This week we were playing a re-arranged County Cup fixture against unknown Shirley Town of Croydon. In our last game out against Gomshall we ran out winners despite playing the majority of the second half with only 10 men, so there was plenty of reason to be optimistic about our prospects this week.

This week there was wholesale change across the team with many of those who don’t normally get a start being given the opportunity to prove themselves.

The team: Sam, Baynezy, Fraz, Furno, Jarv, Andy, Pete B, Stew, Joe, Dan and Sam C. The bench; Mike Taylor, Jim Beckram, Dom and 2-Gun.

Our home ground for this week was Elm Grove Rec in Walton and while the pitch was in reasonable condition, the weather was awful and a mixture of rain, wind and lots of cold.

Shirley Town turned up late for the kick off and maybe one of the reasons for our terrible start was due to the fact that we had stood around in the rain for the best part of an hour. Either way, in the early stages of the game we were not at the races.

From the early exchanges it was clear that Shirley were going to be a fairly physical outfit, Pete Butler was the first to get a good feel of the opposition, a late and hard tackle leaving our central midfield maestro going down a couple of times early on.

One of the reasons that the game appeared to take a fairly physical look was due to the fact that we were so slow in distributing the ball and when we did pass it, we either sold our players short, passed it to the wrong player or dithered for too long on the ball allowing our vastly more determined opponents to contest the ball at close quarters.

At the back we looked fairly solid in a defensive capacity. Furno and Fraser marshalled the central area well and Jarv and Baynezy looked reasonably comfortable as well. But too often stray passes coming out of defence or in midfield allowed the opposition to press us and Sam was forced to deal with some long range shots.

In an attacking sense we offered little. Baynezy bombing down the right hand side looked like he would cause the opposition a problem with his overlapping runs and through the centre it was Pete Butler who was the first player to give the opposition keeper a really good feel of the ball with a couple of long range efforts.

In a first half that lacked any real chances it was Dan Regan who came closest to breaking the deadlock with an effort from close range that clipped the top of the bar following a melee in the box.

Overall though, the first half offered little in the way of talking points. It was an ugly contest that was predominantly fought out in the centre of the pitch and broken up by a succession of free kicks to both sides. Shirley town probably edged it.

At half time Phil was furious and the hair dryer and harsh words were at the forefront of his half time talk. We also made 2 changes; Sam Campbell and Andy Ellis came off and Jim Beckram and Mike Taylor.

Despite starting the second half brightly, we gave away a cheap foul near the touchline and gave Shirley the opportunity to put a ball into the box. It was a superb free kick which was put right into the corridor of uncertainty between keeper and the last OFC defender. It was a Shirley player who reacted quickest and a glancing header beat Sam’s outstretched glove and it was 1-0 to Shirley Town.

Upon going a goal down we probably had our best spell of the game. At the back we passed it around nicely and looked for opportunities to set up attacks and with Mike Taylor now on the pitch we also had a player who could break from the back and run at the opposition midfield, allowing our midfielders to find and exploit space. As in the first half the right hand side looked our most likely outlet with Baynezy looking to break forward and whip the ball in for either Jim or Dan in the centre. In our urgency to get forward we did leave a few spaces at the back, but Gravy did a good job of chasing back and giving us the extra help we needed.

Midway through the second half we scored an extremely controversial equaliser. During the build up to the goal Jim seemed to be offside when he received the ball and the linesman duly put his flag up. Unfortunately for Shirley town, the linesman then put his flag back down and play continued, the ball was then played into the box and Jim finished well with a roofed shot from about the penalty spot. The referee awarded the goal to the utter fury of the opposition and we were back in the game.

Sadly we weren’t level for long. We conceded another free kick (about the 15th of the game) midway in our half. Shirley then took a loopy free kick which everyone (including Sam) thought was going over. Sadly it wasn’t and drifted unchallenged into the net. 1-2.

At 2-1 down Phil went for a third striker and sacrificed a defender with Jarv making way for 2-Gun.

With Shirely seemingly content to protect what they now had and try to hit us on the counter we had the overwhelming majority of possession. Sadly for us our possession amounted to very little. Far too often we had players in acres of space but failed to play the correct pass, we were also guilty of simply giving the ball away to the opposition when we were under little pressure and up front our 3 man attack seemed to get in the way of our wide midfielders rather than providing them options in the box. It was only with 30 seconds left that we actually had a shot on goal which their keeper saved well from 2-Gun

Shirley finished us off with 2 minutes left with a swift counter attack and a crisp finish from the edge of the 18 yard box.

Overall our performance was probably not much different to Pete Butler’s 18th birthday experience. We turned up hoping that it was all going to go our way and with great expectations, but in the end we were roughly felt up by a bird called Shirley and then left with our pants round our ankles and our tackle swinging in the rather cold wind. Ironically, and just like the pictures from Pete’s birthday, the rather gory details of the game will also be published on the internet.

On a serious note, it was a poor performance by us and Shirley Town were undoubtedly worthy winners of the game and we wish them all the best for the rest of the season.

We need to forget this one and move on as next week we are playing another cup game against Windlesham in the League Cup. Lammy’s getting married next Saturday so we will be missing a number of key players, so I would suggest that if we want to avoid playing the minimum amount of games in a season, those that step in will need to pull their socks up and give the sort of performance we gave against Gomshall a few weeks back.

A big thanks to all those that braved the dreadful weather conditions to cheer us on.