A young Oxford City Women side were beaten 2-1 by Woodley United at The MGroup Stadium this afternoon.

Missing a number of players through injury and illness City fell behind, against the run of play, to an Ellie Stallie goal in the first half but fought back when highly-promising young forward Yasmin Edwards headed home soon after the break.

City then had the bulk of the play but couldn't force a second goal and paid the oprice when sub Sumaya Zayadi gave the visitors all three points in the 90th minute.

The Hoops kept the ball nicely all afternoon with Emily Harris adding energy in midfield instead of her usual wing role and Kira Ranxha showing some great touches on her full debut.  Lucy White blasted straight at keeper Jo Allum-Nowak with the best early chance but the pressure didn’t amount to many chances despite a long-range effort from Georgina Tayman and a string of corners that the Woodley defence dealt with comfortably enough.

There was no sign of Woodley scoring until they almost inevitably did.

It was a simple goal, three minutes before half time as Stallie found space and hooked the ball beyond the stranded Kiera Maskell to make it 1-0 to the visitors at the break.

New impetus at the start of the second half was needed and to be fair to the team they raised their game all over the pitch.

Harris saw a shot from distance palmed away and then the pressure finally paid off after 52 minutes when Edwards threw herself at fellow sub Kate Parsons’ excellent corner delivery to head past Allum-Nowak and level at 1-1.

Now City began to regain the upper hand with Grace Craven driving them forward from midfield and both White and Harris going close to putting their side into the lead although Maskell had to make a good save from Stallie as the game became increasingly stretched.

A host of long-range efforts whistled just wide of the mark and the ball bobbled and bounced around the box several times with nobody quite able to find the space to force the ball home.

That proved costly in the 90th minute when sub Zayadi ran into space in the left channel and buried a low shot past the exposed Maskell to give the visitors all three points and joyously give her side their first win of the season

CITY

Maskell, Ayers,  Gorman, Tayman, Davis, Bough-French, Harris, Craven, E White, L White, Ranxha

SUBS
Edwards, Lyne, Barrett, Wellington-Faissal, Barrett

Att:  90

Report by Chris Williams, pictures Darrell Fisher