Ottery St Mary Football Club are gearing up for a Super Saturday at their Washbrook Meadow home with three major events under the spotlight.

The day begins with TV coverage of the Royal Wedding with the clubhouse open from 9.30am and then, at noon, it is registration for arguably the ‘biggest’ match of the season on the Washbrook Meadow turf!

There’s a charity match being played with all funds raised going to Hospiscare.

There’s a £5 playing fee for players on both sides and it really is very much a case of turn up with your boots and £5 and take part! What’s more it’s a ‘mixed gender’ game and, once everybody who wants to play has been registered, two teams will be drawn to see who plays on which side!

Completing a ‘Super Saturday’ at the club, the big screen TV will be showing – from 5.15pm – the FA Cup final between Manchester United and Chelsea.

On Wednesday night the Otters went out of the Grandisson Cup, beaten 4-2 at home by Heavitree United Reserves. Johnny De-Cruz and Adam Brook scored the Ottery goals to twice put them into the lead. However, the Heavies booked a return to Ottery for the cup final at the end of the month by scoring two late goals.

Beaten they might have been, but manager Dave Fairweather could not have been more proud of his players. Speaking after the game he said: “I told the lads after the game that they had just served up, without a shadow of doubt, the best team performance that I had been privileged to see in all my time working at the club. We lost the game, but the result was a travesty of justice. They [Heavitree] led a charmed life with goal line clearances, wonderful saves by their glovesman and some quality last ditch tackling. That’s not sour grapes on my part – good luck to the Heavies in the final, but, from our point of view, it was a terrific all-round performance.”

He continued: “The thing is now for the lads to look to replicate that performance. I did say to them that having seen that level reached, I would now expect them to deliver that on a regular basis and if they do that we really are in for an exciting time going forward.”

The Otters completed their Macron League season with two games over three days last weekend, first defeating Lympstone 4-2 before a 3-1 Monday night defeat at University. Chris Ambrose, Ben Rushton, David Weeks and Curtis Winchcombe scored the Otters goals at Lympstone before the season’s top goal scorer, Corey Ringer, fittingly netted the final one of the league campaign in the Monday night defeat.

Speaking about the last two league games – the Otters finished sixth in the Division Three table – Fairweather said: “We were good value for the win at Lympstone, but everything that could go wrong on Monday night, away at university, did! Sadly it was a shambles – and much of it was not our doing! They [University] had no match balls and did not have a linesman so the referee was forced to officiate with the only lino – ours!”

He continued: “It is really not acceptable. We were at the ground on Monday in plenty of time and the home side did not start traipsing in until about 10 minutes before the due kick-off time. What’s more they did not have any match balls – it was all very poor.”

As to whether any league shake-up could see the Otters climb another level, Fairweather says: “I certainly hope so. I’d relish the chance to continue the upward development of the club and I think we’d not be out of our depth in Division Two if the chance to play comes our way.”