Comment: Oxblogger's guide to friendlies

It’s been a long time since I went to a friendly. I went to Billy Hamilton’s testimonial, but left some time before the end. There is probably an entire thesis to be written on the relationship between friendly results and your performance during the season. But, if, like me, you can’t really be bothered with football in July; then please feel free to use my guide to reacting to friendly results.

Defeat or draw to team below you in league
Clearly meaningless. Nice that the lads get to stretch their legs against inferior opposition. The ability to cruise to defeat in this way shows just how good we are – like a sprinter easing up before crossing the line. (Big full-back who was once on Plymouth’s books – working in their ticket office) is rubbish. Always complain at potential leg breaking tackles put down to oppo’s clear nativity, lack of fitness and general low caste.

Win against team below you in the league
Deeply meaningful. Opposition are a decent side who were clearly up for it. Our boys’ ability to turn them over with such ease cements our obvious championship credentials. (lightweight trialist with unpronounceable name playing on the wing) is a genius who should be signed on (but will immediately sign for Abingdon Rovers of the North Abingdon Reserve 3rd Division).

Defeat or draw above you in league
Practically a victory. Looked the better side for the opening six minutes, only difference between the two sides was the hat-trick scored by striker who once slept with Chantelle Houghton from Celebrity Big Brother. Just think what we’d have done to them if every player was on top form and perfectly fit?

Win against team above you in the league
As the opposition drew with the current League Champions in the League Cup two years ago, we are clearly, by default, the true champions of all England. I’m going to cancel my season ticket because winning every week is going to get so boring.

News round-up: new kit gets a big tick

I made a decision some time ago not to buy Nike due to its suspect record in immoral working practices. It wasn’t an easy decision; back in simpler times I had a pair Nike trainers that saved me from a beating by the local school bully/breakdancer. It’s a brand I have a lot to thank for.

Oxford United, of course, is a brand I can stand by even though it’s done much more damage to me personally than Nike ever did. The fact the two have come together for the new home shirt presents me with a dilemma.

There has been an overhaul of the club’s visual identity in the last six months. No longer are we presented with the amateur visuals of nasty Photoshop composits. Now we’ve got a serif font and conservative colourways. It’s more classic, confident and professional.

Some will mock the club’s attempt to attend to its visual identity in a way the top clubs do (note the ‘we’re ready for business’ team shot). Apparently there was particular derision amongst snooty non-league nerds who want to see ‘real football’ being playing in front of one man and a dog and the players smoking tabs in the bar after the game.

Nike (distributed via JustSport or not) fits with the club’s re-branding. Yes, I know it's just a bog standard Nike team kit with our badge on it. But we’ve got much higher chance of getting some quality output this season if there’s quality input in everything we try to do. If that means sacrificing a couple of Mexican migrants for promotion, then I for one, am right behind it.

News round-up: aww, isn't he sweet?

Matt Murphy’s eyes haunt me. It was the 25th November 2000, and Murphy had just slotted home to give us a 2-0 lead before half time against Notts County. Murphy got them both and started his celebration by glancing up to the London Road End with what can only be described as; come-to-bed-eyes.

I was a bit giddy with all the excitement and confess to being a little flattered. Then I saw something deep inside his eyes; something I’ve come to realise was Murphy, the soothsayer, the host, possessed by demons, channelling; “Laugh it up motherfucker, your future is wrought with the peril of failure.” It was chilling.

Jimmy Carter won FA, League and Cup Winners’ Cup before joining us from Arsenal. He had pedigree, and joined us on one of those ‘loans with a view to a permanent deal’ deal. I remember Nick Harris once commenting on a game that had ‘no class apart from Jimmy Carter’.

It all looked great, and then, he just disappeared. There wasn’t any announcement of him leaving. Part of me still thinks of him as a member of the squad. Like Germany being at war with Berwick, Carter has been left in limbo because nobody remebered to tell him to leave. A bit of me thinks of him turning up to training every day, wondering why successive managers have ignored his mercurial talents.

Players leave a lasting impression on me. Alfie Potter, signed from Peterborough, sounds like a cheeky Beano character. No matter how long he stays with us, he’ll always be an ‘ickle cutie pie we should avoid shouting at in case he cries.

News round-up: Greed arrives, greed leaves

Red Dwarf was a rather limited concept. There is little scope for plot development when your entire premise is that everyone in the universe, bar one, has died. That's why they invented plot devices like The Time Gate, a hole in time that, on passing through, allows you to meet yourself as a complete opposite. 

It seems we've passed through a time gate in non-league football this summer. Big time Charlie, Greedy Matt Green, soberly returned to the small time as a third choice striker. Ronaldo might have the arrogant swagger and talent to engineer a move to Madrid but Greedy has the only just got the skills to pay his telephone and leccy bills, not Ferarris and be-atches. Nobody ever swaggered to Torquay, unless they were over 80 or on a stag do.

The Conference's Setanta deal was another genius move by the immaculate Brian Lee. The Conference became a Premier League and TV access came through premium rate pay-per-view. The cameras were allowed into the dressing room so that fans could smell the tactical mind of the manager. “Just fucking launch it, Sean” never had so much meaning. Suddenly football being played on a potato field surrounded by four cattle sheds was supposed to be sexy and its precocious talents, like Greedy, were stars.

But that was in the days when the small time was the big time and the big time was the absolutely fucking gigantic time. Now we've passed through the time gate, a more sober world beckons. 

For us, Greedy is a good move, a decent third striker who could easily put another 10 goals onto our tally for next season. For the Conference, a re-think is needed. It is small town, localised football but it’s competitive and affordable. If it is sold like the over inflated Premiership it will eventually be found for what it is.

Comment: Where I stand

We haven’t had a single signing, let alone a double, for absolutely flippin’… days. Wilder out, I say. Get your cheque book out, Thomas, I say…

The momentary lapse in transfer action has allowed me to catch up with a bit of correspondence. Not least, the renewal of my season ticket. When I first started going to The Manor in 1980/81-ish (first game in 1975), I stood with my dad in the London Road, before settling on the more homely Osler Road.

Apparently, as a small child we once dallied in the Cuckoo Lane End, though I don’t remember it and I’m not sure why. We also had occasional trips to God's Waiting Room in the Beech Road. My dad even went in the funny little stand in the corner once.

But, once my dad gave up going in the early nineties, I graduated back into the big boys’ stand (right side), before taking up position behind the goal at the Kassam.

And this is where I’ve been ever since. This season I was again joined by The Twat Who Stands Next To Me, but also by children, hundreds and hundreds of them.

It turns out they’re ‘ultras’. What I know of the ultra movement is that it is politically driven; it’s where radicals are born. They’re run by whorey civil war veterans bent on revolution. They intimidate the club for free tickets. It’s all rugged and romantic and threatening.

Our ultras are more like the Bash Street Kids. They spend their time playing tricks on each other like tapping each others' shoulders and putting sweet wrappers in each others’ hoods. But, they are funny, they dress well, have great big flags and have completely transformed the atmosphere at the Kassam. And they’ve got a name – Gallus Esercito – which is a very cool name indeed.

But, this is not for me; and so I’m heading for the South Stand Upper for next season. It’s quieter and I can drink my coffee without risk of it being spilt. I shall sit and wait to die (or turn 40). So, farewell Shermy and farewell Gallus Esercito – I shall be watching from the posh seats.

News round-up: Yellows sign... everyone.

If there’s one universal truth about football fans, it’s that they have no idea what makes a good goalkeeper. I thought Richard Knight was a great goalkeeper until he was replaced and his career collapsed. Going back, I thought Steve Hardwick was a great goalkeeper, until Alan Judge replaced him.

I think Billy Turley is a great goalkeeper, and I’m sure he has weaknesses, though I struggle to put my finger on precisely what they are. Chris Wilder’s move to sign Ryan Clarke from Northwich is no cheap short-term understudy. He’s 27 and here for three years so Turley has a contender for his place.

Turley’s age, inevitably, is a factor, he’s probably one bad injury from retirement. As much as his ker-razy antics are loved by the fans, I can’t help thinking his eccentricity get the better of him, and his team mates, when the pressure's on. Whatever the reason, Clarke’s arrival is significant. Wilder may well be looking at this season as transitional for this goalkeepers. Is Turley’s Oxford career going to be over once his contract it up (which is probably at the end of next season).

It’s difficult to know which was the more significant signing, Clarke or Chapman. Everyone loves Chapman and the significance is in the way Thomas and Wilder have nailed the signing of another marketable player with little fuss. I just want to know who the sugar daddy is funding these transfer fees.

Chris Wilder does love a good double signing, so it’s not a surprise that another, Marcus Kelly, was announced alongside Clarke. I have no real opinion of Kelly, apart from the fact that Oxford fans love wingers. We even thought Courtney Pitt was the Messiah for nearly 12 whole minutes.

All good, then. Again. Apart from this unpleasant spat with the Conference organisers. There’s no capital in this. And will only serve to tighten any scrutiny over our season.

News round-up: Signings! thousands of 'em

Erstwhile Yellows’ communications manager Chris Williams must be wondering what’s hit him. Normally early close-season is spent going to the toilet in the safety that the big boys – Willmott, Foster, Quinn – aren’t around to give him a wedgie. As usual, he’s been able to pick up the odd piece of kit or the discarded jockstrap of a former player make a few pennies on ebay. He missed Lewis Haldane’s leaving do, which was only unusual in that every single member of the first team squad managed to tell him the wrong venue. Hmm.

Otherwise, May is usually spent asleep at his desk, his tie dipped in his tea. But this year every time he drops off, someone starts hammering on his door telling him to grab his camera, a spare replica shirt and a scarf. “He’s only bloody gone and got another one” is the call.

Three more: Rhodes, Bullman and Midson have joined Creighton and Killock on next season’s roster. Each one seems like, you know, a properly good player.

And, we’re assured, it’s all inside the budget. It does seem unlikely that the club are being financially reckless in making these signings as seems to be the general consensus in the media. What seems to be the coming together is three things. Firstly, Hutchinson, Quinn, Willmott and Yemi, who all signed contracts in the dog days of Merry and Smith when the strategy was to sign big and storm our way back out of the conference, have gone easing our financial pressures.

Secondly, the masterstroke of getting season ticket information out early must be helping with cashflow. And third we appear to be implementing the simplest of strategies; buy up the best from our league.

Yup, Chris Williams may be busy now, but that’s nothing on what he’s going to be like next season if Wilder pulls this off like he’s threatening to.