Cooper's frustration at Windsor's lack of competitive match action

Mark Cooper admitted there is ‘huge frustration’ amongst the Windsor FC players and staff given that they will have played just three league games in 10 weeks when they finally return to competitive action at home to Wokingham & Emmbrook on Saturday week (February 19).

The Royalists’ last league outing was against Abbey Rangers (January 29), in which they came up trumps with a 2-1 win at Stag Meadow thanks to a brace from Excellence Muhemba.

Prior to that, they were beaten 3-1 by league leaders Hanworth Villa on January 15, also on home turf, and were 3-2 winners against Virginia Water on December 27. The landlords were due to play their tenants once again on Saturday but the game was postponed due to a lack of match officials, but they do have a friendly lined up against Burnham this weekend before facing a team from the British Army next Wednesday.

“The first thing I would say is that there’s been huge frustration with the lack of competitive games we’ve played,” Cooper said.

“Before we play another league game, we will have only played three in 10 weeks. That gives us a huge disadvantage just through complete lack of game time. Luckily, we’ve arranged a friendly against Burnham for this Saturday because they’re in a the same position aswell. Then we’ve got a match against the British Army next Wednesday – that has been confirmed now. Hopefully they will put us in good stead.

“We didn’t play Virginia Water because we couldn’t get match officials for the fixture believe it or not. There are a lack of them in the league and priority of course goes to any match of a competitive nature first.”

Cooper added: “We are training tonight (Tuesday) and training on Thursday. Spirits are good and the good news story is that our last game was a winning game. There’s nothing worse than losing a game and then only being able to train week after week. They will all get gametime on Saturday and on Wednesday, and hopefully we will have a full squad available to choose from when we play Wokingham and Emmbrook in the league (February 19).”