With Vic Bird available the front line was at full strength, but Arthur Maggs and Pat Field were still absentees, so the previous week’s Probables Bill Cousins and J Baldock continued their partnership as the full back pair. Two Possibles forwards, F Beaumont and W Cann, were selected as stand-by reserves, the closest either would come to a first team game. Oxford City, who had finished third from bottom the previous season, took to the field with four new players from local minor football.

Facing a strong wind from the outset the Dons stuck to high tempo ground passes and carved open an opportunity for Freddie Gauntlett in the first minute that tested Oakey. Bird also headed in a beauty that the keeper only just managed to clear, then shot high with only the custodian to beat. The home side took the lead fifteen minutes in when Jim Smith finished a pass from Bird and four minutes later Harry Bull lobbed the ball into the net from Smith’s corner. Oxford were dangerous on the break and their best chances of the half fell to centre-forward Hawkins, but he muffed a shot from the edge of the area after forcing his way through then, having beaten Jim Haydock, Cousins was smartly in position to deflect the ball for a corner. A heavy shower made the surface greasy and it took Wimbledon’s forwards time to adapt, although they remained on the offensive and should have increased the lead when the ball went from side to side a few yards in front of the posts, but they could not force it between the posts.

Five minutes after the restart Smith’s high centre was headed by Bull for Stannard to place it out of the reach of Oakey and put the Dons three clear. Jack Wallis shot inches high from thirty yards out before Hopkins wasted a decent change by shooting from an acute angle after flying down the wing. The fourth goal came fifteen minutes from the end, a corner resulting in a scramble in front of goal from which the ball fell to Smith twelve yards out, he lobbed the ball back in towards goal and it fell at the feet of Oakey, who dived on it but somehow allowed it to squirm beneath him and over the line. Doug Munday’s free kick five minutes later found Stannard and he breasted the ball into the net to seal the win. Stannard almost completed a hat-trick with a remarkable effort, heading a goal kick back against the foot of the post before the keeper could get back into position, and Bull also hit the post with a hard shot before the end.