Chichester City United conceded an early goal and eventually lost 2-1 to Whitehawk at a bleak and windswept Church Road on Saturday. The Hawks remain fourth while City dropped two places to eighth.

Jamie Angell started in place of the injured Alex Ward but otherwise City were unchanged from the winning line up at Worthing United a week earlier.

A strong north-easterly wind blowing the length of the pitch made playing conditions almost farcical and City were pinned in their own half for most of the opening period.

To make matters worse the visitors grabbed a second minute lead when Gary Smart could only push out a fairly tame effort as far as Craig Whitington to give the Hawks an ideal start.

Whitington then headed another good chance over the bar and Lee Newman also missed the target when well placed.

City had just one decent chance while all this was going on around their own goal as Callum Cutler pounced on a mistake by Toby Phillips and raced clear only to be denied by Michael Hunter advancing from the Whitehawk goal.

If City could have kept the deficit to a single goal at half time they would have fancied their chances after the break but a second goal from Graham Martin after 28 minutes gave the visitors a comfortable margin. It could have been even better but for two disallowed efforts and a Tommy Pattenden shot that came back off the bar.

City lost stand-in captain Matt Smith at the start of the second period with an ankle injury and were never quite able to stamp their wind assisted supremacy on the game to the same extent that the Hawks had achieved in the first half. Instead it was a pretty dour midfield scuffle until City pulled a goal back with 15 minutes left. This time Russ Hardwell mastered the conditions on the right to burst past challenges from Peter Birch and Phillips to set up Scott Tipper to flick a right foot volley over Hunter.  It was Tipper’s 50^th goal for City in just a little over two years at Church Road.

It should have been the springboard for a 15 minute assault on the visitors goal but conditions made it difficult to keep possession and the Hawks made sure that City were kept at arms length in the final period.

Report written by Trevor Wallis

Chichester Team: Smart, Vongas, Hickman, Miah, Chamberlain, Smith M., Angell, Hardwell, Tipper, Cutler, Smith J.
Subs: Brockway (Adrian), Murfin (Neil), Corbin (all used)
Scorers: Tipper

Attendance: 55