City maintained their play-off challenge with a hard earned 3-0 success over a determined Thurrock side at Ship Lane on Monday night, and in doing so completed a league double over the Essex side.

Gary Roberts made just the one alteration to an otherwise unchanged starting eleven, with Lee Chaffey recalled to the side after suspension and Daniel Blanchett dropping to the bench.

The Lilywhites began the game where they had left off against Bognor, quick incisive passing the order of the day, and Thurrock quickly found themselves on the defensive. A good exchange of passes between Paul Booth and Josh Simpson on the edge of the box in the 5th minute sent the latter charging through with a clear sight of goal, only for Kris Lee to intercept before City’s young midfielder could pull the trigger.

Thurrock had another lucky escape two minutes later. Booth got past his marker on the right flank and his dangerous cross was booted against his own keeper by Jimmy McFarlane and smuggled to safety.

Both sides largely cancelled each other in the early stages, Greg Lincoln saw a 26th minute freekick on the edge of the box comfortably saved by Glenn Knight before Thurrock began to get their teeth into the game. On 30 minutes a rare mistake by Craig Pope gifted possession to Steve Harper who advanced on goal but his shot from distance failed to threaten Dan Naisbitt. Within a minute, City were under pressure again. The ball was cheaply given away allowing Sam Sloma to run directly at goal, Mark Janney made an overlapping run and received a deft pass only to whistle his effort a couple of feet over the bar.

Thurrock had served notice of intent and City were not going to have things all their own way. Harper was proving to be a handful and he was prominent in the next action, nicking the ball past Matt Langston and scampering down the left wing. His low angled cross into the dangerzone, luckily for City, out of his team mates’ reach, was hacked away by Lee Chaffey.

After soaking up this pressure, the Lilywhites drew first blood five minutes from the break with a typical counter attack. It was a goal so similar to the opener against Bognor but this time in reverse. Paul Booth found strike partner Michael Gash with a defence splittlng throughball, Gash raced onto it cleverly sidestepped Knight and rolled the ball delightfully into the back of the net. Fleet did hit back immediately though. Naisbitt flapped at a cross and Chaffey was on hand to hook a point blank Harper effort off the line moments before the interval. Matt Langston was injured in that incident and didn’t reappear for the second half, Brady Stone replacing him.

Thurrock were quickly on the offensive after the interval, Steve Heffer and Lee combined well, despite a suspicion of offside, for the latter to fire a shot on the turn narrowly over. At the other end, City nearly doubled their lead. Greg Lincoln’s left wing corner was met by Chaffey’s powerful bullet header which Knight did well to tip over the bar. Play quickly switched to the other end and another goal line clearance, this time by Stone, came to City’s rescue. The visitors failed to deal with a corner adequately and the substitute was in the right place to boot Richard Goddard’s goalbound effort off the line.

City were wobbling as Thurrock enjoyed their best spell of the game. The hosts had thrown on two substitutes, Ronnie Fletcher and Richard Pacquette and they both combined in the 62nd minute as City were again pressured. Fletcher sent in a deep cross from the right and Pacquette saw his thumping downward header saved excellently by Naisbitt.

With a little under 20 minutes remaining, and against the run of play, City relieved the pressure with a crucial second goal, and a beauty from Booth. Craig Dobson’s raking ball found Booth out on the left, City’s top scorer surged into the box cut insde a defender and planted the ball beyond Knight to give the Lilywhites much needed breathing space.

This goal took the wind out of Thurrock’s sails as you might expect and they were not the same threat after that. There were only one of two scares for the visitors in the remaining minutes before Dobson put the gloss on the result with a third goal deep in stoppage time. Thurrock were caught with men committed forward, Josh Simpson won possession and sent Dobson free and in the clear. The pacy winger ran half the length of the pitch with Thurrock defenders toiling in his wake, and cracked the ball past Knight to the delight of the travelling fans. The final whistle sounded moments later, and City had moved up to third place in the table.