Yellows 1 Hayes and Yeading 0

Can you feel it? The distant carol song, the nip in the air? It’s unmistakable, that feeling of inevitable and impending doom. It’s been brewing for a few weeks; we’re not scoring enough, winning with enough style, then came Chris Wilder’s ‘enjoy it’ rant. Now we have a penalty crisis.

I don’t blame Wilder for being bewildered by the temptation to press the panic button when things are going just too well. Quite justifiably we have a reputation for capitulation, not just the collapse three years ago, it’s been a long time since we had a whole season of success.

Those of us that remember the 95/96 promotion run, will recall that it came off the back of half a season of spectacular results. We were no better than ordinary in the early part of the year.

You have to go back to 84/85 to see a season, which consistently delivered good results from August to May. It’s no surprise that we can’t sit back, relax and watch the success.

But, so far, every apparent wobble – Mansfield, Kidderminster and Barrow – has been followed by confident victory. The latest, 1-0 versus Hayes and Yeading, was important because it chased the fear from the door. Let’s be honest, the players are performing against a tidal of doubt, not in their ability to play football, but also in our ability to hold our nerve.

Barow 3 Yellows 1

Following Tuesday’s woeful performance against Barrow, one forum contributor said; “surely Kelvin Thomas impressed on Chris Wilder the importance of winning tonight’s game”. Really? Did he need to?

Nobody loses a game deliberately; unless you play in Eastern Europe, that is. Chris Wilder didn’t forget to win the game. Let’s face it; Barrow started with the impetus, which they had the moment Foster was sent off in the first game.

In addition, if you’re like me, the prospect of playing Sunderland away in front of a half empty, half disinterested crowd was wholly underwhelming. Perhaps it’s the distance, maybe it’s the pernicious influence of the Premiership, which has boiled the FA Cup down to a financial transaction, making it little more than a intra-season friendly.

Perhaps it was the humiliation of representing the “non-league” on such a platform, perhaps it was that the league which is much more interesting and intense than any FA Cup game.

Whatever, we started Tuesday’s tie several metres behind the start line. Which is not to devalue Barrow’s success, which everyone acknowledges was well deserved. Our heads were wrong from the start and it was too much to claw our way back.

And onto the Trophy and Yeading & Hayes, which matters only to prevent two defeats in a row.

Yellows 4 Ebbsfleet 2

I got back to the car yesterday’s 4-2 win over Ebbsfleet to find all hell had broken loose on the radio. It seems there’s quite a lot of fuss over a short corner. Like someone being stabbed for questioning whether the shot putt is part of the decathlon.

To summarise. Wilder hates the ‘boo-boys’ and the Milk Cup, the Oxford Mail Stand hate the toffs in the South Stand who, in turn, hate the bumpkins in the Oxford Mail Stand. Nobody seems to hate the North Stand. Which makes them Switzerland.

In reality, the booing was a bit half-hearted, probably because we had a two-goal cushion and a man on a hat-trick; it wasn’t vitriolic. The post-game reaction was overwhelmingly one of warm, appreciative applause. It wasn’t primal screams of pleasure, but few teams will push us to that at home this season. Furthermore, not everyone in the South Stand is a toff with a blanket on their lap. Nor is the Oxford Mail stand full of bumpkins who sing in unison for 90 minutes and support the team unflinchingly. The North Stand, on the other hand, are all racists. Each and every one of them.

Perhaps there was a little more to it; despite never looking like we were going to struggle, it was clearly a battle. Perry injured himself within a couple of minutes of the start, and we ended with a back-four of which only Creighton was a regular playing in position. It seemed odd that neither Foster nor Deering even made the bench whilst Creighton and Perry seemed a bit touchy with each other. At half time there was an uncharacteristic huddle that Perry refused to join. Has something been said? Maybe this week has been a tricky one behind the scenes, which might be why Wilder was frustrated.

So, was he doing a Clough or a Keegan? Will we be the first team to blow a championship because of a short corner? History will tell us, I guess. Maybe they’ll show These Are The Days Of Our (non-league) Lives on SKY in 20 years time. If they do, I suspect Alfie Potter will bounce around on the settee, telling us how much fun it all was, such is the joi d’vivre with which he plays. Sadly his brilliant performance yesterday was totally overshadowed.

Crawley Town 1 Yellows 2

War is a primal and pure expression of man, yet it is waged as a quest for justice, logic and truth. In a distant time a war is being waged. It is a war for which the prize is the greatest of them all: one of hope. The citadel of Stevenage is rampaging towards the remote trading post of Ebbsfleet, while the clansmen of Oxford are engaged in a battle of attrition with a stubborn foe in Crawley.

These two battles, though miles apart, are crafting the destiny of the war. it seems that Oxford are conceding territory, decisively and fatally so. In an encampment adjacent to the Broadfield battleground; two generals sit considering the brutal carnage before them.

“But he is just a man” said Lewisius as he surveyed the struggle before him.

“Mad Dog” replied Wilderius resting an arm on his lieutenant’s shoulder “Do you remember when we were both young trainees at the academy? Do you remember the cedar tree?”

“Ha” replied his old friend, his tired eyes lighting up at the thought of less troubled times “you would spend hours shying stones to hit it”.

“And what did I say?” continued Wilderius

Lewisius laughed looking at his feet; the brothers smiled together, a moment of solace from the tribulations of the war. “You said, if I hit this tree three times, then it proves that Toutatis is with me today.”

“And what happened?” encouraged the general

“You hit it. Every time.”

“Then, my old friend, let us hand our future to the Gods once more.” Wilderius extended his arm around the shoulders of Lewisius and together they strode to the crucible of the battle.

Wilderius beckoned over his physician, “How is his back?” he asked.

“I have treated it with a balm of ferns and monkjack tail” said the Soothsayer. Wilderius glanced up to the starving souls watching on the sidelines. He saw the hunger in their eyes.

“Unleash him.”

“CONSTABILIUS” cried Lewisius raising his fist in defiance.

Constabilius twitched and growled, straining and pulling until they could hold him no more. “Let us see what the Gods have for us now” pondered Wilderius.

From over the brow of the tor came a messenger; “What news of the outpost, rider?” said Wilderius.

Catching his breath the envoy spoke; “Ebbsfleet is holding; the ramparts were breached, but they are refortified.”

Wilderius turned to the battle in front of him; “Where are you?” he wondered out loud.

Then, Champanius smited the foe and the lost ground was regained. Constabilius ran amok, breaching the defences once, but was pushed back, dropping his weapon. Enraged and indignant, he regrouped and came again unarmed. Blows that would floor lesser men left no mark. As the battle reached its peak, Champanius picked up Constablius’s sword and threw it; the warrior caught it, and with a single movement beheaded the Crawlian Chief. From defeat, victory, perhaps delicious decisive victory, was theirs. Wilderius turned from the celebration…

“Raise the standard Lewisius, Toutatis was with us tonight.”

Yellows 1 Barrow 1

True story: back in 1964, my dad and his mates were playing with an ouija board. Having connected with the all-seeing otherworld, they asked a question of global import: the score of the forthcoming league game against Barrow.

‘6-0’ replied God, or whoever, ‘tell nobody’ He continued. The prediction was immediately dismissed as hokum. The following Saturday Oxford were teaching Barrow a lesson down in scoring town. When the sixth goal went in, dad turned to a friend who hadn’t been at the séance and told him of the prediction. At which point Oxford scored their seventh. Spooky.

On Saturday I was sitting in the bath contemplating the likely result of the day’s game whilst playing with my own… um…

Ouija board?

I couldn’t see us losing; however, call it law of averages or over-familiarity, I couldn’t see us taking two victories against the same opponents, two weeks in a row. Only then did it dawned on me: it’s going to be a draw.

Spooky. Although less so. The draw against Barrow was the worst result possible, which was compounded by Stevenage closing the gap to two points in the league creating the very real prospect of not being top by tomorrow night. With Green’s injury, Foster suspended and wee Stevie Kinniburgh collecting a knack, we can’t quite get the first eleven all on the field together. This is a period is not of sight or of sound but of mind; the next stop is the wobbly zone.

We’re not doing anything wrong, Stevenage doing things more right but it’s a funny period of the season. There’s a whiff of loss in the air – driven by the cups and the inevitability of being knocked out sooner rather than later. We’re also in that phase where we suddenly look over our shoulder to find our nearest rivals sitting right behind us.

Look at how true winners deal with this; Sir Steve Redgrave or Victoria Pendleton, they know that an inch is enough of a winning margin. We only need to be a point ahead of the pack in April, so we have to look forward not back.

We’ve been grinding out results for weeks now, which could carry on into the New Year, when, hopefully, the cup competitions are behind us. It’s all about points now, we shouldn’t give a shit about the performance.

Forest Green Rovers 0 Yellows 1

The season seems to be having one of its periodic shakedowns. The bronco bucked for the first time in August. This is where at least half the league is condemned to a season of drudgery. The teams who have come down also tend to get slung out, shocked by the competitiveness of the league. By the time they recover - as with Luton this year - aspirations for the title have all but gone.

This second kick-out has put distance between us and Stevenage, and everyone else. Kettering, in particular, threatened to do some good stuff this season, but their implosion runs deeper than the departure of Mark Cooper.

Of course, we’ve benefited doubly from their woe – a potential threat is collapsing before our eyes and we get Francis Green into the bargain. I would like to say I feel for them; but I really truly don’t. It’s too easy to get caught up in the quaint oldey-worldy bullshit of the Conference – if you get too comfortable, it can easily make your stay permanent.

The BBC include, as one of the highlights of last night’s 1-0 win over Forest Green, Oxford launching the ball direct from the restart into the stands. Which sums up last night’s important, but tedious, win. It was all counter to Nick Harris’ commentary. He babbled on about ‘what a game we’re having here’ – which basically meant James Constable’s goal and the fact the floodlights failed for 30 seconds.

Can we shake off Stevenage? We can certainly beat them to the title, but I doubt we’re going to be comfortable long before April. They’ve all the attributes needed to win the Conference – in any other year; you’d have them down as favourites. But this is no ordinary season; nobody’s had to deal with The Machine before.

Yellows 1 Barrow 0

In the Dog Days of August and September the mood was buoyant. In part it was the sheer bloody relief that the season had promise. Confidence was growing, everyone was supping their fancy-Dan European lagers, wearing their shirtsleeves and going on about the strength of the squad. By November, the lager’s been replaced by doughty pints of The Parson’s Left Bollock and the mood has turned more sombre. A few injuries and suddenly the squads not good enough and we’re a bit stretched.

It was all feeling a bit ‘Brian Talbot’ as I trudged in sodden silence up the Grenoble Road on Saturday. We were on a (one game) losing streak, the pressure was on to get back to winning ways, we faced a gnarled northern opponent, key players were out and the weather was bad. Without strengthening, if you’re to believe the media, it seemed that relegation is almost inevitable. No doubt about it, this is us after all.

OK, yesterday’s win over Barrow lacked the fluidity and not a little of the sunshine of early season, but the squad proved more than capable of handling this kind of fixture. It was a 1-0 mauling, we tired and sat back in the latter stages, but that was down to the introduction by them of Paul Rutherford on the right and Jamie Cook’s inability in shutting him down. Rutherford helped push us back, but all-in-all, Barrow barely had a chance all game.

At right-back, Kevin Sandwich came in for ‘wee’ Stevie Kinniburgh. Wee Stevie is generally preferred to The Sandwich both in the stands and the dugout, but there’s not a lot between them.

The loss of an influence like Mark Creighton should hurt, but there was little to worry about. I particularly enjoyed ‘wee’ Ross Perry’s debut. There’ll be no nifty step-overs on the six-yard line from this man, if he goes for a clearance, he’s going to try and hit the moon with it. That’s my kind of defending.

Greedy Matt Green has been the difference between simply being top and being top and five points clear. His pace and ball carrying has given us another dimension in attack, one that nobody has lived with so far this season. Damien Batt is on pace and ball-carrying detail and both Constable and Midson stepped up their game yesterday. Whilst we were nowhere near as glossy as we’ve been with Greedy in the side, we missed him less than I’d anticipated.

What have Steve Wood, Wayne Biggins, Simon Marsh, Mark Jones and Brian McDermott all got in common? They were all players who played in our most successful seasons. When history re-writes these successes fringe players get wiped out. We will remember the first eleven, not the likes of Sandwich and wee Ross, but now we’re in the sludgey stage of the season their contribution will set us up for success or failure in April.