Match Report
County League:Division One
 Horsham YMCA 2 |  East Preston 0 |
| Source: West Sussex County Times |
A RETURN to league action saw Horsham YMCA beat a stubborn East Preston 2-0 at Gorings Mead.
YM boss Chris White admitted the victory over his former side was far from pretty as the bottom team came to stifle their hosts, but said he was happy to take the points.
He said: "I wasn't a great game of football - they are struggling and we are missing lots of players, but the important thing was that we won the match and we kept a clean sheet as well."
Having played four consecutive cup matches YM had the lion's share of pos¬session from the off and had two early chances to take the lead.
Tony Timms headed over from a corner and Shaheen Sadough saw his curled effort from the edge of the box shave the crossbar before the deadlock was broken on 19 minutes.
Slick interplay between Richard Carter and Phil Churchill down the left saw Churchill cross and Clay Lamont head back across goal into the top corner for 1-0.
Timms had another chance from a corner soon after but could only shoot wide, but having not posed any sort of threat to Tom Rand's goal the visitors were awarded a penalty five minutes from the break.
Lamont was adjudged to have committed the foul but Seb Keet - one of the only surviving East Preston players from White's tenure - shot wide from 12 yards.
The visitors came out with more attacking intent in the second half and despite rarely testing Rand's goal they reduced YM to only long shots and a series of corners.
But with less than ten minutes to play substitute Wayne Joseph put the result beyond doubt. Tom Lawley and Sadough combined well to get behind the defence and Lawley's low cross was slid in by Joseph after coming across the defender's shoulder.
"It was not the best game of football to watch, they didn't have much ambition," remarked White.
"We need to get one or two players back quickly but in the end it stands us in good stead to win games while we are waiting for them to return."
YMCA: (4-4-2): Rand; Williams, Lamont, Metcalf, Flack (Georgiou 65); Lawley (Budge 85), Timms, Hayward (Joseph 65), Churchill, Carter, Sadough.
