Colchester United goalkeeper Sam Walker admits the humiliation of their "embarrassing" FA Cup home defeat to non-league part-timers Oxford City is something they will now always have to live with as professional footballers.

The U’s 1-0 surprising reverse to their National League South opponents – ranked two divisions and nearly 60 league places below them – saw them crash out of the competition at the first-round stage, leaving Walker and his team-mates crestfallen.

Walker said: “We’re dejected and embarrassed – it’s not a nice feeling.

“Fair play to Oxford City because they fully deserved to win and go through to the next round.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that we should be winning games like that.

“I know it’s the FA Cup and these things happen but the performance wasn’t good enough and we didn’t deserve to win the game.

“We have to take a long hard look at it and go away and assess it and analyse it.

“That will be tough viewing for all of us but that’s what we have to do and move on at some point.

“It’s something that none of us will be able to clear from our CVs.

“Now we have all been knocked out of the FA Cup by a non-league side so that’s very difficult to take.

“Football is a game of such highs and lows and I can’t remember feeling this low after a game for a long time but it’s important that we stay together as a unit, which we will do.”

Colchester head coach John McGreal picked an unchanged side for the tie and keeper Walker insists they prepared correctly.

“We had a very good week’s training and we did our work on the opposition,” said the former Chelsea youngster.

“We did our technical and tactical work on the Thursday and Friday and we all felt exactly the same going into this as we do going into league games.

“For whatever reason, the performance just wasn’t there.

“We spoke at half-time about taking the game to them and dominating the game in the second period but then we gave them a goal within a minute which immediately put us on the back foot and we’re chasing the game for the whole half.

“They threw everything behind the cause which you would expect and it hasn’t come off for us, so it wasn’t a good day for us.

“We had chances to win the game and created enough opportunities to put at least two or three away but we went 1-0 down and we were so eager to get back into the game that maybe there was a little bit of a lack of composure in there.

“That’s unlike us, because we’ve had a very good six or seven weeks.”

Colchester are in Essex Senior Cup third round action tonight.

They host Bostik Premier side Thurrock at the Community Stadium, kick-off 7.30pm.