CITY WON’T GO DOWN WITHOUT A BIG FIGHT

JOSH Parker’s 24th minute goal earned Oxford City a first National League win in over two months as Wealdstone were left beaten at the RAW Charging Stadium.

With little more than pride to play for after relegation was confirmed last weekend, Ross Jenkins’ men are still fighting to end the season strongly, and their three points here certainly ramps pressure on David Noble’s Wealdstone in their fight to climb away from the drop zone.

“It’s been coming, and I think we’ve deserved a couple more wins since January in games that haven’t turned out that way,” Jenkins beamed.

“You couldn’t tell that one team was relegated and one wasn’t today. The boys are putting everything on the line to help the football club to move forward and showcase themselves for next season.”

City had lost nine of their 11 matches since beating Ebbsfleet two months ago and it was the visitors who started the brighter, without really testing Tom Watson in the Oxford goal – Tarryn Allarakhia’s deflected shot the best of the opening opportunities.

But City grew into the contest and started to force chances of their own. First, Harvey Greenslade was played through on goal, and tried to lob Marcus Dewhurst, but his effort flew over the bar. The hosts quickly regained possession on the restart and Josh Ashby’s shot from the edge of the box went wide.

The Hoops continued to push forward and eventually forced the game winning moment on 24 minutes. A fine Lewis Coyle cross from the left found Parker, whose initial header saw the ball drop to his feet and was able to poke beyond Dewhurst for his 14th goal of the season.

It could have been two within a couple of minutes when Josh Ashby’s freekick from wide was met by Giles Phillips, whose powerful header went just wide of the mark.

The Stones still had threat, and a Max Kretzschmar free-kick from the edge of the box had Watson beaten, but passed just the wrong side of the crossbar.

Both keepers were forced into fine fingertip saves in the latter part of the half when Watson tipped Micah Obiero’s shot over, before an almost identical save from Dewhurst saw him tip Ernaldo Krasniqi’s shot over.

City managed the second half well, and the Hoops defence gave little to the Stones. It was the 70th minute before the visitors had a clear shot on goal – Jack Cook’s fierce shot from the edge of the box forcing a great diving save from Watson.

There was to be one heart-in-mouth moment for the Hoops, however. In the fourth minute of added time, Watson’s clearing punch only came to the edge of the box, and as Charlie Barker tried to loop a header over the stranded keeper but the ball was frantically cleared off the line by the City defence.