6-3 isn’t a football score. I Googled “6-3 football scores” a few moments ago and three of the top results involved Manchester City, the Saudi-owned football theme park just off the M60, and the other was from Soccer Aid, in which 60,000 people pack Old Trafford in the hope of seeing Robbie Williams land awkwardly on his larynx.

This was a weird game in many, many ways. For the second week on the spin, kick-off was delayed for 15 mins because of the M25 wreaking havoc with visiting team travel. Our lads turned up late last week and got a 5-0 hiding for their troubles; Bracknell turned up late this week and were 5-0 down within moments of the restart.

That should have been that. But like The Black Knight in Monty Python, the Bracknell boys didn’t know when they were beaten, even though we’d sliced three of their limbs off.

After the midweek win in the Sussex Senior Cup, in which Pitts had rotated the team with a selection of fringe and youth players (that Nano lad is one to watch), we reverted to the league-topping line-up for this Trophy tie.

But Pitts had a surprise up his sleeve. Instead of playing Danny Bassett through the middle with Shae Hutchinson on the left, he switched the pair – perhaps encouraged by Shae’s superb performance at centre-forward in midweek. It paid off handsomely.

There was barely time for the head to settle on your Harvey’s before the Rooks were in front. Eddie Allsopp danced past two defenders and slipped in Shae, whose low shot was saved by the keeper but deflected in by a defender on the line. Initially this was harshly credited as an own-goal, which we can only attribute to notoriously tight-arsed Club Secretary John Peel not wishing to pay out on a goal bonus, but it was rightly later credited to Shae.

If Shae is on a goal bonus, he would have been buying the Milky Bars last night, because he had four strikes to his name before the game was done. His second came on 17 minutes, having been slotted through one-on-one with the keeper after another delightful through ball from Allsopp. Two minutes later he notched his third, Bassett’s peach of a cross from the left giving him a tap-in for the hat-trick.

If players are having trouble getting to the ground in time for kick-off, perhaps they’re using Matty Warren’s satnav, because that lad goes where he wants. He was nominally at right-back for most of the game, but he frequently popped up in central midfield, occasionally wandered over to the left, and was at one point put through one-on-one in the centre-forward’s slot. He’s been wandering all season, so presumably this is a Pitts-endorsed tactic, not Warren going rogue, but it worked again here. He popped up in the right-wing berth, cut inside a defender and stroked a left-footed shot into the bottom corner to make it 4-0 well before half-time.

If Bracknell had been given a reinvigorating bollocking by their manager at half-time it had no immediate effect. Within four minutes of the restart we were five up, Parish Muirhead slipping in Shae Hutchinson, who worked the ball on to his right foot and planted it low into the bottom corner. You could barely hear the cheers over the sound of your match reporter flicking through the record books, trying to find our record home win in the FA Trophy.

And then it all went a bit cock-eyed. A careless pass at the back handed Bracknell’s grey-haired Herbert a chance to run at our goal, before he was tugged down by The Kaiser. The penalty was despatched cooly by Sam Ashton and Bracknell’s tails perked up ever-so slightly.

On the hour, they pulled back a second. Toby Bull made a decent save from a low shot from Gabe George but the rebound fell into Ashton’s path and it was 5-2. Alright, lads, you’ve had your fun. Let’s not be silly, eh?

Things became decidedly dicey a few minutes later. Jerry Puemo struggled to a get a ball under control, before tugging back their nippy little 7, Dotse, who had nicked the ball off Jerry and was running clean through on goal. Puemo had been booked only moments earlier, but the referee showed him a straight red. And just to make things more interesting, they scored from the resulting free-kick, Dandy’s low shot creeping beneath the leaping wall. 5-3 and we’re down to ten men for twenty-something minutes.

I shot a glance over to our bench and it looked something like this…

The next 15 minutes were about as comfortable as watching Naked Attraction with your nan. They were throwing everything at us and the prospect of surrendering a 5-0 lead seemed horribly real. That was until they decided to level things up by getting their big number 6, Hamson, sent off for a second bookable after a clumsy challenge on the half-way line.

That sucked the spirit out of them, and substitute Tolu Ladapo made sure we weren’t going to be on the front page of the Non-League Paper by adding a sixth in injury time, having been teed up nicely by fellow sub Josh Williams.

There’s been a little bit of griping about cup ticket prices this week, but nine goals and two red cards? Tell me that’s not worth your £13. At times sensational, at others faintly suicidal, that was a proper cup tie performance. Lap it up.

Lewes: Bull, Warren, Puemo, Kaiser, Enkh, Sablier, Allen (Mundele), Muirhead (Maliq Morris), Allsopp (Ladapo), Bassett (Williams), Hutchinson (Ghannam)

Supporters Club man of the match: You cannot score four goals and NOT be man of the match. It’s illegal. Congratulations, Shae Hutchinson. You were sensational. But Eddie Allsopp can count himself very unlucky not to be taking it for several superb slide-rule passes behind enemy lines.

Video highlights from Your Instant Replay:

Boyesy’s brilliant photos: