Sunday 24th September

Woking Vets v Old Wokingians Vets

Runwick Cup

A local derby against division 3 side Old Wokingians who were fresh from a recent 8-0 drubbing of our own Wanderers side. A new look Old Wokingians who’ve made some strong summer signings, along with a host of absentees for ourselves was going to make for a tough cup tie.

Message was simply to match our visitors work rate and desire and our quality should then shine through. The message wasn’t heard and Old Wokes found themselves 1-0 up early on whilst we wasted a couple of ‘simple’ changes to score ourselves. Our back line held firm on a number of occasions to play offside against a mobile opposition. A poor first half but still in the tie as only 1 down.

A good and constructive half time talk between us all, highlighting how we needed to change and in full agreement, off we went.

It took some time to change the first half behaviors, however apart from a couple of break away chances for our visitors - we did maintain majority of the possession and some better decisions in the final 3rd should have paid dividends.

Our equaliser coming from the rapid Samuels as he received the ball just inside our half, turned and ran at the defence, playing himself through to chase and beat the keeper to finish well. 1-1 and game back on. We kept possession better and soon scored a 2nd with a cross field pass from Harding to Samuels who cheated down and released the ball for Thomas to score.

We should have turned the screw at this point but to make a game of it, we allowed our visitors straight back in it with some poor communication at the back to allow Old Wokes in to score an equaliser.

Disappointing to concede so quickly after taking the lead ourselves and with a couple of positional changes, it had the desired affect to take control of the game late on with the winner coming from Samuels firing in past the opposition keeper (who was potentially their mom).

The opportunity to score more could have happen with a few half chances presenting themselves but a good win based on a very poor performance but lots of credit to our visitors for making us work really hard to get it over the line.

We wish Old Wokingians all the best for the season and we’re sure they’ll do very well.

Final Score

Woking Vets 3-2 Old Wokingians

⚽️ Samuels x2, Thomas

MOM - Byrne

An away trip to Kingsclere in November for the next round.