Steven King insists his "two months of hell" have made him a changed man.

The Lewes manager is free to continue his role at the Dripping Pan after a Football Association appeal board overturned his six-month suspension from all football at a hearing in Soho on Wednesday.

King's punishment for swearing at a referee in a game at Weymouth at the end of last season was reduced to a two-month touchline ban, which included a four-game suspended sentence held over from a previous offence.

Although Lewes pledged to stand by their manager, King's position at the club could have come under scrutiny had the original sentence, which banned him from all duties including matchdays and training, been upheld.

King has said little about the saga since being handed the ban in June but has now opened his heart, revealing the anguish it had caused him and the positives that have come out of it.

He said: "This has been hanging over me for two months. I have a family and a mortgage. My little girl was in hospital having an operation on Wednesday. I have tried to put a smile on my face but inside you can imagine what it has done to me.

"People see that side of me (the smiling face) but they don't see and don't know the other side of me. It has been a hell of a couple of months for me and my family.

"I have looked at things myself. I have questioned myself and I think I have been a different person for the last 11 games - the seven in pre-season and the four games so far. I am always going to be a vocal manager but I know what I can and can't say.

"It has also taught me who your friends are. They say something good always comes out of something bad. The support I have had from the pro level down to non-league, managers and players, has been tremendous. People have shown support who I didn't expect but also the other way round.

"It has been a real worry. To be without a job for six months would have been awful."

The question remains what were the Football Association doing in handing out such a severe sentence and then reducing it to not much more than a ticking off?

The only obvious answer - unless they put their hands up and say they made a huge mistake - is the shock element.

This was King's sixth such charge of clashing with referees, four he had pleaded guilty to and two where he had protested his innocence.

Maybe they will shock King into changing his ways but is that really right?

For two months King, who works full-time for Lewes, did not know whether he had a job to return to. Apart from the privileged few, that is a dreadful thing to have hanging over anyone.

King's lawyers used several case examples to prove the punishment did not fit the crime. Among them were: Paolo di Canio, banned for 11 games for pushing over referee Paul Alcock.

Shaun Newton, the West Ham midfielder who is currently serving a six-month suspension for failing a drugs test but is still allowed to train with the Hammers.

Neil Warnock, the Sheffield United manager who has never served anything more than a touchline ban despite a list of clashes with referees that dwarfs King's offences.

The issue cannot be avoided that King was wrong in what he did and the new punishment is a fitting one.

There is no question referees will be keeping an eye - or more likely an ear - even more closely on King from now on. He has to make sure he holds his tongue and does not re-offend.

But this week's developments have reflected badly on English football's governing body.

An FA spokesman admitted the original punishment was "excessively harsh". So how did they come to it, who came to it and will questions be asked internally why they got it so wrong with the original sentence?

We will never know but if shock tactics were behind things then they worked. King was shocked but so too were many people with the Football Association's handling of this episode.