It’s poor form to parp one’s own bugle, but if you had bought the first copy of the Supporters Club’s new unofficial magazine, The Black & The Red, (on sale now inside all good football grounds), you’d have known we picked out the apostrophe-deficient St Albans as our men’s away day of the month for August. And how chuffing right we were.

Granted, when we were pointing out places to eat, we didn’t mention the pre-match cafe we eventually settled on, Cafe Alfresco. A dozen strong, we were initially prepared to walk on by, only spotting room for about half of our number inside. But the owner came racing out, smelling an opportunity to offload a dozen fry-ups, and was quickly shuffling customers on to different tables to accommodate us all. What a guy.

It has to be said, our initial warm feelings towards the owner took a slight knock when we clocked the cafe’s artwork, an extraordinary 20ft tableau containing historical figures through the ages.

Including, such luminaries as… Yasser Arafat, riding a camel, in front of The Godfather and Marilyn Monroe:

George W Bush using a telescope to inspect the infamous bald spot of snooker legend Jimmy White:

And Morgan Freeman, playing a flute in King Charles’s earhole:

However, if you take a look at (ironically) the far left of the tableau, in what we’re describing as “wrong ‘uns corner”, you’ll also find images of Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin:

Still, they do a decent fry-up for £12.50, so you can’t complain.

Once we’d left Cafe Al Qaeda Fresco, it was down to Young Rob (63 next Tuesday) to guide us around St Albans’ finest public houses. Although we can only conclude that Young Rob is in training for the London Marathon, because our route looked like the opening credits of Dad’s Army:

It wasn’t so much a pub crawl as an Iron Man contest. Although we did find some particularly fine boozers in between the slogs.

When we did arrive at the ground, curiously six pounds lighter than we started the day, hopes weren’t sky high. St Albans were fresh from beating Enfield, who smashed us for four on the opening day, while we had toiled to a goalless draw with Whitehawk. If you’d offered us a point before kick-off, we’d have ripped your arm from its socket.

The good news was St Albans were still banging out the best in-ground nosh in Non-League, with Al The Spreadsheet, Sinclair and Dave among those tucking into the delicious spicy chicken wings. Still full from brunch at the Dictators’ Diner, we settled for nicking the odd chip and prepared for the worst.

We needn’t have fretted. Lewes were superb from start to finish. Louis Rogers didn’t have a decent save to make all game.

We took the lead on 21 minutes from what has quickly become our secret weapon. The Wimpy restaurant franchise isn’t the corporate giant it was when I was a kid, so I’m going to shamelessly steal the name of their signature dish to henceforth describe Tom Bender’s long throws as The Big Bender™.

Bender launched one into the box where it seemed to evade everyone except Josh Spinks, who had crept in unmarked at the back stick to head home.

Even injuries didn’t knock us off course. Charlie Walker succumbed to knee-knack on their dusty pitch in the first half, and Danny Bassett landed awkwardly in the second half, but the replacements (Unwin and Newson respectively) picked up where they left off. But at the back we were absolutely rock solid, with Spinks and Bender dealing with everything that was chucked at them, including a mahoosive unit of a striker in the second half.

Callum Newson would have been having 3am flashbacks if his second-half miss had proved costly. He had almost the entire goal to shoot at, but only managed to stab it at the grounded keeper, with the away terrace sages all agreeing that we’d blown our best chance to seal the points.

Hold my spicy buffalo wings, said Newson, as with injury time approaching, Bobby Unwin broke down the right, held up the ball until Newson could drag himself to the edge of the box and then passed it to the striker to slot home, earning himself a cuddle with Young Rob.

Lewes: Rogers, Mundele, Bender, Spinks, Enkh, Briggs (Muirhead), Owen, Allen (Hamstead), Fisher (Garzon), Bassett (Newson), Walker (Unwin)

Supporters Club Player of the Match: Tom Bender was brilliant at the back, as was Mundele and Briggs just in front of them, but Josh Spinks wins it by a nose for both the first goal and his superbly tidy defending.