Match Report
County League:Division One
 Three Bridges 1 Funnell 89 |  Horsham YMCA 1 Grant 8 |
Date: 1st February 2005 Location:Three Bridges
Source: West Sussex County Times
YM WERE denied bragging rights over local rivals Three Bridges when they conceded a 94th minute equaliser in an entertaining but ill-tempered battle on Tuesday night.
Leading through James Grant's ninth minute goal, YM looked on course to end Three Bridges' ten game unbeaten run as referee Ray Upton's watch ticked past 90 minutes.
But after surviving a frantic bout of pinball in their box, the league leaders were stunned into silence when substitute Simon Funnell lashed the ball home from close range.
The ecstatic Bridges players celebrated like they had won the FA Cup in front of the bumper crowd assembled in front of the clubhouse while the dejected visitors were left to ponder what might have been.
"Conceding a 94th minute goal crushes you," said YM manager John Suter, whose side are now 16 points clear at the top.
"I was bitterly disappointed but I thought a draw was a fair result, I would have settled for a point before the game. We did not have that many chances," he added.
The eagerly anticipated match between the league leaders and the division's in-form side had the potential to rival the recent barnstormer at Highbury. But the game often degenerated into a war where cynical fouls and nasty tackles far outweighed goal-scoring chances.
Danny Smith's late tackle on Matt Duffield in front of the Bridges dug-out lit the blue touch paper and, with Mr Upton doing little to clamp down, both sides fouled and spoiled like school kids throwing stones at each other while their teacher's back was turned.
Smith was lucky not to be sent off, he was dismissed when the two teams met at Gorings Mead last year, while teammate Scott Langridge and YM's Barrie Westgate and Joel O'Hara were equally fortunate not to be booked.
Suter spoke to the referee as he trudged off the field and asked him about the lack of bookings.
"He said 'it's a man's game'. That's a dreadful comment, that's going back to the 60s. The game was lawless at times, that's not good for football. I'm not exonerating my players, but if we had had the referee for the Sidlesham game, we would not have had enough players to finish the game," he added.
YM, decked out in all-white, dominated the early exchanges and were the width of the woodwork away from taking a third minute lead.
The outstanding Ali Russell, who ruffled a few feathers as a no-nonsense target man, laid the ball to the busy Duffield who cracked it against the angle of post and bar.
The visitors did not have to wait too long for the opening goal.
Grant, often guilty of running down cul-de-sacs, zigzagged his way from the halfway line before unleashing a shot from 25 yards. Bridges keeper and captain Alan Mansfield looked in little danger but spilled the waist-high ball horribly into the net.
YM kept pouring forward in search of a second goal and nearly doubled their lead when Tom Carter failed to get a touch on Clinton Moore's goalbound shot.
Gavin Jones, who recently scored for Sussex, looked Bridges' best chance of a riposte, especially as Pat Massaro, their dead eye striker, dropped deeper and deeper in search of the ball and was often ineffective.
Both sides traded chances midway through the half – Ian Chatfield saved Jones' free-kick while O'Hara's shot was deflected over – but Bridges should have equalised after 24 minutes.
Jones, lingering unmarked six yards out, should have buried Massaro's cross but Chatfield made a superb save with his feet to keep the header out.
As the game began to even out, both in terms of football and in the whingeing stakes, YM were denied a second goal by a wonderful save in the 39th minute.
Russell, who has few peers in terms of aerial ability, met Moore's cross with a thumping header but watched in awe as Mansfield flung himself to his left, arching his back, to claw the ball away.
Jones then spurned a decent opening at the other end when he took one touch too many and the half ended with Moore avoiding Langridge's dreadfully late lunge before shooting weakly at the goalkeeper.
Both keepers were busy as the teams resumed hostilities after the interval.
Mansfield, who more than atoned for his earlier blemish, palmed wide Westgate's downward header and a diving Chatfield showed safe hands when he held Steve Causon's long-range drive.
Bridges, perhaps with Sammy Donnelly's words still ringing in their ears, began to assert themselves although YM centre-halves Ellis Hooper and Tom Carter remained calm under mounting pressure.
Former Bridges forward Nick Flint made an impact when he was introduced with 14 minutes to go, firing a free-kick just wide and skewing another opportunity the wrong side of the post.
The hosts continued to hunt fervently for an equaliser in time added on, but even the most hardened Bridges supporter must have thought the game was up when the ball pinged about the nervous YM box before being hacked clear.
But in the fourth minute of added time, Funnell blasted the ball into the roof of the net past the hapless Chatfield.
"We need to win more games," said Suter, as he turned his attention to the remainder of the season.
"I still think that someone will tug the carpet from under our feet. Football is so fickle. Every game is a possible banana skin, every team raises their game against us. If we are not on the ball we could be punished," he added.
YM host Eastbourne United tomorrow, a side who have not won for three games.
Team:(4-4-2): Chatfield; Ahearne (Carden 65), Carter, Hooper, Levett; Duffield, Grant, Westgate, O'Hara; Moore (Flint 76), Russell.