‘More important than the three points’ – Littlehampton Town boss reflects on win at Bognor Regis Town

They were 4-1 up at half-time and that was the way it stayed after Lucas Pattenden, George Gaskin, Josh Short and Marshall Ball were on target.

But Hand said the way his team had played a full part in an entertaining derby – and won against a club they could only have dreamed about facing in league matches a few years ago – meant more than the three points.

"It couldn’t really have gone any better, especially with the start that we made,” he said in a post-match interview with Colin Bowman, who is following Sussex non-league sides in his Bowman on the Road series for us all season. See his full post-win chat with Mitch Hand in the video player above.

"We were electric from ninute one – we were 3-0 up in 20 minutes. We were clinical – there weren’t many chances that we missed. But what a game of football – I thought it was a great game. It had everything – a red card, penalties, goals. That’s what you want to see.

"When you’ve got that many people coming to a game – it was a big crowd (1,282 were there) – you have a responsibility to provide a proper game of football, and that’s what it was – so fair play to Bognor as well.

"Our home game against Bognor (won 2-0) was good as well but this was our most rounded performance of the season.

"Not only did we win the game comfortably but we played on the front foot from the first minute, that was the most impressive and important thing.

"I said to the boys we had a duty to come and go at them and give the fans something to shout about. The fans travelled well, you’d have seen and heard them all game. I’m so glad we’ve given them another good day out."

Asked if the win could be the springboard for a play-off push, Hand said: “It could and should be but one thing you can’t get away from is that we’re massively inconsistent.

"If you look at the pattern of our results it’s very much win, lose, draw, win, lose, draw, so we’re not going to get too ahead of ourselves because of one result.

"But this was a really good performance and not at one stage did I really think about the three points, because I think in these derby games you can dampen what they mean to people.

"I don’t want it to be just another game and another three points. It’s about winning against the local rivals.

"Bognor and Littlehampton have been light years apart for years and to come here and play them in a league game – when we were used to playing the Wicks and Arundels, no disrespect to them – and to do what we did, that was more important than three points to me.

"I couldn’t be happier withe day – it boxes off the Christmas period really well for us.”

Littlehampton, 11th in the table, were denied the chance to build on the win when Saturday’s planned game with Fareham was frozen off. They host 18th-placed Southall on Saturday.