Oxford City’s Scott Pollock Aims for FA Cup Upset Against Leicester
Scott Pollock has been here before. Wrong side of the upset, wondering how a part-time team had just ripped up the script.
On Friday night, he wants to write the next one.
The Oxford City midfielder, 25, believes there is “no reason” his National League North side cannot heap more misery on struggling Leicester City when the former Premier League champions arrive at The MGroup Stadium in the FA Cup first round.
Under the lights. On artificial turf. Against the club he grew up loving.
Boyhood dream, cup-night edge
For Pollock, this tie against Leicester is more than a glamour draw. It is personal.
“It just felt like it was meant to be as a Leicester fan myself,” he told BBC Radio Oxford, the kind of line that usually belongs in a scriptwriter’s notebook rather than a first-round cup tie.
He knows the badge, the colours, the history. He also knows the rejection.
“I had trials with Leicester as a goalkeeper when I was younger and they turned me down, it was then after that I decided to be an outfield player,” he said.
That sliding-door moment has led him here: a midfielder in non-league, preparing to face the club that once said no.
An away day at the King Power would have been the romantic choice. Pollock sees it differently.
“Away would have been nice but I feel that at home we have a good chance of going through,” he said.
Home is an artificial pitch that Leicester will not relish. Oxford City train and play on it every week. They know the bounce, the pace, the quirks. On cup nights like this, those details matter.
Oxford City’s taste for trouble
This is Oxford City’s first appearance in the FA Cup first round proper for four years, secured by a narrow win over Torquay United in the final qualifying round. The club has not exactly lived in the national spotlight, but when it arrives, they tend to enjoy it.
Pollock knows that feeling from the opposite dressing room. In 2020, he was a Northampton Town player when Oxford City, then part-time, stunned the League One side 2-1 in a classic giant-killing.
He has seen this club bloody noses before. Now he wears their shirt.
Oxford City are not expected to win. That is the point. The FA Cup lives off nights when the hierarchy bends and occasionally breaks, when a team from the National League North stares down former Premier League and FA Cup winners and refuses to blink.
Pressure on the Foxes
All the weight, Pollock insists, sits on Leicester’s shoulders.
The Foxes, now in League One after back-to-back relegations from the Premier League and the Championship, have stumbled through the early weeks of their third-tier campaign. For a club of their size, every competition feels like an obligation rather than an adventure.
“The pressure’s on them to do well in the league and in the cup – we’re at home and we know the pitch so it favours us in that aspect,” Pollock said.
Leicester are expected to win. Convincingly. They are expected to handle the surface, the crowd, the narrative. Any slip, any sign of nerves, and that expectation curdles into anxiety.
Oxford City, by contrast, have freedom. A first-round tie against a fallen giant, nothing to lose, everything to gain.
“There’s just a feeling of excitement among us really,” Pollock added.
Excitement, yes. But not naivety.
“That being said, we know they’re a good team so we have to be up for it. Oxford City have done cup upsets before and there is no reason why we can’t do it again.”
Leicester arrive as favourites, burdened by history and recent decline. Oxford City walk out as underdogs with a memory for shocks and a midfielder who once stood on the other side of one.
On Friday night, under the lights and on the plastic, the question is simple: can Pollock and Oxford City turn another “no reason” into another headline?
