United look favourites for promotion

There has been much chopping and changing of position over the last few months, but this victory for Bexhill and a defeat for third-placed Lingfield at home to Uckfield Town has shifted the pendulum very much back in the Polegrove club's favour.

United are now seven points ahead of their Surrey-based rivals in the race for the anticipated second promotion place and wins from their final two league fixtures this weekend will mean Lingfield cannot catch them. Storrington's first defeat of their league campaign - a single goal reverse at Forest - has actually taken Bexhill back to the top of the table, although they have played four more games than the West Sussex club.

"It was a really important day for us," said Bexhill manager Bill Trivett. "It was a very good day all-round and it puts (the second place race) back in our hands now. We really haven't talked about promotion and we've just been taking it one game at a time.

"It was another good win for us. It was a little bit scrappy in the first half, it took us a little while to get going. But to get the (opening) goal just was important because I didn't feel we were on top at all at that stage. We really dictated the whole of the second half and, if we had been a little bit better in front of goal, we could have won more comfortably."

The all-important opener came in the final minute of the first half when the league's joint top goalscorer Dave Carey notched his 16th of the league campaign, but first in six league games, after Mark Funnell had nodded on Richard Anderson's left wing delivery.

Carey again was the source of the 74th minute second, harassing the opposing left-back into squandering possession before supplying an inch-perfect cross for Funnell to head home at the back post.

That goal, described by Trivett as "one of the classiest goals I've seen all season", came as welcome relief for Bexhill because they had wasted several chances to have made the game safe.

Bexhill: Taylor, Storrs, Mote, Page, Fletcher, Quinn, Cornwall, Anderson (Hesmer), Thompson, D. Carey (Rise), Funnell.