Oatlands faced unfamiliar opposition in the form of Windlesham this week in the League Cup. Last week was a forgettable performance in the County Cup, but memories of last years devastating penalty shoot out loss in the cup final against University of Surrey still burn strong and we entered this year’s competition looking to go one better than last year but facing a team from the league above.

Ex-player and club legend Chris “Lammy” McPherson was getting married this week, so we were missing the likes of Gravy, Furno, 2-Gun, Jarv and Furno. In addition the unavailability of Baynezy and Mike meant that we were a bit short on numbers again this week. We did however welcome back Pod from injury and Jack who has not played since the Final of this competition back in April. It was also another opportunity for some of those who don’t regularly start to make an impression.

The team; Sam, Dom, Fraz, Sonny, Pete H, Dan, Pete, Gargamil, Sam C, Jim and Jack. The bench: Pod and Joe.

When the game kicked off at the earlier time of 1.45pm, we got off to a sluggish start. Windlesham, who now play in the GWA due to their first team getting relegated from the Intermediate league, were marginally more industrious and won a lot of 1st and 2nd balls, particularly in midfield where we were not particularly competitive. Windlesham also passed it better than us as we were guilty of carelessly conceding possession in dangerous areas. All in all not a bright start.

It was after 10 minutes that Windlesham went ahead. We conceded possession down the left following a stray pass and Windlesham were quick to pounce with a perfectly weighted diagonal ball that scythed open the OFC defence. The work wasn’t all done as the striker bore down on goal. Dom was in close proximity and did his best to put the striker off, sadly it wasn’t quite enough and a superb finish put the home team 1-0 up.

Saturday’s referee was quite happy to allow untidy challenges to go unpunished and play the advantage which was fair enough, but the game did quite quickly escalate in to a fairly physical affair and there was plenty of heavy challenges, a nasty gash to a Windlesham players face and plenty of shouts of “ref, ref, ref” from both sides.

Even after 20 minutes we were still woefully off the pace, failing to win the 50/50’s and yet to create a real chance. There were a few bright spots; Sonny was superb at the back and his pace and determination helped quell the threat from the home team and he was well supported by Fraz, Dom and Pete who all looked very solid.

In an attacking sense, Pete was the stand out player for us and he looked to run at the opposition defence whenever he was in possession, had he been a bit more selfish opportunities may have presented themselves. Jack also looked like he would almost certainly cause problems if he was allowed to run at the back four and use his pace.

Despite our inability to win the majority of first and second balls, our poor passing and failure to get sufficient numbers in the box whenever we had the ball out wide, we did manage to grab an equaliser 10 minutes before half time.

In about our only decent passage of play in the first half I think it was Fraser who broke out of defence with the ball and 2 or 3 passes later the ball found its way to Pete Butler who had broken from midfield and was left with a simple task from 10 yards out. 1-1.

Despite the fact that at times they played some decent football, it seemed that Windlesham would probably be there for the taking if we got another goal before half time. Whenever they weren’t arguing with the referee, they generally argued among themselves and looked like the sort of team that might implode if things started going against them.

As it was we didn’t score again before half time and 1-1 was a fair reflection of the first half.

Without Phil to organise and make decisions from the side, the half time chat had the feel of a Chinese parliament with everyone chipping their two pence as to what the best approach to the second half would be. It was eventually decided that we would go to 3 in the centre of midfield and 3 at the back.

We started the second half brightly and with an extra man in the centre of midfield far fewer aerial balls went uncontested and we started to pass the ball around a bit more and began to find gaps to exploit in both the Windlesham midfield and defence.

From our point of view the early exchanges in the second half were a bit frustrating. We did our best to pass the ball round nicely and clearly gained the upper hand on a frustrated Windlesham side, but far too often we found ourselves on the end of very poorly timed and cynical tackles which either broke up our attacks or went unpunished by the referee. Jack and Pete in particular took a bit of a pasting off the number 9 who had about the same amount of manoeuvrability as a tank in a small Devonshire village.

It was about 15 minutes into the second half that we took a deserved lead. Jim Beckram who had roamed around up front, picked the ball up on our left hand side and deep in the opposition half. He was able to beat a player and then spotted Pete making another bursting run from midfield. Jim laid the ball perfectly in to the path of Pete, who was left with nothing but the keeper to beat. Pete finished calmly slotting past the keeper and into the corner of the net. 2-1 Oatlands.

Following the second goal it certainly looked as if we were going to score a few more. Pete Butler began to control the midfield and Chris Harper found himself with a bit more space and time to try and pick out another OFC player, rather than having to play the role of protecting the back four. All around the pitch gaps began to open up for us to exploit.

A one goal lead was never going to be enough though and despite a limited threat from Windlesham, we did have a rather mad 5 minutes in which we failed to clear our lines, cleared the ball into other OFC players and then back into the path of Windlesham players and managed to make a number of attempted clearances that went in every direction except away from the OFC penalty area. We did however pick ourselves up and out of the rut and turned the screw back on the opposition.

It was Jack who set the third up. His gritty and determined work down the right allowed him to evade a couple of lunging tackles as burst forward toward the edge of the Windlesham box. From the edge of the box he had to wait momentarily before rolling across the perfect cross to Dan Regan, who finished the move off from the edge of the six yard box. 3-1 Oatlands.

The last 15 minutes of the game were all Oatlands and we should have bagged a few more. Unfortunately we overplayed the ball on too many occasions and one particular occasion was when Jim and Pete Butler failed to score when it would have been more difficult to miss. We were also prevented other opportunities on goal when the opposition linesman seemed to raise his flag every time we got near their box.

Overall it was it was a good result against a team who are in the league above us. But in truth we didn’t play particularly well. For much of the first half when we failed to compete, our passing was off and we didn’t look particularly threatening up front. In the second half we were marginally better, but we would have struggled against tougher opposition, particularly in attack.

Sonny got the man of the match after another faultless display at centre back and Dom ran him close with solid performance at right back. It was also great to see Jack back in the squad after a long time away.

The result means that we now have a cup game on the 20th December (the night of the Blue Hawaii) against FC Shepperton.

Next week we have AFC Woburn Arms who I am told are Abbey Rangers in disguise, they have been flying in recent weeks, winning four on the trot and hammering goals galore past teams. We will have to be at our best to stand any chance of winning against a team who will almost certainly be challenging at the top of the league this year. We should also have a lot of players back for next weeks game, so its important to let Jim or Phil know your availability and make sure you are at training Thursday.