He said: "I don't want to get involved in slagging people off, but we're not happy with what happened and the referee should have not made us finish the match."

Clarke received the injury following a 50-50 challenge with Horsham's Matt Russell and was taken by ambulance to St Richard's Hospital, Chichester.

YMCA boss John Suter said the injury was unfortunate.

He said: "It's very sad what happened but there was no foul play on Matt's part. He just attacked the ball and their lad unfortunately broke his leg in the challenge. It happens in football and nobody should point fingers of blame on anyone."

With Paul Cowie sent off after 15 minutes, the injury to Clarke reduced Portfield to nine men with all substitutes used. Andy Price and Russell grabbed two with Nathan Sleat, netting his first senior goal to complete the scoring for YMCA.

Gary Croydon was cursing his Burgess Hill team's bad luck as they threw away a two goal lead to draw 2-2 with Pagham.

Hillians were heading for three points with goals from Roy Pook and Clifton Moore, but Ian Stevens and Chris Jacks struck in the final 15 minutes to steal a point. Moore missed a penalty with Hillians leading 2-1. Croydon said: "It was one of those days where we just weren't going to win. We played so well, but didn't convert the chances to kill the game off."

East Preston were 6-0 winners over Shoreham, but manager Carl Stabler admits the scoreline was flattering.

Deserved

"They made things difficult for us," said Stabler, whose team found the net through Robbie Pearce (3), Terry Withers, Nick Loverisge and Clinton Moore.

Carl Southwell popped up in the final ten seconds to steer Saltdean United to a 1-0 win at Redhill.

His manager Glen Burvill said: "It was a thoroughly deserved victory, we had the better chances."

Hassocks were 4-1 victors at Ringmer, while Whitehawk won 3-2 at Selsey with goals from Phil Simmers (2) and Warren Buss.

Gary Brockwell's goal gave Eastbourne Town a hard-earned 1-0 win at Chichester.

Langney Sports manager Gary Wilson praised hat-trick hero Andy Agutter after their 3-1 John O'Hara Challenge Cup first round victory over Wick.

He said: "Andy hasn't got as many goals as he would've liked, but he got what he deserved with a hat-trick. He worked very hard."

Eastbourne United are also through after their 2-0 win at Three Bridges and Sidley are through to the fourth round after their 4-0 drubbing of Littlehampton with goals from Danny Beal (2), Andy Atkins and Peter Heritage.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.