Dulwich Hamlet 1-0 Chatham Town

On the coldest night of the season so far, Chatham travelled to South London to face Dulwich Hamlet, one of the form teams in the division, writes Neil Sanders.

The management team certainly seemed to have done their homework to counteract the opponents pacy and potent attack, currently the league's top scorers.

The 4-2-3-1 formation meant Dulwich had the lions share of possession, but enabled Chatham to close them down and restrict their opportunities.

The home side created the first opening after 3 minutes when Phil Williams hit the side netting with a fierce drive.

Luke Harvey played as the solo front man for Chats for most of the game and went close twice in the first half hour.

His first shot was too high and the second went inches wide of the post after he had pounced on a poor defensive header.

Hamlet's Chris Dickson looked dangerous throughout and forced two fine saves from John Whitehouse in the first half.

Just after the break Chats had teenager Bradley King to thank for a superb saving tackle which halted Shawn Beveney as he was about to let fly from deep inside the 18 yard box.

Dulwich scored the only goal after 57 minutes when Dickson drew the defence across with a strong run and then found Beveney with a low cross, which was dispatched with a cool first time finish.

Chats stuck to their task throughout, which required a terrific work rate to close down the home side's neat passing build ups.

They switched to 4-4-2 in the latter stages and put the opponents defence under pressure in the closing minutes in search of an equaliser, but it wasn't to be.

This was certainly a much improved performance from last Saturday against the best footballing side Chats have met this season, and should give them some confidence going into this weekend's home game against Met Police.

Chatham Town: Whitehouse, Binks, King, Larkin, Boyle, Best (Spriggs 70), Smith, Brooks, Harvey, Denness, Douglas (Pulman 76). Subs: Lyons, Winter-Nolan.