THAME boss Tony Joyce reckons his team's survival bid this season could be hampered by a perfect playing surface.

United are groundsharing at Aylesbury, who play in the Southern League Premier, after their Windmill Stadium was repossessed following a cash crisis.

The pitch at Buckingham Road is highly regarded and even played host to the full England team when Bobby Robson brought his side to the Ducks for a Euro '88 warm-up match.

And Joyce reckons the excellent facility will see visiting teams licking their lips in anticipation of getting the ball down and playing.

He said: "It could be a downfall for us because the other teams are better than us on it at the moment. We are not playing as well as we should."

"It's a lovely pitch. It invites people to come and play. The pitch we had last year at Thame was a bit bibbly bobbly and maybe that was to our advantage."

Beaconsfield Sycob's caretaker boss Simon Delahunty, who watched his side beat Thame 4-1 in Saturday's battle of the basement clubs, admitted he would love to see his side playing there every week.

He said: "The Beaconsfield pitch isn't bad but this is lovely. People are going to come here and fancy a game and that could cause Thame a few problems.

"If I'd have had my first choice midfielders here we would have passed it all over the park."

However, Joyce admitted there was a plus side to Thame sharing Aylesbury's impressive facilities.

He added: "Hopefully I can attract players because of it. It's a nice stadium and nice ground. Players want to play on nice pitches and use nice facilities like the ones at Aylesbury so that's a bonus."

However, it was Sycob who looked like the home side at the weekend when they took all three points.

Kieron Gradwell, Roy Gumbs and Allan Arthur, with two, grabbed the goals which saw them leapfrog their rivals.

Darren Moore scored United's consolation effort but the result leaves Thame bottom of the league with one point from eight games.

Despite his side's dismal start to the season, Joyce has pledged his future to the club and vowed to do everything he can to stop them going down.

He added: "We have our limitations and the finances make things very difficult.

"We haven't got a ground, we haven't got a reserve team, but I want to keep this club in the division and do as well as I can with Thame."

United face a tough trip to Taunton Town today(ko 3pm).