Oxford City turned in one of their best performances of the season to beat in-form Darlington 4-1 at the MGroup Stadium this afternoon.

Beset by injuries and suspensions, City threw caution to the wind and a performance full of pace and purpose saw them cruising past the shaken Quakers to send their fans home happy in the last home game before Christmas thanks to goals from Josh Ashby, Zac McEachran and a hat-trick from the superb DJ Campton-Sturridge.

With Josh Parker and Isaac Westendorf unavailable, Campton-Sturridge was unplayable on the day as he switched to lead the line while youngster Brayden Daniel was a revelation on the right wing as City switched to a 4-4-1-1 shape that paid instant dividends when they took the lead after just 99 seconds.

It was a neat move that created the opportunity with Ewan Clark racing down the left and cutting the ball back for the excellent McEachran. Entitled to try his luck, McEachran instead moved the ball on to Ashby, in space on the edge of the box. Inevitably, the ball was past keeper Peter Jameson in a flash and City were 1-0 up and off to a flying start.

Their movement troubled a static Darlo backline all afternoon but a steady flow of crosses flashed beyond any City forward until McEachran doubled the lead after 33 minutes.

It came after Darlington lost the ball deep in the City half, allowing Campton-Sturridge to burst forward and get behind the away defence. His progress was blocked, Clark’s effort was knocked away but McEachran was on hand to plant the ball across Jameson to make it 2-0

It then became two minutes later when McEachran weaved his magic and danced past two men before firing at goal. The ball flew into the air off the bar, span kindly and Campton Sturridg esmashed the ball joyously into the roof of the net to make it 3-0 at half time.

With nothing to lose and facing a four hour drive home in silence, Darlington increased the intensity after the break and om 68 minutes had a lieflien when Rutledge thumped an unchallenged header from a well flighted free kick beyond Jamie Pardington to make it 3-1.

Surely the unthinkable couldn’t happen?

Rutledge floated a free kick well over, City tackled like tigers in the driving rain and on 76 minutes Campton-Sturridge  calmed any nerves with a clever second goal. McEachran slipped a perfect pass, Campton-Sturridge ran clear and when Jameson came to meet him he clipped it over the keeper to make it 4-1 and killed any chance of a comeback stone dead.

On 83 minutes the hat-trick was complete when Campton-Sturridge once again ran away from the helpless Darlington back line and was upended by Jameson. Regular taker Josh Ashby politely enquired as to whether he might have the ball but nobody was going to rock this DJ who calmly sent the keeper the wrong way to make it 5-1 and send the home fans away smiling.

CITY
Pardington, Roddy, Ashby, Johnson, McEachran (Scott 82), Campton-Sturridge(Kauan 88), Wiggett, Clark, Burroughs, Humphrey- Ewers, Daniel (Potter 57)

Subs

Treml, Wilson, Francis, McConnell, Kauan

ATT: 767

 Report by Chris Williams, pictures Darrell Fisher and Steve Daniels