City may have collected their first silverware of the coming season after beating their Jewson League Premier Division hosts in a pre-season friendly on Saturday but manager Gary Bellamy was more satisfied with the way the side played.

Deliberately leaving out half a dozen of what will be regular first teamers to give other contenders their first outing, City were still far too strong for the home side and even fit again goalkeeper Paul Catley had little to trouble him.

Afterwards the manager said: "I was again pleased with the way we played, producing some good football and it goes to show that we will have strength in depth this season with competition for places.

"Last term we only had about six or seven key players but now we have at least 14 good players vying for places and the squad is much stronger," he said. "Our sole aim is to win promotion back to the premier division."

City took the lead in the seventh minute when Ben Fuller latched on to some sloppy defending to drive the ball into the net and the only surprise was that it took until a minute from the interval before City added a second goal.

The alert Fuller again seized on hesitancy in the home defence to score a well-taken goal.

Using their three substitutes in the second half, City understandably eased but were never in any danger of losing, and eight minutes from time, Ollie Berquez saw his shot deflected off a defender into the net to put a more respectable scoreline on the match.

Chelmsford City: Catley; Girling (Horncastle), Cousins (Cummins), Bishop, Reeve; Newman, Harrington (Vallely), Barber, Berquez; Morris, and Fuller.

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