Lancers fortunate to record win over YMCA

LANCING Football Club won for the eighth successive league match on Friday evening, although joint boss Martin Gander afterwards admitted his side were fortunate to beat Horsham YMCA 2-1.

YMCA belied their 16th-place league position and played much better than a side who had not won in the league since December and had lost six of their previous nine league games.

They looked lively going forward and caused Lancers’ defence all sorts of problems, with Tony Di Bernardo kept busy in the Lancing goal. But a clinical finish from in-form Charlie Walker on the stroke of half-time gave second-placed Lancers all three points.

Gander said: “Horsham YMCA worked so hard and should have won the game. It could have been that we came into it expecting to win but they played us off the park and you can’t argue with that.

“We got three points for nothing, although we’ve played well ourselves in other games and got nothing.

“They missed their chances and we got lucky but you have to win ugly sometimes.

“We’re happy to take the points and we’ll look forward to the next game. This might do us some good. It was a disappointing performance and the players know that.

“I’m not going to rubbish the players, though. We’ve won eight games in a row, so I can’t moan – Horsham YMCA just put in a great performance tonight.”

Lancers went ahead after just 10 minutes on Friday when Walker raced on to Grant Philpott’s long ball forward but his powerful shot was parried away by YM keeper Simon Lockwood. Titus Paterson knocked the ball back into the danger area and Dan Turner looped a header over Lockwood to give the home side the lead.