A depleted Chichester City United side recovered from conceding an early goal to gain a point against unbeaten League leaders, Horsham YMCA, at Gorings Mead on Saturday.

City were without senior players, John Price (cracked rib) and Tony Stephens (leg injury) and were also missing the unavailable Neil Murfin and Roger Moore, but welcomed back Ben Hitchman and Russ Hardwell and gave a full debut to Lewis Phillips in a reshuffled side.

The visitors were still sorting themselves out when YM took the lead in less than a minute. Steve Davies raced through a huge gap in the centre of the City defence where Price would normally have been and chipped the ball delicately over the advancing Alex Hards to put YM 1-0 ahead.

It wasn’t an auspicious start and YM soon had another effort disallowed for offside before City slowly clawed their way back into the game with Matt Osborne drawing a full length save from Ian Chatfield in the home goal after Phillips had advanced to the edge of the penalty area. Hardwell’s probing runs down the right also created half chances for Scott Murfin and Scott Tipper and a Murfin header was dragged out from under the bar by Chatfield.

It proved to be City’s best spell of the match and they drew level on 27 minutes as Osborne slipped his pass through to Murfin to ease past Barrie Westgate and angle his shot beyond Chatfield.

Chatfield also needed to be alert to deny Murfin again when put through by Hardwell and at the other end Hards did well to smother a close range effort from Phil Churchill at the base of the post as the teams turned around all square.

The second period saw YM swarming upfield in ever increasing numbers with almost all the play in the City half of the field. David Wright headed off the City line in the opening moments but then despite all their pressure YM created few clear cut chances.

With the City penalty area resembling the Tokyo rush hour there were some heroic tackles and interventions but very little to trouble Hards. Most attacks were broken up by the ranks of City defenders with even Tipper getting drawn back into his own penalty area at times to help out. YM didn’t help their cause either with some haphazard shooting and passing but must have wondered how they didn’t score when they enjoyed such territorial advantage.

And just once or twice City broke out of defence to threaten on the counter attack with Hardwell shooting straight at Chatfield and Tipper almost capitalising on some slack defending. But City will be well satisfied with their point that made them the first visitors to Gorings Mead in the League this season to avoid defeat.

Report written by Trevor Wallis

Chichester Team: Hards, Hardwell, Jackson, Wright, Hitchman, Hickman, Phillips, Thomas, S. Murfin, Tipper, Osborne
Subs: Miah (used)

Chichester Scorers: S. Murfin

Attendance: 133