Overlooking West London’s Theatre of Dreams, across the river at Goose S**t Gate, the OTFC 2s confidently stepped out on the back of a resounding 6-1 victory the previous week. Time to make it two wins on the spin. Something that OTFC Veterans are far from used to.

River Green started the game well, with their two wingers getting on the ball and causing some difficulty for the OTFC back four. Fortunately, Stroud and Wightwick were perfectly solid and “you shall not pass” was surely uttered more than once.

After a nervy-ish first ten minutes, the Purps started to get in the game. Simple and quick passing to get us into the opposition’s final third on several occasions. One of those occasions allowed for an inviting ball across the six-yard box for Two-Trees Ruffell to slot the ball past the keeper and give OTFC the lead.

The game settled for a while as Tiffs struggled to keep the neat football up for any extended period of time. All of a sudden, converted to right-wing, Joe Currie spanked the ball beautifully from 30 yards over the River Green keeper to make it 0-2.

We took the lead into half-time, and it was a very long half-time. Very long. Tactical words coming from every corner of the circle, whilst the River Green XI did their best Sonic The Hedgehog impression, “I’m waiting…”

The second half started much the way the first ended. A little scrappy with the Purps finding it difficult to string passes together. Archie, on debut, did a fantastic job at nullifying all of the River Green attacks down the left hand side, whilst Aidan effortlessly glided past the River Green central midfield to link play with the forwards.

Again, rather out of nowhere, Steve Leung kept up his fine form with an absolute rocket from 30 yards. The keeper had absolutely no chance. At 0-3, the Purps felt a little more comfortable. After throwing players up the pitch, a “delicious” pass from the midfield made its way to the feet of Mungai, who calmly rounded the keeper and did what Fernando Torres should have done at Old Trafford all those years ago, slotting it into the back of the net to effectively end the game. 0-4, and all three points comfortably heading back to Grists.

There were plenty of brilliant performances, the new youth players all putting in a big shift, as well as solid performances from a returning Tom Wightwick, Nader between the sticks and Tommo in an unfamiliar role on the left wing. Man of the match went to debutant Archie, who won every header and every tackle during the second half.

Bring on the cup next week!