This was City’s first home game since the departure of Adam Wilde and the Lilywhites’ performance cried out for the kind of inspiration and creativity the mercurial winger so often provided.

The thick fog that swirled around a chill Milton Road did nothing to enliven the 555 spectators who endured a fairly uninspiring 90 minutes. The game started brightly enough. Barely two minutes in, the visitors broke swiftly down the left flank. Steve Brown played a low cross field ball into the path of Matt Rawlins whose fierce drive forced Martin Davies into early action.

City struggled to find and sort of cohesion in the opening minutes, the introduction of new signing Roger Willis, a second start for Daniel French plus a number of other personnel changes over the past few matches hardly helping City to settle into any sort of rhythm, their first sight of goal coming after 10 minutes when Che Wilson’s shot was deflected behind for a corner.

Chippenham were proving to be well organised and resilient, happy to rely on their pacy forwards to provide an attacking outlet. Only a good challenge by Shane Wardley stopping Martin Paul from getting a strike on goal after fifteen minutes. City were quick to counter as the excellent Danny Bloomfield, showing great technique to find space for himself broke down the inside left channel. His angled shot forced James Bittner into a full length stop, with the Bluebirds defence first to react the loose ball was hacked off the goal line. In what was arguably the brightest spell of the match. Chippenham hit back immediately, Adie Mings getting behind the City defence and drawing Martin Davies to the edge of his box but fortunately for City Colin Vowden was well placed to deal with the resulting cross.

Whilst City were unable to produce any sustained pressure they managed to create the occasional half-chance. With twenty five minutes on the clock Darren Collins nodded a Jack Wignall cross into the path of Daniel French but his shot was charged down and the ball deflected behind for a corner.

Chippenham’s forays on the other hand were the more incisive, Martin Paul cleverly back heeling a lofted free kick into the path of Steve Brown which again forced Martin Davies to make a save.

City were able to force a number of corners in the opening half and on 36 minutes Richard Skelly, from the right hand side, delivered the best of these. Roger Willis met the ball well and his downward header appeared to escape from Bittner’s grasp but the ‘keeper recovered to scramble the ball off the line.

As the half drew to a close the impressive Matt Rawlins and Simon Charity exchanged a couple of slick passes which allowed the visitors’ right back to test Davies yet again.

There was still time for Danny Bloomfield to demonstrate one more sublime piece of skill before the interval. His ‘Cruyff’ turn completely wrong footed Tom Gould but the Chippenham centre-back recovered sufficiently to fell the City striker on the very edge of the box, a challenge for which he was booked. Tim Wooding’s resultant free kick was deflected wide and the half ended scoreless.

City failed to impose themselves after the interval and Chippenham continued to look reasonably comfortable at the back and menacing on the break. The tricky Rawlins turned Colin Vowden on 53 minutes and again found the target but failed to fully extend Davies.

Just after the hour mark City had an excellent opportunity to take the lead. Another Skelly corner found Vowden, Danny Bloomfield seized on the knock down and forced Bittner into an excellent reflex save, the loose ball fell to Willis but disappointingly the debutant fired over. Inspired by this near miss City launched another decent attack moments later. This time French, who had struggled to impose himself on the game, broke through the inside right channel and fed Collins. The City skipper shook off the attentions of Tom Gould but couldn’t keep his shot down.

As the game entered it’s final quarter Chippenham got the all important break through. Colin Vowden was penalised for holding down Paul some 25 yards from goal. Strangely City only set a three man wall leaving plenty of the target on show, Steve Brown took advantage as his venomous free kick appeared to take the slightest of deflections which may have deceived Martin Davies, who, despite getting down to his left could only get a hand to the ball and it squirmed past him and into the net.

To be honest it was difficult to see at that point where an equaliser would come from. Soon afterwards David Batch made his first change, replacing Daniel French with Kevin Wilkin. Despite some willing running the veteran striker was unable to make an immediate impact and aside from Mings picking up a yellow card for a late tackle on Tim Wooding the next meaningful action saw Matt Clements replace Richard Skelly with barely 10 minutes to go. For the first time during the match City had genuine width and the presence of Matt Clements did at last begin to stretch the visitors’ defence and reduced their ability to use Wayne Thorne as an attacking outlet.

City’s frustration was beginning to show and Che Wilson was booked for a crunching tackle on Gary Horgan and as Chippenham attempted to run down the clock Paul was booked for unsporting behaviour, his last contribution to the game as he was immediately replaced by Charlie Griffin.

There was still time for City to put in a spirited finale and create two match saving opportunities during injury time. Firstly a Wooding corner was headed goalwards by Willis only for Simon Charity to clear from under the crossbar. With the game almost up the lively Clements picked out Willis whose fierce low shot was scrambled round the post by Bittner but it was all to no avail. City have now picked up just one point from their last five league games, their last win, against Tiverton on 5th October, seems like a long time ago.

City's Manager gives his view

"We had enough chances to get goals, but I`m very angry that we have allowed them to get one. We didn`t impose ourselves on them enough, we let them come at us, and stood off too much. As soon as they scored, we put our foot on the gas and created a few chances. We talked at half-time about being more disciplined, and then the first two or three things we do in the second half are sloppy. I`m very, very disappointed. On the plus side, Danny Bloomfield played very well and nearly got himself a couple of goals, creating one or two good chances for himself and was a hairs breadth away from one or two other balls that were flying around the box, so yes he did well today. Over all, I don`t think we deserved to lose the game, but I`m fuming because we have.