OCFC 1-Uxbridge 3

City renewed acquaintances with Uxbridge this afternoon after three seasons. Both teams occupied relatively comfortable mid-table positions and under a pleasant late-winter sun produced an uninspiring and slow-paced first half: it was hard to see where goals might come from.
Dean Peltohaka shot over when given far too much space on the City left in the first minute and Burnley shot rather tamely when put in at the other end a minute later. Very little of any note happened in either box for another twenty minutes or so until Uxbridge’s Lee Tunnell pulled his shot wide of Drake’s right-hand post, and then Liam Malone shot over the bar when set up by a quick free kick from Mark Jones.
On the half-hour Peltohaka put in a good shot from distance that Drake did well to parry, while for City Durrant put through a defence-splitting pass that gave Alleyne the best chance of the half but, leaning back, the striker cleared the bar.
The home side pressed forward a little more in the final ten minutes without producing any clear chances and, for the visitors, Mark Nicholls put in a lob that almost caught out Kieron Drake.

HALF TIME: City 0-0 Uxbridge

City made just the start they must have wanted to the second half when Mike Ford lofted a long cross into the box from the left, Alex Stewart’s initial upwards header fell into space between him and Uxbridge keeper Rob Bullivant, and the City striker just got there first to prod the ball home. Almost immediately Mark Jones broke forward well but his final pass was kept out of Alleyne’s path by a back-pedalling defender. For Uxbridge Luke Evans’ head was first to a floated free-kick into the area but his effort was just wide. However the equaliser came in their next attack when City gave the ball away in midfield and Dean Peltohaka collected a pass to cut in from the City left to fire home via the post with 61 minutes gone.
The Blues came close to re-establishing the lead five minutes later when a free-kick taken by Mike Ford was punched clear by Bullivant but straight back to Ford, whose lob would have crept just under the bar had the keeper not been quick to recover his ground.
As seems to have happened only too often recently play was switched quickly to the other end and Jake Parsons, who had been on for just ten minutes, fired in, somewhat hopefully, from the left to see his shot ricochet off Mark Avery and into the net past the stranded Kieron Drake.
City were finding progress hard-going and were kept as a distant threat by the Uxbridge defence for most of the half, (City’s second corner of the match didn’t materialise until the 84th minute) though, for the second game running, Lee Rendell's introduction with ten minutes left produced more penetration.
Lee Tunnell went close to lengthening the Uxbridge lead when his shot flew across the face of the goal and just wide after 78 minutes; and on 81 minutes the hard-working Peltohaka nearly scored his second of the afternoon but, having taken the ball past Drake, was denied a goal by a very timely tackle from Lewis Craker.
The Uxbridge third goal arrived in the dying moments of the match when, in acres of space, and with defenders appealing hopefully for offside, Mark Nicholls lifted a delicate lob over the advancing Drake and into the corner of the net.

FULL TIME: Oxford City 1-3 Uxbridge

City: Drake, Durrant, Ford, Avery, Craker, Merritt, Burnley (Rendell 80), Malone, Alleyne (Matsunaga 87), Stewart (Mitchell 73), Jones.
Uxbridge: Bullivant, Yeoman, Stamp, Weedon, Matthews (Parsons 57), Evans (O’Connor 79), Dickens, Spencer, Tunnell, Nicholls, Peltohaka (Peters 87).

Reporter: ChrisB