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Sahara Osborne-Ricketts is one of the most experienced players in tier four.
The Swindon Town defender has a CV that includes spells at Arsenal, Reading, Watford and Oxford United.
And now she hopes to bring that knowledge this weekend as the Robins face Charlton Athletic in the fourth round of the Women’s FA Cup.
“It’s a great vibe,” she tells SheKicks.net. “Everyone’s bought into what Rich[ard Wood, head coach] is trying to do, and I think it just shows with how well we’ve done so far this season, and everyone’s really enjoying it, and everyone’s really working hard and wants to play and perform for each other.”
Swindon are currently second in the FA Women’s National League Division One South West, four points behind leaders Moneyfields with three games in hand. Being the chasing team has its pluses and minuses, says Osborne-Ricketts.
“I think we would rather be in the position we are in – [we’re] still in all competitions, and we know the importance of the league, so when we get back into league [matches], I think looking up won’t bother us. We’ll take each game as it comes. We’ll just focus on ourselves and not try to look at anyone else around us.”
Sahara Osborne-Ricketts: Swindon Town will give it everything
Sunday’s cup game will be Swindon’s first of the new year, with the weather causing postponements in the first two weeks of January, but they’ve been preparing hard. They train twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings; the rest of the time, Osborne-Ricketts works as a roofer.
And they’ll go into the fourth round full of confidence from their third-round win, when they came back from two goals down against Leafield Athletic to win 3-2 thanks to an Annie Colston hat-trick.
“That’s the way to win a football match, isn’t it?” says Osborne-Ricketts. “It was just crazy scenes. It was an entertaining game. We were on the ropes for a bit.
“As a team, we always know as long as we all just stick together, we can get anything out of a game.”
On Sunday they’ll go in as underdogs against the WSL2 leaders, but Osborne-Ricketts thinks that’ll be something they can adapt to.
“There’s no pressure on us and it makes a bit of a change, but we’re an underdog, so we’re just going to go in to it confident.
“Seeing some of the men’s FA Cup results has helped us to give us a bit of a boost – to see there can be some giant-killings.
“We’ll just give it our all. Hopefully we can come away with a victory.”
