Lakeside United 11 - 1 Oaks Athletic (League Cup)

11-1 may more closely resemble Paul Collingwood’s Ashes batting average than a football score, but it is with a significant degree of embarrassment that I have to confirm it is indeed the result of 90 minutes of dire football from the Oaks.

pppppppppppppppppTyrone (GK)

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ppEye-Ball (RB) Milly (CB) Deano (CB) Alex (LB)

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Nathan (RM) (c) Rob (CM) Jordan (CM) Scott (LM)

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pppppppppppSharpy (CF) Nick (CF)

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Subs: Parker, Aaron, Aaron (2)

Nobody wants, or needs to be reminded of the details of this game (and it would be too painful for me to recount), and it is also not my place to give a view of the particular failings that contributed to it going so horribly wrong. I will, however, try and convey the basic facts that I think we would all agree contributed to our humiliation.

Firstly, Lakeside are undoubtedly a very good side, and will surely gain promotion from division 2A (where they currently sit top with 7 wins from 8 games). In terms of technical ability and fitness they had the upper hand in more or less every position on the field. It can therefore be argued that the Oaks would have lost this game even if all eleven players, and the team as a whole, had played to their absolute best.

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The second fact is that the Oaks are no strangers to this situation, and have put in losing displays that felt like victories against noticeable opposition including Springhouse and premiership stalwarts Legends. In these situations we have more than matched our opposition for heart and desire and as a result have made the opposition work for their victory.

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The difference in this game is that we didn’t come close to matching Lakeside in this aspect, and simply rolled over and admitted defeat more or less from the first kick of the game. This is not to say there weren’t occasions were Oaks players put their bodies on the line, with Deano optimising what we should have all been doing for 90 minutes as he first received a bang to the head that left him dazed and with a nice shiner to boot, and then had to be helped off following a tackle that the referee admitted was reckless but for which the offending player was allowed to go unpunished for.

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The only positives I can take from this game are that this should give us a wake up call ahead of a tough double header against Pegasus B next week, we took the defeat as a team without criticising individuals, and there are two entries in the scoring chart thanks to a superb corner from Scott that was headed in by Rob (to actually make the score 2-1), and an own-goal from Eye-Ball.

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Oh, and there is always next week.

Eye-Ball