Brand Burgess

One of the odder discoveries of the week is that Andy Burgess is extending his media profile with a weekly column in The Mirror. Not surprisingly we don't learn that much; the first instalment being about the jovial banter between The Lads in Burgess' car school.

It's the stuff often found in the Captain's Column in the matchday programme; how the lads need to pull together, the essential three points, doing it for the fans alongside some merciless ribbing of dress sense of either the faded star (Jemson) or the up and coming RnB obsessed speed merchant (Davies). Or, if you're Mike Ford, a thinly masked racist comments about Dave Smith, his olive skin and driving a taxi.

Quite how Burgess has wangled this I don't know. Apart from possessing the most cultured left foot in the Conference and looking like a gawky teenager, there's little to suggest what it is that has afforded him his own column. Maybe he's the Conference Rio Ferdinand, god help us.

It's been a fairly quiet week, especially given that the first six days of the season brought three games; a figure not expanded upon in the second six days. A report suggests Yemi and John Dempster have been called up to represent The National Game XI. This is either the National Game people giving a token nod to Oxford's presence as a non-league club, or the club carefully negotiating the release of their players... or, of course, the National Game XI may be desparate for a 20 minute supersub and an anonymous utility player.

The other story is that the Oxford Mail have ended their sponsorship of the, em, Oxford Mail stand. The story includes a slightly too desparate reassurance that the paper is backing the Us all the way, a side swipe against Firoz Kassam and that the stand will continue to be known as the Oxford Mail stand. It also let's slip that an offer was on the table but it proved too expensive. In other words; the Mail is desparate to protect their United driven circulation but don't want to spend any money doing it.