Jimmy Dean’s pride in Peterborough Sports despite a knockout blow in the FA Trophy

The city side went down 2-0 at higher level Oxford City as a fantastic club-record run in the competition finally came to an end. Sports had never previously won a first round tie.

Dean went into the tie confident his side could pull off another shock result, but was forced to concede a match on an artificial surface against a team fifth in the National South League was a bridge too far.

“They weren’t miles better than us,” Dean insisted. “But they were a litle bit better than us in all departments.

“We tried everything we could, but they had an answer for it all.

“We went three at the back and they coped with that, we tried to get the ball out wide to our strong wingers and they coped with that as well. When we tried toplay in pockets they had an answer and when we went more direct they had the answer to that as well.

“In truth if we played Oxford 10 times in similar circumstances they would probably win all 10.

“They are a great club with excellent players and a top management and coaching team. It was a pleasure to play them and the experience should do us plenty of good. I’m actually quite disappointed with how we played as I rate my lads so highly, but I can’t criticise them for the effort they put in and I’m proud of the journey they took the club on.

“You have to accept sometimes the opposition are just better than you and that was the case in this game.

“We didn’t lay a glove on them really, but there is no disgrace in that.

“Obviously playing just one match in seven weeks (the previous round of the FA Trophy on January 16) was a huge handicap when facing this sort of opposition.

“I’d love to have had a go at them when we’d been playing regularly, but we can’t take anything away from our achievement.

“The club is really on the map now. We’ve enjoyed media attention we’ve never experienced before so let’s hope we can use it the whole experience to kick on even further.”