OCFC 5 - Chertsey Town 0

The Curse of the Green Road Roundabout struck the visitors today, delaying their arrival and the kick-off, and our opponents probably had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be their day when Paul Watson suffered an injury, which initially looked rather serious, in the 3rd minute and had to be replaced, after a five-minute hold-up, by David Patterson. Chertsey produced more shots than the hosts in the first fifteen minutes but the game stayed quite evenly balanced. It took a bit of Ray Spence wizardry to break the deadlock after 22 minutes when he beat his marker near the side-line and broke into the box before firing a fine shot into the net past the keeper’s right hand.

This sparked a purple (or should that be blue?) patch for City with Spence in particular terrorising the Chertsey defence. A long-range shot from Omar Takriti was touched over by Piwonski, and then Alex Stewart was forced a little too wide for him to get his shot on target. Chertsey were still breaking quickly and Carl Wilkins was forced to make a fine save from a good shot by Pomroy, who, along with Godfrey Torto, worked tirelessly all match. As the home supporters were still applauding Wilkins’ save, the ball broke to the other end and Spence doubled the lead with a beautifully-judged lob from outside the box with Piwonski stranded.
Five minutes later, on 35 minutes, a neat pass from Ryan Williams put Spence in again (picture above) and, though Piwonski did well to push the ball away from Ray, he could do nothing about Ryan Williams firmly planting the ball past him for City’s third.

City really had the bit between their teeth at this point and pressed forward in numbers. Ryan Williams fired just wide; Lewis Craker brought a finger-tip save from Piwonski with a well-struck volley; and a great run from Spence saw him finish into the side-netting.
In the third minute of injury time a mistimed header from a red defender fell to Spence and his shot was palmed out to Alex Stewart who finished from close in.

Half-Time Oxford City 4-0 Chertsey Town

The visitors came out for the second period in a much more determined manner and pressed hard to try to reduce the deficit. Wadge brought a good save from Wilkins; Patterson shot across the face of the goal when well placed; and Matt Grave hit a fine shot against the base of Wilkins’ right-hand post from the edge of the area. The City defence kept its shape well, though, and weathered the onslaught successfully: the (frequently) unsung heroes at the back doing their respective jobs in an exemplary fashion as always. Andy Lyne brought his three substitutes on with plenty of time for them to make a difference, and City pressed forward again. In the 73rd minute a City free-kick was scrambled away and Ray Spence was the fastest to the loose ball, and, though it looked as though he had been pushed to too fine an angle, finished exceptionally well between the keeper and his near-post to complete a thoroughly deserved hat-trick.

The final fifteen minutes saw Chertsey push on for a consolation goal and City look for a sixth. Aaron Williams was enjoying his debut and using his pace and nimble footwork well on the right, and a neat cross of his was headed just over by Andy Marriott, and, as injury-time ticked away, Aaron’s guile took him into the area where a lunging defender brought him to ground. Aaron himself took the kick, but a good save by his right-hand post from Piwonski denied him a fairy-tale start to his 1st XI career.

Full Time Oxford City 5-0 Chertsey Town

Oxford City: Wilkins, Durrant, Marriott, Takriti, Craker, Williams R., Burnley (Williams A. 65), Williams G., Stewart (Keen 65), Spence, Jones (Rendell 65).
Chertsey Town: Piwonski, Oaks (Morse 61), Watson (Patterson 3(Green 78)) , Muldowney J, Hill, Helsdown, Grave, Muldowney L., Pomroy, Torto, Jones.

Attendance: 134