Ryman Division One South

Whitstable Town 1

Chipstead 0

CHIPSTEAD lost out to a last gasp goal, as Whitstable snatched the points in what turned into a typical dogfight of two sides battling to avoid the relegation places.

Chips Manager Mark Tompkins admitted that his side were still tired after losing their cup match to AFC Wimbledon the previous Tuesday.

"After the 'Lord Mayor's Show' of Wimbledon, we looked a bit tired. It was a bit of a comedown, but we were missing a couple of players as well," he said.

"With about 20 minutes to go, I said to someone that I thought it would end up a 1-0 win for somebody, unfortunately it wasn't for us."

Next up for Chipstead is Godalming Town on Saturday and Tompkins believes with the improvement Chipstead have made they will bounce back.

"We've done well in the last month, there are a lot of teams in a worse situation than us" he said.

"Godalming are beat-able, every team in the league are beat-able. We lost to them 2- 1 earlier in the season, but we are a much stronger squad now."

There was a great deal of play between the boxes but little to excite the crowd at Whitstable, with hardly any goalmouth action for the first 45 minutes.

Wayne Grizzle made an early appearance as a replacement for Alan Mathews and struck a fine shot high of goal from long range.

Whitstable started the second half the livelier, and keeper James Wastell was called into action punching clear from some good deliveries.

The home side netted from Stuart Vahid, but the flag was already raised for offside.

Daniel Moody fired in a superb cross shot which could not be converted, but Chip's were being pushed back and they were lucky not to fall behind when Whitstable skipper Clint Gooding somehow managed to fire over Wastell's crossbar from six yards out.

Ray Freeman proved a problem to the home side down the left but for all his endeavour their was no end product from Sean Rivers or skipper Scott Simpson.

Moody had the best chance for Chip's in the second period flicking just to high at the near post to cause Kevin Fewell a problem.

Chip's were close to securing a point, but for a fine piece of individuality which finished with Ian Pulman firing home just three minutes from time.

Chipstead: Wastell, White, Thompson, Russell, Green, Simpson

(Lynch), Rivers, Mathews (Grizzle), Moody, Hollingsworth, Freeman. Unused subs: Peck, Deegan, Dudley.