On Saturday OFC were up against AFC Gomshall. Our games with AFC Gomshall have always been entertaining affairs and are best remembered for Jim Beckram faltering in front of their goal and being utterly lethal when it comes to scoring for them.

We had a few absences this week and were forced into making a number of changes. This week there was no Sonny, Bayno, Chris or Simon, but we did welcome back Tim Furnival, Ryan Kent and Pete Butler.

This week’s team; Will, Tom P, Moo, Ross, Ryan, Tom BL, Pod, Sean, Pete, Jiz and Jamie. On the bench. Joe and Furno.

When the game kicked off we started very badly, so much so that it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the 7 men that had to start last week would have made a better fist of the opening minutes. Gomshall won absolutely everything be it on the deck, aerial challenges and anything that was loose. On our side, basic basics seemed to be an issue, we couldn’t pass, we couldn’t tackle, we didn’t talk to each other and it wasn’t long before everyone was having a whinge – mainly at each other.

Gomshall had a brilliant striker, their no.10, and in the opening 10 minutes he was having a field day as he was given time and space up front and when he didn’t cut us open by himself, he was superbly supported by the hard working wide midfielders and his strike partner. Sadly for us we were falling into the pattern of play that undid us against Cobham where it seemed to be our defence versus Gomshall’s attack, with little in the way of support from our midfield.

It was probably about 10 minutes in that we went 1-0 down. Gomshall’s no.10 cut us open with a superbly judged flick to his strike partner on the edge of the box. The Gomshall striker still had Ryan closing down and Will to beat and it looked like his early shot was scuffed wide. Sadly for us, Ryan was attempting to block the shot and angled it past Will to put the visitors 1-0 up.

Things didn’t change from our perspective and we continued to be totally outclassed by Gomshall. I could list the frailties from our perspective but there were far too many to mention. In a nutshell, we were more interested in fighting each other than the opposition, we offered nothing in the way of attack and as a team we obviously made a collective decision to take up homosexual watersports because Gomshall were quite literally pissing all over us.

About 10 minutes after scoring his first for Gomshall, Ryan was at it again with another finish for the opposition, this time from 6 yards. This put Gomshall 2-0 up and Ryan on hatrick.

2-0 down, playing badly, lesson learned? Not for us. We weren’t satisfied with our bad start, so to make things better we upped the rucking among ourselves, gave up on the idea of passing it and reverted to hoofing it up the pitch in the hope that things might change. Miraculously our efforts did gain us a corner, but we duffed that and were immediately praying for miracles from the defence again.

At half time we decided that rucking each other probably wasn’t going to be the best method for getting back into the game and Jim quite rightly pointed out that if we continued in the same vein, we would probably go down by 5 or 6.

The second half opened a bit more brightly and we managed to get ourselves more in the faces of our opposition and started to relieve the pressure on our defence. From an attacking perspective we still didn’t offer enough. Too often our passes from midfield were easily cut out before they reached our attackers and although Tom was having some joy out wide and on the left, Pete looked out of position on the right and wasn’t able to influence the game in the same way that he does from central midfield. In the opening 20 minutes of the second half, the net result of our efforts were a string of corners that were all dealt with very well by Gomshall.

With 25 minutes left on the clock, the contest sparked into life and we started to look like we might make a fight of it. We upped our intensity and pushed Gomshall further back into their own half. We also made a change, bringing on Joe Spooner and taking off Tom BL.

With 20 minutes left the game had its first controversial moment. Jiz picked the ball up on the left hand side of the pitch and attempted to cross the ball in to the penalty area. He miss hit his cross and the ball looped towards the goal and sailed over the keepers head. Miraculously the ball sailed all the way in to the goal and hit the stanchion in the top corner. There was a huge cheer on the sideline and our players reeled off to celebrate. But unfortunately for us the only people on the pitch who didn’t see the ball hitting the back of the net were the referee and the linesman supplied by Gomshall. Considering what happened we did extremely well not to lose our heads.

With 15 minutes left we were forced to take a gamble and play 3 at the back. Thankfully for us, Gomshall took off two of their best attacking players and their goal threat and performance rapidly deteriorated.

With Pete and Ross now playing in the centre of midfield and Tom Pryce playing wide right, we started to control the game and Gomshall’s defence were called upon more and more often to perform heroics.

Not long after the change there was yet more controversy. This time we had a corner that was well cleared by the defence. The ball fell to an OFC player about 10 yards outside the box and an early shot was taken. Despite being perfectly positioned to see it, the referee missed an absolutely clear cut handball / penalty and you sensed this wasn’t going to be our day.

With about 10 minutes left we had another perfectly legitimate goal ruled out. Jiz received the ball spun and shot, the ball deflected off a Gomshall defender and looped into the net. Again there were cheers of celebration on the side and on the pitch, but this time the Gomshall linesman put his flag up to signal offside. Very dubious.

Our pressure finally paid off with 5 minutes left. The ball was knocked long and into the box. Jiz picked it up, span and took a low shot to the keepers right. From the side it looked like the ball was going wide, but it clipped the inside of the post and crept in. 2-1.

The last 5 minutes were all Oatlands and AFC Gomshall had to defend desperately. From our perspective there seemed to be acres of space and we were able to easily pass our way round the opposition’s midfield and get the ball in the box.

After a string of controversial decisions against us, we finally got something out of the referee. Furno making his first appearance since dislocating his shoulder in December, picked the ball up in the right back position and whacked it down the pitch and into the box where a clutch of our players were waiting. Jiz emerged with the ball and seemed to stumble, but amazingly the referee blew up to indicate a penalty. We were obviously delighted and Gomshall were understandably furious. Ross had to wait for a while as Gomshall continued to protest but when the ref blew the whistle he dispatched it superbly to make it 2-2.

Had the game gone on for 5 minutes longer we might well have nicked a winner, but it wasn’t to be and in the end we were more than pleased to pick up a share of the points.

Overall we were dreadful for much of the game but we did manage to pick ourselves up for the last 20 minutes, show some character and nick a point. Gomshall will probably be furious about the last gasp penalty award, but it was probably justice given the amount of poor decisions that went against us.

On the pitch there weren’t many great performances and as a team it was miles away from the performance we put up last week, but this week Tom Pryce got the man of the match award for being about the best of a bad bunch.

Next week we have a cup game against Egham Cricket Club and it’s an away game. Egham are currently lying second in Division 3 so this will undoubtedly be another tough fixture, if we win we will play old rivals Staines Lammas in the quarter final.

A big thanks to all the OFC supporters who came down to brave the cold conditions on Saturday.