Chichester City United Reserves kept up their drive towards the Sussex County League Reserve Section West title with a comfortable 3-1 victory away to Oakwood.

Chichester dominated the game for lengthy periods and seemed to cope better with Oakwood's extremely large boggy training pitch - the normal pitch being out of action due to flooding.

The home keeper produced a string of fine saves before Martin Smith opened the scoring on the half hour with a 16 yard effort after Oakwood had failed to clear a cross from Guarnaccio.

Just before half time City United extended their lead when John Thompson beat the offside trap and knocked the ball past the stranded home keeper and in off the post.

City United kept driving forward during the second half and bombarded the Oakwood goal with shot after shot but only managed to score one more goal - Michael Nelson getting on the score sheet with a fine effort.

Oakwood scored a late consolation goal with their first attempt on target but it was too little too late and City United earnt another useful three points.

There was more good news for City United Reserves on Saturday as nearest challengers Oving were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Southwick so their local rivals are now 10 points behind with only three games in hand - the two teams meet next week.

Report written for the Chichester Observer by Martin Smith

Team: Nolan, Guarnaccio, Harwood, Robertson, Kelly, Chaters, Thompson, Smith (M), Smith (R), Docherty, Beacher
Subs: Briffa, Barry, Jeffard, Nelson
Scorers: Smith (M), Thompson, Nelson