Non-League and Academy football writer

After OIR FC’s recent Herts Senior County League Premier Division fixture with Chipperfield Corinthians, I was fortunate enough to speak to the OIR coaching team, after the match, which OIR only narrowly lost, 3-2. OIR was founded in 2020 (following a conversation amongst a group of friends, who were playing PlayStation), and after some spent time in the Middlesex County Football League (at step 7 and step 8), they are currently in their debut season in the Premier Division of the Herts Senior County League, although this isn’t their first season at step 7 of the non-League system. After Tuesday’s narrow defeat to the current league leaders, Chipperfield Corinthians, OIR are in 12th place in the league table, after 17 league matches played. Recently appointed as interim manager, Deniz Koca has a lot of experience in non-League football as a coach, despite still being a young man, and joining him at OIR, is coach Bradley Johnson. Also, Yonis Ahmed, who joined the Saturday side earlier on this season, is also a part of the coaching staff at the club.

How did you come about joining OIR FC?

Deniz: With myself and Bradley, we have connections through some of the players, having worked with them previously. Khalif couldn’t commit because of his work commitments, and so we have joined the club until the rest of the season, and then at the end of the season we’ll all sit down and see what will happen going forward.

Yonis: So I came here because of a friend of mine, who coaches the Sunday team, who got me involved with that team. After helping out with that side, in November of last year I also started helping out with the Saturday side, as well.

What have you made of how the recent league games have gone for OIR?

Yonis: It’s been a bit of a difficult time, regarding some of our league results so far. Deniz and Bradley joined the other week, and we recorded a good 5-3 win against Everett Rovers. So overall it has been tough getting used to this level and all of the travelling involved, but we’re starting to get there as a team.

What did you make of the game with Chipperfield Corinthians? 

Bradley: It was a real game of two halves, if I’m being honest. In the first half I didn’t think that we did much, in terms of creating chances. When we scored in the 45th minute of the first half, we all sort of looked at each other and thought how did we manage that. But we scored at the right time, with it being a good momentum builder, going into half-time at 1-1, especially knowing where Chipperfield Corinthians are in the league. Then in the second half, I didn’t think that the opposing team really threatened us, at all, apart from the silly set-pieces that we gave away, which was our own fault. We managed to get it back to 2-2, and then with two minutes to go we just couldn’t defend our box from a set-piece. I don’t think that our league position reflects where we are as a team, and I think that by the end of the season we’ll be pushing for a seventh or eighth place finish in the table.

What are some of your hopes for the remainder of the 2024/25 season?

Deniz: Since we’ve been here we’ve had one training session and two games now. So now it’s all about working on training and working with the players. We have a clear vision, as a coaching team, of how we want to play as a team. We’ve just got to take every game as it comes. Even talking to the opposition tonight, they were saying that Everett are a good side, and yet we were 3-1 up against them the other week, and we could have been 4-1 or even 5-1 up, but yet we still managed to get the win (5-3). Even against Chipperfield Corinthians, we looked like the better team going forward during the second half, and we were moving the ball around well. We’ve got a good coaching team here, which is really good, because I’ve been at clubs previously where it’s just the one coach. Our start since we came here, hasn’t been easy, because we have played two of the best sides in the league. However, we battled really well, and we’re not going to go into any league game thinking that we’re the underdogs.

Bradley: Some teams will look at our league position and think that they’ve got points on the board already, before the game has even started. But when it gets to the point where 20/30 minutes into the game that they see that we’re competing, they then have to adjust their game, because most teams just think that they are going to come here and roll us over, because the league table suggests that. We said tonight that the first ten to 15 minutes were very important, but we ended up scoring an equalising goal at an important time in the game, which gave the players the motivation to go into the second half, feeling more confident. What impressed me the most in that game, was despite going 1-0 and then 2-1 down, we showed really good management of the game, whereas other teams would probably have folded in that situation.

Could you talk me through a bit about your backgrounds in football, prior to joining OIR FC?

Deniz: When I was 18 I was managing the Brimsdown Under 18 side, and then after having approached Cockfosters Reserves, Joe Croft wanted me to join them. I joined them as an assistant, and then after Joe Croft had moved on to London Tigers, he wanted me to join him there, which I did for about three months. And then after that I went to Tower Hamlets, initially with the reserves, before getting the first team job there. And after that I’ve since had spells at Fisher, and then at Basildon United, as an assistant to the manager, Ajay Ashanike. And so that’s basically been my journey in non-League football, so far. I’ve known Bradley Johnson for about ten years, having attended the same school as him, and as I said we’ll be here until the end of the season, before seeing what happens next.

Bradley: Like Deniz said, he’s given me the opportunity to join him here at OIR. I’ve recently got a job with Spurs, where I coach numerous teams and college programmes. I coach all different youth teams, such as Under 23s, and a couple of men’s teams there. But our jobs at OIR, for the rest of this season, are to keep the team up, and I’m confident enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, with the quality that we have on the pitch and in the changing room. I also believe that the players that we have here aren’t step 7 players. So the quality in the team is there, and we always know that we’re going to score goals and cause team problems in games.

Yonis: I’ve always loved coaching, and some of my recent experiences include coaching at the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, before moving onto ELA, where I coached some of the youngsters there, and then North London Stars. After getting married and then working full-time on the underground, I left football for a while. But after getting involved here through one of my friends, with OIR, I’ve been here ever since, with this being my first season with the Saturday team.