Comment: Oxford in the global football market place

Watching the Champions League Final and preparing to renew my season ticket made me ponder the question; “Can you support a football club without liking football?”

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the Champions League final; as previous Chelsea v Manchester United encounters have been soporific. I also find it kind of depressing that one country should dominate a Europe-wide competition. In addition I rarely watch Premiership football and sensed a certain amount of relief that England are not participating in Euro 2008.

Firstly, the hyperbole gets me down. Yes, the Champions League Final was a great game, but it wasn’t representative of top flight football. My dad claimed that the Portsmouth v Cardiff Cup Final was ‘as bad as it promised to be’… to which I pointed out that it wasn’t as bad as the 2007 final between supposedly superior teams. Quality does not equal entertainment in football as much as the marketing tells you otherwise.

Secondly, top flight football has a level of tactical sophistication I can barely comprehend. It’s like Formula 1 racing – on the surface nothing ever happens, but someone wins in the end.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I no longer want to see Oxford playing in the top flight again. If we do, it will mean that we’re either being humiliated or we’re owned by a remote billionaire set on developing our brand for the global market place.

Perhaps it’s that the Premiership is unobtainable. Although, the recent experience of Reading and Hull, teams we’ve shared a league with in the last 1o years, suggest perhaps this isn’t true. But, if before I die, Oxford are playing in the Championship and we make a cup final (or even semi-final), I will be fully sated.

This might be a lack of ambition and one day I may find myself trekking to some Enormodome to see us lift the Champions League, but I think that it’s more likely that I’m de-coupling with a football brand I struggle to engage with.

News round-up - Ready Eddie Go

I’d had Eddie Anaclet down as a banker to re-sign this summer, instead he’s gone to Stevenage. Why? Glory? Well, Stevenage are Conference troupers; not a bad team, but not one that’s more likely to gain promotion next season.

Money? Aside from the likelihood of a tempting though moderate signing on fee, it seems unlikely that they offered significantly more than we did.

Something else? Anaclet always struck me as the kind of player who needed an arm on his shoulder. Even though an Oxford crowd would forgive a man for being caught buggering a dog in public if he could jink down the right wing and stick a cross into the mixer, Anaclet seemed the kind of character who would dwell on his mistakes and ignore his occasional brilliance.

Last season he played with injury in front of an unforgiving crowd and was constantly barracked by the likes of Turley. Oxford is the kind of club where a player has to deal with such a harsh reality and a young man has to build a strong backbone to deal with a pack of 30-something battle-worn old pros. I don’t condone it; a bit more togetherness wouldn’t go a miss down the Grenoble Road, but for now it’s a fact of life.

So perhaps we’re not a nice club to work for and Eddie has moved on for a quieter life. A massive shame; I liked him and what he did, he seemed like a player who just wanted to play and someone who would have enjoyed playing in the football league as the privilege it is. Hopefully the little man will do well at Borough.

Comment: Player of the Year

So, the club have announced a 5% drop in season ticket prices. I find the official site headline “Loyalty brings its reward” faintly patronising. Aside from a good run-in and Darren Patterson’s manager of the month award, it has been a dismal season. The very idea that the club deign to reward us is pretty galling. What it should have said was “We’ve served up a pile of absolute shite for 10 years, we simply can’t get away with charging you this much anymore”.

There were times this season when it was difficult to see how anyone could be rewarded a plaudit like ‘Player of the Season’ after the dross that was served up.

Pound for pound, it’s difficult to argue against Luke Foster, who has been, by far the best player of the season. However, I like my players of the season playing for a whole season and so prefer to look elsewhere.

The problem with this season is that only Turley, Quinn and Trainer can be described as first team regulars. Some (Twigg et al) made it to Christmas, others (Green and the like) only appeared later in the season. Some, (Day, Yemi) flitted in and out.

Trainer’s continued presence is a surprise; he looked heavy legged earlier in the season and a prime candidate for the chop come the revolution. In some ways he’s the perfect player of the season, as he’s a bit of a barometer – when we’ve struggled so has he, when we improved, so did he. I like him, he’s no player of the season in the traditional sense, but he’s the kind of player you can relate to. On that basis, I’m making him the first Oxblogger Official Favourite Player. An honorary position he shall carry until he leaves the club.

Back to the task at hand. The short list, then, is Turley or Quinn. Quinn has been Mr Consistent. 12 months ago I was advocating that he be released; but in cases of turmoil, his continued presence has been essential. Turley has been more erratic, his performances have been spectacular and frustrating in equal measure. His eccentricities are starting to get the better of him and its good to hear that Darren Patterson is planning to bring in some competition. But in a season where we contrived to score 1 goal in 13.5 hours, entertainment has been at a premium. Turley’s distribution may be a bit ropey, but his shot stopping has been superb. On this basis, Turley gets my vote for brightening up some pretty grey months.

News Round Up: The retained list

No major surprises in the elegantly named ‘retained’ list. Carl Pettefer was always a bit of an oddity; he did that Paul Scholes industriousness really well but neither Jim Smith nor Darren Patterson seemed to like him. Maybe it was wages, injuries or attitude, but something prevented him from being a more permanent member of the squad.

You always knew when Eddie Hutchinson was about to get injured because he started playing well. His eager bluster did little to disguise a lack of quality. He may have been a useful player to throw in at times of crisis, but salary meant carrying a rarely needed footballing Kate Aide was a luxury too far.

Rob Duffy, The Enigma, will no doubt be seen trotting up and down the touchline as a substitute for some aspirant promotion hopeful in the coming months - “Ooh, he scored over 20 goals for Oxford one year”. His defining moment was his one-on-one against Exeter, the moment he tamely rolled the ball into the arms of the keeper was the moment his Oxford career was effectively over.

The Danny Rose brand – Ex-Captain of Manchester United Reserves – fooled many a Kassam regular who would obliquely comment on how much we needed his ‘creativity’. The sad truth is, as small and cute as he looks, he just wasn’t up to the job.

Richards and Blackwood never looked likely to stay long. Jamie Hand was improving and one wonders whether Patterson may have another look at him if he’s still available in August. One must question just how long Chris Willmott’s contract is for. I was sure his name would eventually surface.

The biggest surprise was probably Craig McCallister; who I thought was a useful foil for speed freaks like Yemi and Matt Green. Whilst he was never going to net 20 goals a season, his ability to hold the ball up and link up with the midfield allowed us to control games much better than we did with the sauntering Duffy.

What’s more, I don’t think we’ll keep Matt Green, it feels like his gaze has gone elsewhere already and there’s a long summer and a lot of clubs looking to take a chance on a half decent striker ahead. With only the recently revitalised Yemi staying, but still not fully redeemed, we could start next season right back where we started.

Ebbsfleet 1 Us 3

Two things that summed up this season:

The first, Arthur Gnohere, unchallenged in the box, inexplicably raises his arm to the ball and gives Aldershot a gifted goal. Aldershot were the team that did everything right; we were a team of compromises in a squad burdened with big wages and unable to get the likes of Gilchrist and Willmott out of the treatment room. The penalty was the only thing that differentiated us from them, but it broke our spirit and we won only four games before Christmas.

Second is playing Ebbsfleet – a team from a town that doesn’t exist owned by people who live in the Internet at 5.15 on a Saturday tea time. Wrong team, wrong time, wrong division.

We don’t belong here; and that might be the problem. Perhaps we need to get a bit more ‘Conference’ to be competitive. We need to embrace the division and its associated competitions. This way, rather than being shocked and broken by teams we perceive to be socially below us, we’ll embrace the effort needed to beat every team regardless of the state of their changing rooms.

We’re good and if we can keep the spine of Turley, Foster, Murray and Green together; we’ll compete next year. But, one thing we have to remember is, we’re not too good for this division.

Us 1 Rushden and Diamonds 0

I can remember two masterclasses in the art of ‘returning to your old club’. The most recent was Lee Steele’s return to the Kassam on the last day of the 2005/6 season. He simply got on with what he did well. As gutsy as our performance was; Steele was just too good - he scored and we went down.

Nigel Jemson was hardly in his prime when he turned up with Shrewsbury to the Kassam shortly after we moved there. He barracked and bickered his way through the game as usual. When Paul Tait put in a reckless challenge, Jemson waddled 70 yards to give the ref a couple of reminders as to why he might treat Tait to the ultimate sanction. With the red card issued, the crowd and team went into a blind fury. Two minutes later Jemson popped up in amid the chaos of a disorganised defence to slot home the winner. Irritating, but brilliant.

What you’re definitely not supposed to do when you come back to your old club is saunter around at half pace as Andy Burgess – the Conference’s leading media brand - did last night. If this was Burgess’ big opportunity to show the Oxford public what he could do then I guess he did that, but not in a good way. His contribution was limited to a couple of decidedly Conference style looping crosses and one neat slide rule pass. In a game of some zip and vigour he chose to occupy the illusive ‘corridor of least impact’ just in front of their left back. Perhaps he should remember that as good as he can be, in 10 months at the club, he really only hit form for about 6-8 weeks - he would do well to keep his mouth shut. Presumably he wasn’t substituted simply out of sympathy.

And so to the end of another home programme. We’re looking like a team that can do some damage next season. But ultimately it’s been a miserable campaign. Completing it before April is out feels like being picked up by your mum in her rollers and dressing gown from the school disco at 9.00pm when all your mates are drinking cider until midnight inside. Hopefully it will serve as a reminder to what a pre-season of complacency can bring.

Woking 1 Us 2

According to Andy Woodman in his autobiography, as a senior pro at Oxford he was earning £40k a year. Ross Weatherstone when he was in the dock for racially aggravated assault was apparently earning less than we get for my daughter’s child benefit.

I don’t, therefore, subscribe to the idea that footballers are overpaid, especially in the lower leagues. I also don’t believe players recognise when they’re playing for their contracts, the motivation, Darren Patterson insists, will drive his players on to the end of the season.

Players are fatalists by nature. Their contracts are short, they are constantly being told how terrible they are, they need an unstinting belief in their own abilities. Unless their careers are coming to an end, it is unlikely a player is objective enough to recognise they’re one shirked tackle from the job centre.

Phil Trainer may be an exception to this general rule. His winner yesterday, his third in three weeks, signals growing reputation as one of those Oxford anti-heroes.

Like Dave Savage and Matt Murphy, Trainer is a player with obvious limitations, but one who clearly works to overcome them. The kind of player fans hate to love but love nonetheless. Trainer’s first season has been a struggle at times, but as his fitness has improved he’s proved to be a key source of midfield goals. More important is the fact he may be the player who can rebuild the relationship between fans and players at the Kassam.

Oh, how we would kill for a player of the quality of Matt Murphy nowadays.