Students hand Khalsa a lesson in finishing

Torrential rain made for tricky conditions, but despite the inclement conditions, the hosts were backed by a sizeable crowd at St Nicholas Park.

Khalsa started cautiously against their experienced Conference North visitors and were almost punished early on, with a Durham attacker inches away from deflecting the ball home from close range.

The narrow escape sparked Khalsa into life, with Jas Singh and Sean Robinson confidently leading the line.

However, they were victims of the newly introduced own-goal rule when a ball from the Durham winger was deflected into his own net by a home defender.

Durham quickly doubled their advantage after catching Khalsa with a quick counter-attack.

Anit Chundasama came closest to halving the deficit for Khalsa, but the striker was denied a debut goal by a desperate clearance on the line.

A short corner then produced a fine save from the Durham keeper to maintain his side’s 2-0 advantage at the break.

Khalsa began the second half at a good tempo and Alex Idoine, Amritpal Atwal and Gurminder Ghattaura helped create a number of chances which were all wasted by the home side.

Khalsa did get their reward ten minutes in, however, with Ghattaura’s thunderous strike beating the Durham keeper.

Buoyed by their goal, Khalsa continued to apply the pressure, winning several short corners only to be denied by the outstanding Durham keeper.

Their lack of clinical finishing would come back to haunt them, with Durham restoring their two-goal cushion courtesy of a penalty stoke after a short corner was stopped illegally on the line.

Warwick’s women’s 1sts began their Midlands Region Feeder West campaign with a 2-2 draw against Bridgnorth.

Newly promoted Warwick opened the scoring courtesy of a neat reverse flick from Polly Lapage-Norris but found themselves trailing at the break after Bridgnorth scored twice in the closing stages of the half.

Warwick pressed for an equaliser after the break and wasted a series of short corners before Ang Briggs finally converted one to make it 2-2.