We travelled to the Bunn Leisure stadium for this stern test against the only side to beat us at the Shooting Field so far this season, hampered by suspensions for Alfie Gritt and Zac Haulkham and the unavailability of Lewis Levoi.
On a cold winter's afternoon down on the coast the first half was end to end with both sides having their moments. The home side probably edged it on territory and possession but the best scoring chances fell to us. Early on Ben Bacon hit a good attempt just wide of right and Dom Taylor put a well struck angled drive against the under side of the Blues cross bar, coming within a whisker of giving us the lead. Steyning apppeals that the ball had clearly crossed the line were waved away. Grant Radmore also going close.

Down the other end J J went full stretch to keep out a well hit free kick awarded for a foul by Ryan Timms, resulting in a booking for Timmsy. The local crowd bayed for a red card as he could have been the last man but with the rest of the defence not too far away the ref decided there was enough cover for it to only warrant a yellow. Alex Gathern also did well to clear off our goal line in a frenetic scramble late in the half.

In the second half it was us who were the slightly better side and on balance looked the more likely team to score, but overall despite expending plenty of energy and endeavour neither side produced enough to warrant all 3 points so a draw was probably a fair result. The closest we got was a Scott Faber header flashing narrowly over from one of a large number of corners we forced in the second half. Both sides though suffered at times on the wrong end of some rather bizarre refereeing decisions.

Scott Faber and Dom Taylor also booked for dissent and a foul respectively.

At the end of the day, it was a good point gained on one of the harder grounds to go to.

Looking ahead - next Saturday (12 Jan) we have our first home game of the new year with a local derby v Wick (KO @ Shooting Field 3pm).

The following Saturday (19 Jan) we hit the road again, with a trip to Sidlesham (KO @ Selsey Road 3pm).

Our thoughts though, are with young Town striker Neil Allison who sustained a nasty hip injury in the Reserves home match with Wisborough Green, resulting in the match being abandoned with Town leading 3-0. Best of luck for a speedy recovery, Neil!

Final score - Selsey 0 Steyning Town 0

Town line up - Banesco-Zaragoza, Clark, Maher, Parazo, Timms, Gathern (c), Taylor (Hunter), Faber, Bacon (Neatherway), Bull, Radmore (Sabino) Unused sub - Fitzpatrick

Ref - Mark Spence Assts - Neil Sax ton & Duncan Carter