely gave a ball away all afternoon and had a hand in both of the first two goals. Welcome back.