Oxford City Women’s run of thrilling games continued with a superb 5-3 league win at Woodley on Sunday.

With top scorer Ellie White and defender Billie Bough-French both missing it took a little while for the new look Hoops to settle and they were 2-0 down inside 20 minutes as Woodley started brightly.

However in-form winger Emily Harris continued her scoring spree after 25 minutes, turning in a Yasmin Edwards pass to make it 2-1 and give City a way back into the game.

Woodley recovered and a third goal for the home side made it 3-1 at the break, when a few wise words from Manager Aliyah Anthony spurred City on to a much more intense second half.

The home side were then reduced to ten players after a red card on the hour, and dropped deep to try to preserve their advantage but sub Reese Ayers pulled one back on 63 and Harris then levelled at 3-3 with her second of the afternoon with 25 minutes still to go.

Woodley defended bravely and City started to think this wasn’t their day after a Lucy White effort was well saved and skipper Grace Craven hit the bar for the third time but on 83 minutes Craven finally found a way through to make it 4-3 and the comeback was confirmed in the final minute when defender Hermione Prescott-Luke smashed in a 25 yard free kick that flew into the top corner and gave City all three points with a 5-3 win.

An impressive performance and the perfect lead in to next Sunday’s County Cup final when the team take on Kidlington at the MGroup Stadium. Come along and support the team.

CITY

Maskell, Precott-Luke, Davis, Walecki, Wellington-Faissal, Gorman, Lester, Craven, Edwards, Harris, Ranxha

Subs

Ayers, White, Durham

Report by Chris Williams, pictures Darrell Fisher