After a long summer break Saturday saw a return to competitive football for OFC. It seems ages since the cup final in April and after last week’s disappointment when Staines failed show, everybody was raring to go.

Over the summer we have acquired some new faces and retained virtually everyone from last season giving us every reason to be optimistic for this year.

On Saturday there were a total of 5 changes from the starting 11 that faced Surrey in the Cup Final in April. Into the team came Pete Hallam, Gravy, Pod, Ted and debutant Tom Pryce replacing Sonny, Ross, Jack, Harps and Mike all of whom were unavailable this week.

Our team; Sam in goal. Pete Hallam and Baynezy at full back, Fraser and Furno at centre back. Pete and Ted in central midfield. Gravy and Tom out wide. Jim and Pod up front. The bench consisted of Joe, Tom Lloyd, Sam Campbell, Steve Clarke and Jordy.

The game kicked off on a very nice flat pitch and OFC made an extremely positive start. In the first minute of the game we should have been ahead after a defensive mix up for Knaphill saw Jim Beckram race clean through on goal. Unfortunately a bit of indecision from Jim allowed the keeper time to quash his advance and the defence were back in time to clear away the danger.

Further chances quickly presented themselves, with Pod carving open the Knaphill defence with some great through balls, but Tom Pryce, breaking from the left hand side was just unable to get on the end of some quality balls across the edge of the 6 yard box. Overall the opening 10 were quite positive with us passing the ball extremely well and looking dangerous and the only real criticism would have been our failure to latch on to some of the second balls that were falling between defence and midfield.

It was against the general run of play that Knaphill scored. Following a Knaphill goal kick, the ball was unchallenged in midfield and a player was released down their right hand side. Despite being chased down by Pete Hallam near the corner of the box the Knaphill striker was extremely quick thinking and chipped Sam with a great finish. 1-0 Knaphill.

Despite going a goal down it seemed like it would only be a matter of time until we chalked up a goal of our own.

Knaphill played a very high line in defence and initially this was something that we struggled to come to terms with but after getting caught a couple times we overcame this with late runs from Pete and Tom in midfield. We continued to pile more pressure on the Knaphill goal forcing them to concede a number of corners and it was from one of these corners that Jordy, who had replaced Ted Smith, should have scored when the ball skimmed off his head when he should have buried it.

Despite playing well in possession and giving ourselves a succession of openings in front of goal, we failed to test the keeper once and a few cracks were beginning to show as a result of our failure to win the second ball and but for a “was he or wasn’t he the last man” intervention by Furno, Knaphill might have had an opportunity to increase their lead.

The second half started in a similar manner to the first and again things looked positive and it wasn’t long before Jim was racing through on goal again, but as with the first chance of the game, too much time was spent deciding to what to do and the keeper was well out to smother the ball.

It wasn’t long before Jim had a chance to make amends for the last 2 chances as he again raced through on goal, this time the ball bouncing in a manner that set it up perfectly for the lob. After finally getting off a shot, the ball just cleared the bar and it just looked like it wasn’t going to be Jim’s day.

We were hit with an injury blow 10 minutes into the second half when Tom Pryce who had played exceptionally well in his debut was forced to come off with a hamstring injury. On came Sam Campbell to replace him.

Shortly after the forced change, James Beckram broke down the left hand side and put in a great left footed cross to the far post. Jordy was there to meet it and headed it across to the edge of the box where Pod was waiting. The ball seemed to take an age to sit down but when it did, Pod hit a superb volley that rocketed into the back of the net 1-1.

We really should have kicked on here and following cut back ball from the right hand side by Jordy to the penalty spot we again failed to test the keeper and blazed high and wide.

Our failings at winning second balls were soon to haunt us. A decent clearance from a Sam goal kick should have posed no threat from a wide area near the halfway line, but a Knaphill player had all the time in the world to control the ball under no pressure and run at our defence. With Knaphill pressing us they had numbers over and a simple ball out to the right hand side of the box was calmly finished. 2-1 Knaphill.

From this point our performance went drastically downhill. The football, or our version of it was dreadful and all the calmness and neat passing that we played in patches of the first half disappeared and was replaced by panic and mistakes.

Our unsporting side soon raised it’s ugly head as well as we contested virtually every decision that the referee or their linesman made and asked for a yellow card every time a Knaphill player made contact with an OFC player.

From that point on there was only one team in it as Knaphill clearly wanted the points more, showed superior fitness and comprehensively outplayed out played us.

Although we had some glimpses at their goal, the game was effectively over when a speculative shot from distance squirmed under Sam and made it 3-1. A fourth goal soon after simply served to worsen the goal difference.

We simply weren’t at the races, be it through a lack of match practice or through our own application, but during the last 20 minutes we were second to everything and playing the sort of football you seen in a primary school playground. After watching Oatlands writhe around like some sort of freshly mowed down cat for the last 15 minutes, the final whistle came as a bit of relief, putting us out of our misery and allowing us to move on.

Overall it was a poor performance and we looked like a shadow of the team that finished last season, it must also be said that Knaphill were also worthy winners. We played some good football at times in the first half and really should have buried our opportunities but the reality was that their keeper didn’t have a save to make. In the second half we again failed to take our chances and Pod scored with our only shot on target. Although we fired blanks up front, our real problem was our application; far too often we failed to win the 50/50’s in midfield and in defence and were subsequently punished when they clinically took every single chance they had in front of goal.

Despite the amount of negatives that came out of Saturday there were some positives going forward. Firstly it’s unlikely that we will play that badly again for a while and things can only improve. Also, despite failing to capitalise on a number of opportunities we did create a number of chances and our strikers were in the right place at the right time. It was also an excellent debut for Tom Pryce who despite coming off with an injury, looks to be a superb addition to the team. Pod also looked like he could cut open a number of defences this year with some great vision and passing from a second striker role.

We need to pick ourselves up and move on from this disappointing result / performance and focus on improving on the areas were we lacked on Saturday. Please get down to training on Thursday and please make Phil, Jim Beater aware of your availability for next Saturday on Tuesday, a quick glance at those who didn’t play today shows that there are no guaranteed places in the team this year.

Thanks to all those that made the journey to support the boys this week, hopefully next week we’ll have something to cheer about.