Oxblogger

The inevitable consequences of success

2012-01-27T13:37:00.000Z

Dying is a lonely business. People have their own prolematic lives to be burdened with its imprecise process. Best not to get involved at all.

Death, conversely, is very popular because it is a finite commitment. You attend the funeral, eat the sandwiches, and go home to convince yourself you’ve witnessed a celebration not a mourning. Then life carries on as it was. Darlington found that out on Saturday when their crowd doubled for what may be their last ever home game. We experienced something similar when we were relegated from the football league in 2006 - never were we so popular than when we died as a football league club.

Success is also a popular place to be, and with it comes a unique, and new to us, set of challenges.

So, we have players that attract interest, with real money, from other clubs. This puts us in the position of having to balance our needs as a football club with those as a viable business.

As prone as I am to mythologising the comings and goings of Oxford United, the response to Swindon's third and successful bid for James Constable takes some beating. Being a bit busy when the story broke, I was a slow to the news. By the time I'd connected it was becoming our 9/11. There were visions of Constable sitting at a table in a darkened room, while the evil Paolo Di Canio in full length leather coat broke the strker's spirit, persuading him that his dark and evil ways would see the peace in our time.

Meanwhile Kelvin Thomas and Chris Wilder tore off their human masks to reveal their alien lizard faces. While they shoveled piles of gold onto their spaceship, Constable stared back in disbelief as all that he considered good crumbled around him. Across this abyss he stared at the crying hordes of Oxford fans, doomed to death by their Machiavellian ways.

On one level, I love this. the evil empire launches a series of unprovoked attacks in an attempt to rip our spiritual leader from our grasp. Football would be a fraction of what it is without this kind of drama.

But, this is is the myth, so let's recognise that for what it is.

I doubt very much that the Oxford/Swindon rivalry has bypassed Kelvin Thomas and Chris Wilder. They are, therefore, not out of touch with the fans. They will also recognise that they run a company which has the turnover smaller than your local Tesco. They will also consider their long term ambition and how to fulfill that. Somewhere in this equation is a figure which considers the need for revenue and a premium for any reputational damage that might occur. Swindon's bid exceeded that figure.

I also doubt that James Constable followed the story via Twitter alone. So, when the bid came in, it seems unlikely that he was bundled into a taxi and transported to the County Ground without a word. More likely, someone from the club will have explained that they have been offered a figure they can't turn down, they don't want to lose him, but nor can they ignore the offer.

It seems equally unlikely that Constable's decision not to talk to Swindon was a simple one of loyalty over money. Be careful of the word loyalty - it suggests an emotional decision over something he fundamentally feels is the right thing to do. I would hope that staying at Oxford is a decision based as much on logic as emotion.

Constable's dad seems to be involved in helping him with his career choices. This has got to be a good thing because it will help him consider more than just the money issue. He will need to consider the level of comfort he currently has, the risk of moving both in terms of his lasting reputation and the potential for failure - which is quite high given the pressure he'll be under. Amidst all this, he needs to consider the financial compensation for making that move in that environment with that risk. Constable didn't think Swindon's offer would be enough.

So, far from this being Constable demonstrated superhuman powers to resist the lure of evil through a moral fortitude and innate sense of good. More likely he enjoys the job he does, where he does it and what he's payed for it. Why wouldn't he, given the three years he's had? A move to Swindon, like any club, is to start again.

This is all relatively new to us. Peter Leven was shoved into the limelight via Twitter, Michael Duberry is a target for opposing fans due to his comparative fame. Suddenly our success has delivered a raft of new issues to deal with. This includes living up to the caricatures that develop from such hero worship. Constable goal scoring feats, Duberry the immovable object, Leven, he can do what he wants. Add to this Ryan Clarke's England credentials, Alfie Potter the lower league Lionel Messi.

The reality on the pitch is different, of course. Yes, these players have proven themselves among the best we've seen at the Kassam. But they can't turn it on and off like a light switch. For the last couple of weeks; the defeat to Crewe and the bizarre draw with Hereford, we've seen them demonstrating flashes of brilliance; Little backheels, passes round the corner, sublime exchanges and a couple of near misses. Then, it all begins to taper out. Chris Wilder described it against Crewe as as losing heart. But, inevitably, the more extraordinary you are the closer you are to becoming ordinary. It's what scientists call regression towards the mean.

We need patience and shape. We are amongst the 4 or 5 best sides in the division. The pass and move philosophy drilled into the players is the right one, but when it doesn’t come off, we have to take a breather, regain control and go again. When things didn't come off against Crewe and Hereford, we tried to solve the problem by rolling out our super powers. When they stopped coming off, everyone gets frustrated.

We've been picked off by a couple of teams who have kept their shape and waited for an opportunity.

The problem is that we haven't been in this position for years. The crowd, manager and team all need to learn to play the game for 90 minutes, not in a burst of 30 minutes of intense brilliance followed by an hour of frustration. Against better sides our tempo will be maintained, but where we need to dictate the tempo - at home, against 'lesser' teams, then we need to learn a bit more control.

...And if you thought Crewe was depressing

2012-01-17T17:34:00.000Z

There was a predictable wash of simpering good will from Oxford fans on Sunday when it was revealed that jug-eared goalscoring funster, and (perhaps) the last Manor legend, Dean Windass, has been suffering from depression leading him to twice try and take his life.

Depression in sport is particularly on-trend nowadays. Gary Speed’s suicide, despite his apparent balance, talent, good looks and happy-go-lucky demeanour – none of which are signs of depression or otherwise - jolted everyone.

Now they’re all at it, last week Andrew Flintoff presented a documentary on it involving some of the decade’s most celebrated sporting names. In the process he recognised that some of his own misdemeanours were a demonstration of some kind of depressive tendency.

You suspect that when The People, having spent weeks camped outside the Sporting Chance Clinic in the hope of spotting a big star through the tinted glass of some over-sized, pimped up four-wheel-drive, found out that Windass was prepared to come out, they were secretly punching the air in triumph. OK, it wasn’t a real star, but it was good enough.

The Windass story is a convenient one for a tabloid audience, but it is ultimately unhelpful. His is the standard narrative of a man who had it all, then without the structure and lustre of professional football lost his way. It involves; fast cars, loose women, money and booze. But he’s not the first to stare into an abyss after retiring from a profession offering such rewards.

I’m not suggesting that Windass is faking or just suffering from being a bit down. But it doesn’t help the wider message if people think you become depressed as the result of no longer being able to buy top of the range cars. Sadly, you can’t write a story that basically says ‘Everything was normal, nothing much happened and then I had the overwhelming urge to kill myself’.

When Neil Lennon and Stan Collymore both came out as suffering from depression years ago nobody took much notice. Both players were, in their own way, outsiders, and therefore, ‘typical’ of people with mental health issues. Lennon was a gnarly pitbull, maginalised by sectarianism, whose success was down to graft more than talent. Collymore had talent, but managed to throw Ulrika Jonsson across a bar in a depressive stupor. I mean, how can he be depressed? Mate, she’s gorgeous and therefore, you're an idiot.

Now apparently 'normal' people, like Speed, and happy people, like Windass have got it. Accordingly, we react appropriately with a knowing sympathetic nod towards football’s last taboo (apart from the gay thing, obviously).

Hours before The People story broke, Oxford fans were lining up to lambast the team for its sloppy defeat to Crewe. Days after he was being begged to stay, James Constable was being pressed to leave because he’s 'not up to this level'. Similarly, Chris Wilder should recognise his limited competence and step aside, after we lost our first in seven, conceding our second goal in 6,300 minutes.

Single events don’t, in themselves, cause depression but they can trigger depressive episodes in people who are prone to its grip. The best thing you can do for a depressive is create a healthy and stable environment in which they can function and manage their condition. They need to exercise, eat well, sleep and generally ensure that life remains devoid of extremes.

Football excels in creating an environment of extreme reactions to episodic success and failure. This is conveniently labelled ‘passion’ - the lifeblood of the sport which the media and marketers are happy to play up. Most people who actively attend football were brought up in, or are the product of, the football culture of the 1970s and 80s when football evolved from being a diversion from the working week to being overtly tribal, confrontational and aggressive.

It wasn't always like this. There’s an old joke about Sheffield FC – the oldest club in the country – if they were the first club, then who did they play? Well, the members of the club formed teams and played each other. It was club for people who enjoyed football. It wasn't concieved as a way of defining a town or region to the detriment of other towns or regions. In 1939 Southampton fans celebrated Portsmouth’s FA Cup win, now they tear each others’ throats out.

It makes me think of the difference between a patriot and a nationalist. A patriot loves his country; a nationalist hates every other country. I’m an Oxford United patriot and a football patriot, but increasingly we seem to be becoming football nationalists. We don't love our team so much as hate everyone elses'.

Now, on the terraces, abuse is the norm, online it's more venomous, on the pitch people kiss badges and rip their shirts off as a primal act of celebration following a goal, on the bench people get fired for losing a single match and referees are branded as the mentally retarded enemy of the game. And that’s not a description of the bad old days of the 1980s; it's a manifestation of a culture that exists today. What's more, it is wholly acceptable; a rebranded and remodelled version of the hooligan era. At least hooliganism was overtly bad.

Amidst this maelstrom, is the stricture of being a footballer. A cabal bound by common behaviours. Lee Steele’s homophobic tweet that lead to his dismissal from Oxford City last week was the illustration of the environment footballers are brought up in. To a man, it's reported that Lee Steele is a decent bloke, and Mike Ford, despite firing him, was prepared to go on record to support him and say he isn’t a homophobe. It seems that Lee Steele's principle crime is that he was engaging with a deeply learnt behaviour amongst footballers - banter. In the changing room this works because the rules are understood, it's a mechanism for sifting out those who are in the football fraternity and those who aren't. In any other environment, it's deeply offensive. He just seems to have to forgetten where he was.

This enclosed environment, full of its extremes, isn’t a healthy one for anyone to be involved in, let alone those prone to depression. And yet, despite its current profile within sport and the apparent meaningful sympathy we have towards its sufferers (well, the famous sufferers, at least) we are quite happy to fuel that unhealthy environment by destroying and worshiping its protagonists with all the extreme passion we can muster.

Statistically speaking, in a squad of 20, 5 will suffer some form of anxiety or depression. James Constable and Chris Wilder, like Windass, Speed, Collymore and Lennon, could be among that number at Oxford. Or maybe Alfie Potter. Or Peter Leven. Or, well, anyone. They may not even know that themselves, but it could be lurking, waiting for something to trigger it. We would do well to recognise this and create a healthier environment than the one we are currently in. Not wait for one of our own to put a noose around his neck before reacting.

The rebirth of JP Pittman?

2012-01-10T13:27:00.002Z

With two goals in two games, can JP Pittman succeed where so many have failed, and recover from Chris Wilder rejection to become a permanent fixture in his future plans?

Wilder’s three years in charge is strewn with the victims of his relentless focus on improvement. Chris Carruthers was an early victim, never one to do much wrong (or indeed, right), his Oxford career was finished (allegedly) when he took the last portion of pasta from the team canteen ahead of his manager.

Seems unlikely that this was the only reason, and his generally apathetic performances on the pitch support this view, but he wasn’t the only one to be swiftly sidelined from first team duties.

Luke Foster’s (again, alleged) problems were masked by some excellent performances in the first half of the 2009/10 season, but he was quickly despatched and Jake Wright brought in. After an initial wobble, Wright’s performances as a leader as much as a player, has proven Wilder’s instinct to be right.

Wright's partner during much of that promotion campaign, Mark Creighton, was similarly shown the door at the point that his manager no longer saw him as part of the programme. Creighton fundamentally did nothing wrong, he just no longer fitted with the masterplan.

Creighton's departure confronted a reality the club hadn't experienced in more than a decade. We had actually achieved something and were therefore at the uncomfortable point where good players had to move on to make way for better players. Up to that point, achievements fell below expectations so players left with a general shrug of apathy from the fans. Now we were culling our own.

If Creighton's departure wasn't controversial enough, the exit of Dannie Bulman – to my mind Wilder’s only real mistake in this sense – Jack Midson and Sam Deering were all the victims of Wilder’s cold logic. Harsh as this seems to footballing romanticists like you and I, in nearly all cases, and Bulman perhaps aside, we have progressed with each subsequent, ruthless, decision.

The swiftness with which Pittman arrived and then departed the club for Crawley suggested that something was seriously wrong. Nobody outside the training ground could honestly say they knew what that might be. The glib and meaningless assumption was that Wilder was simply victimising the poor boy. This is a favourite taunt of all football fans, the idea that ‘he doesn’t play him because he doesn’t fancy him’ is tautological. Why would a manager play someone he doesn’t like? His job is to decide which eleven players he likes the most every week. Pittman, evidently, wasn’t someone he wanted around at that time.

But with the mystery surrounding his exit, he instantly, became an enigma, a martyr that proved the anti-Wilder brigade 'right'. He was no longer able to take the club forward because he'd, in some way, lost it. One forum comment suggested that if Pitman was crap, then he should at least be able to prove it in a yellow shirt. Personally, if he’s crap, I think he should be given a Swindon shirt in which to prove it. Whatever the reason, he seemed destined to become nothing more than a footnote in a future edition of the Oxford United Miscellany.

His return, and goals against Crawley and then on Saturday in the demolition of Aldershot, is welcomed but should still be greeted with some caution. Although demonstrating some poetic justice with the goal against Crawley, he still has much to prove. A year ago Jack Midson led the line with a hat-trick against Torquay in the Miracle of Plainmoor, which rightly afforded him a brief reprieve from the knackers’ yard. But, despite tireless, though largely ineffectual performances (11 more appearances, 1 goal) his story had already been written and it was a mere stay of execution.

Wilder is right to be ruthless with players; such is the way with football, a manager’s contract is meaningless so he can be fired at any moment. A failed player can sit on the sidelines drawing a salary for months, years even, without ever having to prove himself. The manager has the right to protect his job and reputation. His use of the term ‘assets’ to describe players is also appropriate, that’s what the players have to be. He would be a weaker manager if he felt paternalistic towards his charges. Players are happy to sell themselves as assets when looking for a new contract, so they should also be happy to be used and sold as such.

So, can Pittman make turn his Oxford career around? Wilder is right when he asserts that his future is in his own hands. If he wants to play in front of 8-9,000 people and draw the adulation that comes with that, then he’s got to get past his manager first. His challenge, should he accept it, is to remove the option available to Wilder in overlooking him by working his arse off and being bloody brilliant.Two goals in two games helps.

Pittman’s Twitter persona paints him as a reasonable and thoughtful bloke, so hopefully he realises that success is in his gift. Unless he’s taken the last portion of pasta at training this morning, that is.

Photo by NobbyD, reproduced without kind permission, but he's such a top bloke, I'm sure he won't mind.

Crawley In Space

2012-01-04T07:43:00.001Z

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

Turmoil has engulfed the footballing galaxy, Jabba The Evans has amassed a vast clone army that threatens to overrun all that opposes it. Using their ill gotten gains and mysterious resources, the army from Mos Crawley - a wretched hive of scum and villiany - is sweeping away all that stands in its way bringing fear and darkness to the galaxy.

But there is hope in Luke Skywilder and his Rebel Alliance. Jabba the Evans doesn't believe in his sorcerer's ways, he thinks Skywilder's sad devotion to his ancient religion has not given him clairvoyance enough to fire the Rebels to promotion. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, says Evans.

But, the force is strong in Skywilder and he approaches the battle by launching a damn fool idealistic crusade. He deploys R2DLewis to Jabba's lair to shut down his garbage mashers on the detention level. Meanwhile the Mel-ville-PO, the protocol droid, translates the battleground into one of his 6 million languages.

Wilder squares up to Jabba...

Jabba - He doesn't like you (pointing at Jabba’ssidekick Doctor Raynor).

Skywilder: Sorry.

Jabba - *I* don't like you either. You just watch yourself.We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems.

Skywilder - I'll be careful.

Jabba - You'll be dead!

Meanwhile, in the stands, the Fanwoks, a friendly but ferociously brave tribe, follow the lead of Skywilder's motley band by throwing down rocks of abuse onto Jabba's forces and whittling tree trunks to destroy its AT-ST's (which are both surpringly brittle and wholly inappropriate for the terrain).

Anyway...

Under a constant battery, Yellow 5, using his might and battle experience, fights a gallant rear guard action with the A Whing Interceptor, Yellow 16, picking off anything that comes in the ground attack.

Then Pittmanakin emerges from the swamp, a new hope. This is the boy who can do it all but was lured to the darkside by Jabba. He returns to strike a blow against evil. Great shot, kid, that was one in a million.

But just as it seemed that Jabba had been defeated, he strikes back, escaping with a point, able to fight another day. The stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder.

Skywilder lowers his head and says forlonly "Told you, I did. Reckless is he. Now matters are worse."

Credits roll.

Torquay United 0 Oxford United 0

2011-12-31T07:43:00.000Z

It seems fitting that Saturday's welcome non-event at Torquay concluded 2011 seeing that it was at Plainmoor that the year was ignited. With literally nothing to write about from the game, it seems the perfect opportunity to use that trusted device the American sitcoms use from time to time. Yup, let's review the year with a few flashbacks.

Man of the year: Michael Duberry
Over a 12 month period, there is one player who stands imperious over others. It is amazing that only now people are talking about Ryan Clarke as a potential transfer target for clubs at a higher level. James Constable rightly takes on the role of talisman at the club, but barely a game goes by Clarke making a match winning, or saving, save, some of which are world class. To date, he's saved 57% of the penalties he's faced, which is remarkable when you consider that on average only 18% of penalties are saved by the goalkeeper.

But, despite being at the club for only about 5 months - two where he's been injured - no other player has had a greater impact on the club than Michael Duberry. Despite Clarke's brilliance, last year conceding goals was our forte. Duberry has come in and instantly shored up a leaky back four.

But more than that, he's 36, he's played at a much higher level, he's been subjected to the ugly side of football and yet he remains enthusiastic, positive and committed. An intelligent and thoughtful player. It would be so easy to get carried away with his relative celebrity, but you cannot be anything but impressed by his performances both on and off the pitch.

Game of the year: Miracle of Plainmoor
The Swindon game seems the obvious candidate for the game of 2011. It extinguished a 38-year barren run of results at the County Ground. They tried to unsettle our star striker only for the star striker to ram their bullshit right back down their throats. The pantomime villian of the piece got his comeuppance. It even got my write-up about the game some coverage on the Guardian website.

But, the Swindon game was almost too perfect. It was pure theatre, there was a performance with a happy ending - it was almost too scripted.

So, for masochists like me, the game of the year was the aforementioned Miracle of Plainmoor in January. It wasn't just the 4-3 away win, it was more about the subtext. There wasn't a stage or a performance, it was a mundane nothingy fixture. And that's what makes it such a magnificent story.

With the December calendar decimated by snow, we returned to action after nearly a month without a game with a lingering fear that we were about to have a post-snow collapse similar to the one we had 12 months earlier. But, we beat Macclesfield and it seemed that we'd retained our form.

Then, the world collapsed around our ears at home to Southend. An apopleptic Chris Wilder made 8 changes to the starting line-up for the away trip to Torquay a few days later. This included Jack Midson, who was returning from the WILDERness to lead the line at the expense of James Constable. But was Wilder's anger about to get the better of him?

We raced to a 2-0, then 3-1 lead, before entering injury time all square. Then, Midson skipped through and snuck home the winner and complete his hat-trick. Moments later, Steve MacLean stood on the ball in celebration - the picture of the year.

Tour of the year: US tour
OK, not exactly a lot of competition in this category, but the US tour this summer was brilliant. Timed to coincide with that point in the summer when you actually think you should start trying to work out the point of cricket, the tour of the US happened and it was like going back to the days of Roy of the Rovers.

With games kicking off at 11pm at night, no TV coverage and just the radio connecting you to the games, it felt like they were being played on the moon. A big adventure.

Twitter also came into its own, whether it was following the players onto the plane or the chairman chastising Dean Smalley's finishing via the club's official feed. A PR masterstroke.

Feature of the year: Kassam All Star XI
Perhaps the most startling thing about the Kassam All Star XI series is that I actually finished something I started. Celebrating, if such a thing is possible, a decade at the Three Sides of Hell, the Kassam All Star XI recognised the best the stadium has seen:

Turley, Ricketts, Crosby, Creighton, Robinson, Clist, Bulman, Whitehead, Constable, Mooney, Brooks

Goal of the year: Peter Leven v Port Vale
Every goal that we've ever scored has been greeted with a phrase akin 'WHATAGOAL!'. It always takes me by suprise when the ball hits the back of the net. You'd think I'd have learnt by now, but I'm a bit of a simpleton like that.

But, when Peter Leven intercepted a short pass ten yards inside our own half and looked towards goal, I couldn't have been the only person who chastised him for launching it towards goal. The next 3 seconds produced, maybe, the greatest goal ever seen at the stadium.

AFC Wimbledon 0 Oxford United 2

2011-12-27T21:59:00.001Z

Sky weren't kidding when they declared the dawn of the Premier League in 1992 as 'A Whole New Ball Game'. For those who weren't around at that momentous time, it is difficult to overstate the revolutionary impact the new era had on football shorts in England.

Just 8 weeks before the launch of this new era, England's woeful Euro 92 campaign farted and spluttered into nothingness via two 0-0 draws, and a spanking at the hands of hoover nozzle entrepreneur and sometime Swedish footballing lardball Tomas Brolin. The '92 failure wasn't about Graham Taylor's pragmatism, Carlton Palmer's improbable international career, Paul Gasgoine's injury or Gary Linekar's premature retirement, it was about the levels of testicular constraint leveled at the country's finest footballers. Their shorts ended just below scrotal base, leaving large expanses of thigh and a distinct bulging in the pants area.

By August of that year, the short short long short revolution had happened, out went tight, short and shiny, in came long, baggy and matt. At once, a line was drawn in the sand between what is officially known as 'the past' and 'the modern era' (or, if you work for the Premier League marketing department; the entire history of football, ever). Look at your team's greatest moment and consider their shorts. If they look like they're wearing swimming trunks; then, I'm sorry, your team is from The Past. Many, like us with our peak in the mid-80s, missed the cut. Although our boxing day opponents Wimbledon got to don the baggy shorts of modernity they died trying to keep them on and will always be known for their short and shiny '88 FA Cup win.

Sky's Boxing Day treat for those suffering from turkey reflux was pure 80s throwback. It was a decision that can only have been made by those battling with the ills of their late-30s. That generation of eternal children, with their converse trainers and ironic t-shirts, who have surfed the property boom without ever having to grow up. Now, with the dawning of the age of austerity and the end of the consumer electronics orgy, these souls are lost. Christmas needs re-defining, and where better to look for it than the magical Christmases of their childhood when a pinstripe Liverpool shirt* as a present was the pinnacle of all life's possibilities and Oxford and Wimbledon were resolutely top-flight.

That and the fact the game was being played a few miles from Sky's Isleworth studio, which presumably made mustering a decent crew slightly easier.

Certainly the nostalgia narrative was strong in the build up to the game; with both our Milk Cup and Wimbledon's FA Cup wins from the 80s being shown and bubble permed pitbull Terry Gibson shivering on the sidelines as the surprisingly erudite and balanced expert analyser. We were reminded that the two teams met in the top flight on Boxing Day 1986, almost as though it were a legendary meeting. How they would have killed for some footage.

It would be pushing it to say that there was a Wimbledon bias in the coverage, I guess most of those involved couldn't give a stuff about who won and were just thankful that the kick-off was sufficiently early to allow them to get back to the half eaten box of Quality Street they'd been working on throughout Christmas Day. It's hard not to want the Wimbledon project to succeed given the injustice of their recent history. But to the general frustration of all, we proved emphatically that we're better equipped to progress this season.

We were so in control in the first half, despite the claims of luck in the first goal, that Sky - hearing the echoes of TVs being switched off everywhere - were using examples from unrelated games to prove that this was still a competition.

'You would never have believed that Ipswich would have scored 5 second half goals against Barnsley a few weeks ago, so it's still game-on here'.

The second half was a different affair, the central storyline focussed on a plethora of penalty appeals, which they eventually mellowed on. Andy D'Urso was never actually going to award six penalties and there was recognition that, in most of the cases, you could only make the call with the benefit of multiple camera angles and slow motion replays. At least Dons Manager, Terry Brown, was decent enough to recognise that their loss and the Dons current poor form is not down to poor refereeing decisions. You're not going to get that kind of response in the Premier League.

As the clock ticked beyond the 80th minute, we had regained our composure and saw the game out with some comfort. Wimbledon's success in the 80s, the subsequent stripping of their soul and their resurrection via park football and fan power is undoubtedly the greater story of the two clubs, but of those whose celebrated success in the era of the tight short, we're the more likely to have something to celebrate come May.

* Ever the counter-culturalist, in my case it was an Ipswich Town shirt - long story.

Morecambe 0 Oxford United 0, Oxford United 2 Northampton Town 0

2011-12-23T08:15:00.001Z

Perhaps it was just fatigue brought on by Friday's office Christmas party, a night which inverts the world's fundamental structures by giving power to the brainless - dividing the world between those who like to sway self-conciously to Abba and those, with the power of rational thought and opposable thumbs, who don't. Perhaps it was just that and a month of organising and then moving house. But whatever it was, as I walked up to the Kassam on Saturday, I could hear the familiar strains of Use Somebody by Kings of Leon playing out and it felt kinda' old.

When it was first introduced at the Kassam in 2009, it was symbolic of our resurgence under Chris Wilder. Now rather than anthemic and uplifting, it sounds a little tired. Last season it seemed fitting that it was part of our pre-match canon; recounting the enduring spirit of, and reward for, an epic promotion season.

Last year's Bad Run (BRI) was confirmation of how difficult life in the Football League can be. There was some concern that Chris Wilder wasn't up to it, alongside the likes of Constable and Wright, but there was a general acceptance that league football is and should be hard - a kind of self flagellation. When the run was emphatically smashed at Chesterfield it was proof that the Oxford spirit, so perfectly captured in the soaring chorus of Use Somebody, will always win out.

Something is different post- Bad Run 2 (BRII), the breaking of the run was no new dawn, just a bloody grind against Morecambe. The 'return to form' win against Northampton had a more pragmatic feel about it. This is because playing Northampton is no longer treated like we're meeting an old friend, they're a team we're expecting to beat if we've got any ambition of promotion. Which we have, no longer a momentous soaring ambition - a magical story of redemption and resurrection - more a serious, let's get down to work ambition.

Last year we were hopeful of promotion, but more than anything, we were glad to be back and playing good football. Relegation back into the Conference was always a lingering fear, even when things were going well. This year, thoughts of relegation are non-existent, mid-table safety is not acceptable, promotion is expected, not just hoped for.

As a result, Use Somebody feels like it's from a by-gone age of wide-eyed naivety. In this more pragmatic time, its swooping refrain is representative of a dumb less wizened time. Perhaps we're beginning to see that League 2 doesn't represent the promised land as was enthusiastically proclaimed post-Wembley. League 2 is a mere stepping stone to something bigger, where we belong is not in the football league, it's at the top end of the football league.

I'm not sure this is altogether a healthy state. Ambition is important, it keeps complacency at bay. But, I enjoyed last season, there was a freshness to it. Everything good that happened was greeted with rapture, failure was greeted with a comforting arm around the club. Now it's getting a bit dour; we walk away from a win against Northampton with a firm handshake of a professional job well done. Fitting, perhaps, that the club have chosen Kasabian's Club Foot as the music to come out to. It's a ballsy, driving, serious about being good and since it was adopted by Sky; corporate as hell.

Successful teams drive out risk. They buy when they're to the top, they manipulate games and competitions to minimise the risk of failure, they don't seem to enjoy themselves a whole heap. Sometimes it seems more exciting to avoid failure than to succeed. But, we do want to succeed on the pitch, and sadly, I guess we've got to be professional about it. We shouldn't, however, forget that a win against Northampton is actually something to be celebrated, not just acknowledged or expected.

Oxford United 1 Cheltenham 3

2011-11-26T20:52:00.000Z

Apparently there were a host of scouts at Saturday's game looking at Cheltenham's on loan keeper Jack Butland and possibly our own Robbie Hall. These two may well be accompanying each other on a failed expedition to the World Cup in the future. But far from reporting back on those flibberty gibbets, the scouts would do well to report back what a good manager Mark Yates is.

Yates has always done well with what he's be given; which isn't much usually. He has a talent for spotting strong, skillful, no-nonsense players who work like dogs. To illustrate the point, Mark Creighton and James Constable are both Yates signings from when he was at Kidderminster. At a time when Cheltenham were in financial difficulties and looked like certainties for the drop, his appointment was a masterstroke.

He's produced another very good side; by far the best we've faced at home this season. They reminded me of us at our pomp during the promotion season, straight forward in their approach and overwhelming with their force of personality. We just weren't ready for them, or at least we didn't have the personnel to deal with them. This was truly a game that needed Michael Duberry's influence. We needed him to helped compose the defence, we needed Potter to disrupt the straight lines Cheltenham played down. Andy Whing tried to slow things down, but he doesn't command the same respect on the pitch or in the crowd to settle things. Hall was overwhelmed and intimidated by their game - they showed him off to be the boy he is.

We expect too much from Hall. He has the talent, but he's 17, expecting him to dominate the game against the better players in the division is probably pushing things too far at the moment. Against the more moderate sides, he shows what a good player he'll be, against the real men of the better teams he won't get the same space. England internationals are in the boy's future; but the streetwise Craddock and Potter are probably more useful to us in that situation.

We've just played the best three teams in the division, two of them away, the third on a hot streak away from home. Mark Yates' abilities do not make Chris Wilder a bad manager.

Crawley Town 4 Oxford United 1

2011-11-19T20:30:00.000Z

When Peter Leven looks up 50 yards from goal and rifles one into the top right hand corner, when Rob Hall delicately volleys a hip-hieght cross past a bewildered Plymouth keeper. When Tom Craddock dances through deep into injury time and clips the ball over the Port Vale keeper for the winner seconds after conceding, When James Constable shins the winner in front of the Town End. When Potter plays it to Deering, then Deering to Potter, and when Potter lashes the ball in at Wembley.

When these things happened, where are all those people who think that Chris Wilder should resign? It seems almost too obvious to say but, we've had two league games away to the top two in the division, we've had a cup game away to one of the top teams in the division above and we've had a JPT game which was as freakish as it was meaningless.

During this time, Michael Duberry has been injured and Robbie Hall went back to West Ham. Their obvious replacements; Harry Worley and Tom Craddock have been returning from injury. The uncharitable might argue that we should have better cover for Hall and Duberry. But Hall and Duberry are in many ways unique for this level. Hall is considered to be a better prospect than Jermaine Defoe - one of the best English strikers of the decade.

Michael Duberry is almost unique in the division in that he's a player of genuine class who loves football so much that he wants to play for as long as he can. In the past, these players were dotted around the lower leagues; unlike now, it wasn't possible for a moderate top-league player to retire after a single Premier League contract. Now Duberry is pretty much the only player from the Premier League in League 2 still willing to put in the graft.

Although I don't quite subscribe to the adage that cup competitions are a lottery and that anything can happen - they are typically won by the top teams - I also don't think you can really count them towards anything resembling 'form'. The form book is skewed during November because the fixture list is punctuated by cup competitions. In reality, therefore, we've lost two away fixtures to the division's two top teams. If these two games had been six months apart, nobody would have batted an eyelid at the result. And certainly nobody would be questioning Chris Wilder's ability.

The reaction to the 4-1 defeat to Crawley is further skewed by who they are. In the natural course of events Crawley would have gone bust 5 years ago and would be scratching around the Conference South or below. In any other industry, Steve Evans' criminal record would almost certainly have seen him struggle to get another job. We are frustrated by the Crawley freakshow because it cynically corrupts the competition. They are an effective team, but a moribund club and concept. Football is at its best when there is competition; a small variation between the chances of winning and losing. Crawley have corrupted the competition through their spending and cynicism, but we should rise above it. Let them do whatever it is they want to do.

Sheffield United 3 Oxford United 0

2011-11-17T21:28:00.001Z

As a boy, the young Chris Wilder wanted to be a neuroscientist, he would spend hours in his bedroom cutting out pictures of his favourite neuroscientists and pinning them on the wall. His dad told the young dreamer that his hopes were just pie in the sky and that he should instead focus on do what everyone in the town did and become a member of the long term unemployed.

But Chris was a strong willed boy and knew that in order to become the first northerner to go to university, he would have to work his socks off and pass his maths O Level. Being positive and bang at it and professional, Wilder studied with a passion. He consumed himself in his text books, he'd work late and get up early, just to study.

The day of the maths exam came and young Wilder felt confident that he'd done enough to pass. As the examiner told the students to turn over their papers, there was an audible gasp and faces all around him were ashen. Wilder set to work, putting into practice all he had learned. He finished way before everyone else, all those around him toiled. It was, he thought, easy.

But when he got his results, to his dismay, he had not read the question properly and he'd failed. It destroyed any chance he had of becoming a neuroscientist. From that day on, he promised never again under-think a problem.

Fast forward several years, and to Saturday, and Lord Wilder was again faced with a key decision. Putting into practice the vow he made of that fateful day. He over analysed his big day because he was so desperate to please and impress. Oddly, his selection against Burton in the 1st round last year was similarly peculiar. This was the first time in football history that a team played with two left backs and two right backs in the same team (Purkiss, Batt, Tonkin and Kinniburgh). And there was no James Constable. Perhaps he has a theory about the FA Cup? Perhaps it is wrong.

This year, Asa Hall, who appears to be spending November raising money for Children In Need by playing in every conceivable position, played up front. Constable was missing, and Harry Worley dropped to the bench. We know what we're good at, and should stick to that, sadly, sometimes Lord Wilder fails to keep it simple.

Then again, if you hurt the ones you love the most, then perhaps we've seen where Chris Wilder's heart really is.

Southend 2 Oxford United 1, Oxford United 0 Southend 1

2011-11-11T22:04:00.001Z

It's been a funny old week for Lord Wilder. Ever since 1987 Cup Final Exocet Missile impersonator Keith Houchen pulled Wilder's boyhood heroes Sheffield United out of the FA Cup's velvet bag to face the mightiest of yellows at Bramall Lane he's been all of a flutter.

But, being bang at it and professional is what our Chris is all about. With an imminent reunion likely to resemble the sodden carcass of Leonardo di Caprio bobbing to the surface of the Atlantic Ocean as Kate Winslett climbs on board the rescue boat, it was time to get back to the day job and head over to Roots Hall for a 2-1 reverse against Southend.

I was driving down the M1 from York. The sky was grey, the drizzle fine; and on the radio were 80's throwback fixtures Aston VIlla v Norwich and Liverpool v Swansea. I had visions of Big Tosh bulging out of his Liverpool shirt, staring into the middle distance during a minute's silence for Bill Shankly.

Perhaps it's our good form that made me nostalgic for the good old days. The 80s, of course, was when we could tune into the radio without wincing at what we might find. When Radio Oxford finally crackled into range it sounded like things were going well. It was 0-0, but we were giving them a battering. Jerome Sale and Nick Harris, whose interaction is almost wholly self referencing nowadays, were digging each other in the ribs recounting, at a level of detail that would impress a forensic scientist, how reminiscent the closing moments of the half were to the Gillingham game. Sure enough, like then, we conceded.

Three days later, our Chris was lying on the settee gazing at his old pals in his fully complete '92 Panini sticker book, dreaming of walking into Bramall Lane with Blades fans screaming "Chris, you're a legend, come back and turn us into Real Madrid" when the alarm on his phone went off. Southend? Again? Tonight? In the say-what-now trophy?

In the week that Jimmy Saville died, a man who once fixed it for some pock-faced Gooner to referee a game in which his beloved Arsenal turned over the result of our famous 1984 League Cup giant killing, we faced Southend again for a similarly farcical re-run. With Jim'll, no doubt, looking down proudly, Wayne Thingy, summond the spirit of Jimmy Glass - patron saint of lower league pub quiz questions, to get himself sent off faster than it typically takes me to drink my coffee.

Asa Hall donned the oversized shirt and gloves and promptly introduced the world to a goalkeeping revolution; its Fosbury Flop moment. Soon all Goalkeepers will be taught to flap hopelessly and squeak whenever the ball comes within fifteen feet of them.

Tom Craddock capped things by igniting his own version of the Carlos Tevez affair, lamping the nearest player in a Southend shirt in the face probably shouting at Chris Wilder "I told you I wasn't ready" as he joined Thingmabob for a long soak.

The moment the referee peep peeped to signal we could all go home, we collectively decided that Johnsons Paint Tin is something we never cared about in the first place.

Now, Chris lies in bed watching the clock on his hotel TV click-by minute by minute. The week of the Southends behind him, tomorrow he goes home to a proper football club in a proper football competition. I hope he gets some sleep, wouldn't want him to be overtired for his big day.

Oxford United 2 Port Vale 1

2011-11-02T14:33:00.001Z

As I walked down a decrepit Belfast street with a Sheffield United supporting colleague last Tuesday, conversation inevitably turned to Chris Wilder.

Me: 'The constant fear is that they [Sheffield United] will take Wilder"

He: "They probably will next time. It's the sort of stupid sentimental thing they do"

It's true, Chris Wilder may well be lured to a bigger club, Mickey Adams certainly thinks he's capable. He'll probably end up at Sheffield United or a similar 'big club' basket case. At this point one of two things are likely to happen. He'll either buckle under the deep seated historical failures of his new club or he will bring them moderate success and become a member of the small cabal of managers who constantly swap places amongst the lower Premier/upper Championship pseudo-elite - Sam Allardyce, Steve McCLaren, Mick McCarthy et al. He will not be offered a position which gives him the security or resources to bring genuine trophy-led success to a club. His legacy will be his moderate success at a moderate club. His time at Oxford, to the vast majority, a mere footnote.

We won't forget. Saturday's 2-1 win over Port Vale was the convergence of all that Chris Wilder has achieved in the last three years. There have been bigger games such as the play-off final against York or the win over Swindon, and bigger wins such as Bristol Rovers and Plymouth. But those were champagne moments, this was the bread and butter humdrum of the league and he turned it into something special.

He's made having 8,000 people in the stadium feel normal. That's about 3,000 on the gate since he arrived. Extrapolate that over a season, and he could easily be generating the club an additional £1.5 million a year at the turnstiles.

With this he's put together a team that inspires front to back, all of which were evident on Saturday. Ryan Clarke's penalty save was an absolute marvel, you couldn't have scripted it better. Michael Duberry is a revelation in his performances and his attitude. His goal - his first in English goal since 18 October 2005 - was a joy . Jake Wright got involved with a brilliant suicide block in the first half followed by a triple sliding tackle on the edge of his box in the second. Paul McLaren's set the tone, battling for the ball whilst sitting on his backside. On the half way line. In the most ordinary of league games, this was the most extraordinary of league games.

Then there was Peter Leven's goal. I've seen similar goals from the halfway line on TV and written them off as either a fluke or relatively easy. On TV it's tightly cropped and two dimensional. The commentator announces it removing the surprise. The player has worked a bit of space, all he needs is a bit of line and length and a hapless keeper hopelessly out of position and he's in. In the end, all you're doing is looping one over his head. How difficult is that?

In reality, it's very different; let me break it down.

Part 1: The context - We had conceded a couple of minutes earlier. Port Vale are a good side, the jolt of the goal and the rabid reaction of the Vale fans had us on the back foot. With our confidence dented, there was a real risk of throwing away points in a game where we'd created an avalanche of chances. The natural reaction is to be conservative and edgy. Any misplaced pass or skewed shot was likely to trigger derision from the home fans, then fear and finally, quite possibly, defeat. Leven, however, was thinking beyond this bucked the natural law by looking towards the audacious.

Part 2: The vision - Football is played to a certain geometry. There were a number of conventional options once Leven had won the ball; play-in Constable or push it wide to Hall or Potter. Or maybe a little side pass to Heslop, who had the time to look up and choose the best option.That's the text book approach. In conventional football, there is very little positive about the ball traveling 50 yards, 12 feet above the ground. This is a plain in a football arena reserved for defensive clearances. So, Leven defied the laws of football physics by making a creative, attacking and purposeful move towards the goal from 50 yards beyond head height - that's vision.

Part 3 - The opposition - The goalkeeper is a real living, breathing opponent. He doesn't just let the ball go over his head and shrug his shoulders, he back tracks and reaches and stretches. In short, he's there to be beaten, not just lobbed over.

Part 4 - the maths - The ball has to remain at a height beyond the reach of the keeper as he's back tracking, that must be 8-10 metres. But it can't be too high because it'll need to dip if it's going to go in.

Then it starts dipping. Once you've got your head around the idea that he's gone for goal, you start calculating the probability of it actually going in. When the ball leaveshis boot, the calculator clocks it at about 10% likelihood of actually going in, once it's beaten the keeper it's gone up, but only to 20%. It then starts its descent and the probability clock starts whirring madly; 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 60%, 80%. This. Might. Actually. Go. In. You hit 100% certainty a millisecond before the net ripples.

There's vision, precision, uncertainty and geometry. And Chris Wilder has brought this and more to the club, along with Duberry and Wright's bullish defending, Heslop's long range bullets, Constable's goals and Clarke's world class goalkeeping. When he is slogging away, getting hammered for not taking some deadbeat 'sleeping giant' into the Champions League, we will always remember that, and be thankful for what he has brought to the club, if you ever need a reminder of what that is, watch Saturday's 90 minutes. It will tell you everything.

Oxford United 5 Plymouth Argyle 1

2011-10-28T20:37:00.000+01:00

Not being melodramatic, but I think I suffer from depression. Many people suffer in some way, some without ever realising it. Avast majority of sufferers have it much worse than me. For me, I just get a bitmelancholic and struggle to find the capacity to process all the things thatlife throws at me. It’s really no big deal, but having just gone through itwith someone at work, I now realise it’s there.

Going to the football offers a degree of solace. To steal ananalogy I heard recently, if life is like nailing jelly to a wall, thenfootball is like putting in a box before you do it. It provides just enoughstructure and certainty to give my brain a rest, but just enough uncertaintyand fluidity for it not to be a complete fabrication. I don’t need to escapethat much.

I managed to book a meeting in Belfast on Tuesday therebymissing our 5-1 demolition of Plymouth. Even arriving at Belfast airport at6pm, there was part of me trying to working out whether I could make it to theKassam, just for a little bit. My flight eventually left at 9.35pm.

Watching the goals online, some of our finishing was breathtaking. When I saw Rob Hall's volley, I let out an involutary yelp of exclamation.

I find Plymouth’s plight quite depressing. Other clubs whohave hit troubles are either led there by evil or incompetent owners or werenever capable of sustaining the success they craved. I still harbour frustration at Lincoln negligent relegation last year. I don’t know much about The Pilgrim's ownership woes (apart from reports a terrifying Kassam/Ridsdale hook up)but they are a club that should be able to sustain Championship level football.OK, their large travelling contingent is a bit misleading. Many are Devonian migrants who are more likelyto attend away games than home. But there's no reason why Devon shouldn't sustain a decent standard football club. Plymouth appearto have innocently followed the dream amidst promises of Premier League richesand more latterly the World Cup. Now they face relegation and, perhaps,complete obliteration.

Presumably there are Plymouth fans like me, who enjoy theirclub because it offers them a safe haven and home base. Now they’re faced with unstructured chaos.Tosee Plymouth chasing shadows is particularly depressing.

Gillingham 0 Oxford United 1

2011-10-23T22:17:00.000+01:00

I wasn’t really tuned into the EPPP vote. But, having readabout it, perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that people aresurprised about it.

Those at the very top of the game don’t need this, ofcourse. Theirs is just a big cash race. Player development is a fool’s game; ittakes too long and is far too risky. The next 14 Premier League clubs, however,are so laden with debt and are such brittle businesses; anything that skews thegame in their favour, protecting them from external competition, has got to be agood thing. It’s not so much a question of buying success, or even beinggreedy, it’s just a question of survival.

Do the rest of us suffer? In a sense, if we use the top ofthe Premier League as our reference point for success. But the quality gap isinsurmountable anyway. As a rule of thumb, it’ll cost half a billion pounds totouch the top of the Premier League. To be a successful Premier League club, wewould have to corrupt ourselves, change our identity.

So, why do we use it as a reference point? The more detachedthat the Premier League becomes, in a sense, the better it is for us. OK, we’llnever threaten the very top of the game, but so what? Once the Premier Leaguemoney-race finally divorces itself from the rest of the sport, either throughEPPP or by removing promotion or some other nefarious means, then the rest ofthe sport can readjust and carry on in a healthier – more competitive - state.

The success of football’s business model over the lastcentury has been in its overall competition, not in the success of any individual club. Sincethe Premier League has come into being, it’s been open warfare, destroy oneclub in order to make another. Manchester City’s thrashing of Manchester Unitedon Sunday was a pretty hollow victory because it only proved what we alreadyknow – money gives you success. We don’t need football to prove that. In thatcontext, football is a complete waste of time.

Do you know the difference between a nationalist and apatriot? A nationalist loves his country and hates all others. A patriot loveshis country, but doesn’t hate all others. The Premier League are thenationalists of football – they want to destroy others. The rest of us are thepatriots. I don’t want to win promotion by changing the rules to ensure we destroyeveryone else, I want to win by being the best at football in the division.

Saturday’s defeat to Gillingham was, of course, galling. Andwe slipped to 7^th as a result. A season in a competitive league isan epic story fraught with peril and potential disaster, but equally, it’s fullof hope and excitement. Crawley aside, League 2 is a truly competitive divisionbased on sporting endeavor. I'd much rather League 2 uncertainty than Premiership hegemony. Of course, we all crave certainty, we would loveto know that we’ll go up. But if we did,we’d be much poorer for it. Bring on the rollercoaster.

Macclesfield Town 1 Oxford United 1

2011-10-21T10:02:00.002+01:00

I don’t like runs, especially ones that threaten to berecord breaking. Losing runs are, of course, demoralising and agitate people intorash decisions, whether that be making grand proclamations of failure,replacing managers or dropping players.

Equally, winning runs become debilitating. Before Saturday’s1-1 draw with Macclesfield we were looking at a record equalling fifth straightaway win (although whether the JPT win over Aldershot should count shouldprobably be disputed). Had we won, the Gillingham game would have been recordbreaking.

But winning runs are like inflating a bike tyre, at firstevery pump is a noticeable improvement and really welcomed. But each additionalpump takes you closer to over-inflating and another puncture. The more youinflate, the more dramatic the pop.

This is because a run takes you further and further into theunknown. Drawing with Macclesfield should be considered the best resultpossible – even better than a win in the long term. I know everyone likeswinning, but the draw acts as a valve, releasing a bit of pressure. We can gointo the Gillingham game with our form in tact, but no talk of records.

I do like trends, because trends give you an indication ofthe real picture. Trends include the vagaries of lucky wins, dodgy defeats,injuries and suspensions and any seasonal factors. Nobody ever won a title bywinning every game so defeats and draws – Sir Alex Ferguson’s squeaky bum time –need to be accepted as part of the rough and tumble of a season. Promotion iswon by ensuring the standard remains high and the fluctuations are less varied.

My favourite trend is the 46 game moving annual total, thisaccounts for those fluctuations: the points accumulated from the last 46 gamesgive you an idea of our form on an annual basis. Last year we accumulated 63points, we needed 68 to be in the play-offs, and 80 to be promotedautomatically.

The 46 games up to and including Saturday’s game saw usaccumulate 72 points, which is play-off form. It is also by some distance thebest form we’ve been in since we returned to the Football League. And, if failto pick up points in Gillingham, this is not a sign that the bubble has burst,because the annual total will simply remain on 72.

Oxford United 3 Bristol Rovers 0

2011-10-10T22:28:00.002+01:00

After last week’s freak heatwave, I looked out from theSouth Stand on Saturday at the slate grey sky with the floodlights glowing.Down below Simon Heslop received a pass, a feint shadow was caste on the pitch.My heart warmed.

We are the people of the gloaming. As the summer departsmost recede to their houses, their weekends defined by X Factor and Strictly.We, on the other hand, appear blinking into the gloom; our weekends havepurpose and focus.

Saturday’s 3-0 win over Bristol Rovers was English footballat its very best.

It didn’t need to be like that, of course, neither sidecould boast particularly stellar form – us at home or them away. It was nolocal derby, no make or break. Ticket prices weren’t slashed, like the day’s other big League 2 crowdat Bradford. On paper, it was just another lower league fixture. But, with goodmarketing by both clubs we got a sizable crowd and atmosphere that was areminder of football’s good old days.

The surprise isn’t so much the size of the crowd, more thatit doesn’t happen more often.

On the way in, Radio Five were in discussion with JoeyBarton. As is so often the case with media-hate figures, Barton came over asarticulate and thoughtful. He recognised that elite sportsmen, footballers inparticular, are oddballs. They have to be, they spend their lives eatinggrilled chicken and pasta, they do their job with 50,000 people screaming bileat them and sports science means they have reached a point of physical fitnessthat makes them more machines than men. They have mind-boggling salaries,preposterously big houses and pneumatic wives. Barton recognises how bizarrethis is, not to excuse his behaviour, but helps to explain it. If he wanted toplay sport for sport, he’d have taken up rugby league, he said.

And yet, Premier League players are considered thedefinition of perfection – good looking, rich, skilful. But they are odd, asin, not typical.

On Friday, I turned over to see that England had qualifiedfor Euro 2012. England games are now relegated to Friday nights, when QI,Outnumbered and Would I Lie To You are all perfectly adequate viewingalternatives. England had just conceded a two-goal lead against a micro-nation,but were slapping each other on the back stony faced, as a job well done.Although live on Sky the game had no coverage on terrestrial TV. You have towonder, who were they doing it for, and who really cared?

The oddballs of the Premier League are achieving things Ican’t bring myself to care about. It is increasingly pointless and joyless. Ican’t have heroes who are over-evolved freaks, I want them to be flawed, I wantthem to take the tube once in a while and have mortgages.

It helps when you’re successful, well, competitive at least.It is easier to drag yourself to a game when there’s the prospect of a win.Ultimate Support Saturday helped sustain the momentum that has been provided bya good start to the season, but, it wasn’t just the result; if we’d lost ordrawn it would still have been worthwhile.

Hereford 0 Oxford United 1

2011-10-07T21:44:00.003+01:00

I have a confession to make. I quite like Gary Neville. Iknow that he’s has a bit of a rat face, and he had the irritating myopia of hisformer manager, but he’s loyal, unrelenting and intelligent, consistent andtalented. The best right-back of his generation. You would love to have a GaryNeville at your club.

As a TV pundit he offers insight that the old lags Lawrensonand Hansen can’t hope to make. He’s almost unique in being a player of themodern era who has played at the very top (and I don’t mean Jamie Redknapp‘top’, I mean the proper top) plus he is articulate enough to provide insightabout that.

In the closing minutes of Manchester United’s Champions’League game against Basel, Neville offered more insight than Alan Hansen hasprovided in the last five years. 2-3 down, Manchester United scored at thedeath and the commentator speculated as to why they have a habit of scoringgoals at the death.

Neville’s explanation wasn’t a Hansen list of meaninglessnouns (power, pace, passion…). Neville put it simply; when entering the lastminute the Manchester United philosophy is; create one good chance and we willscore.

It seems so obvious really; but how often do see teamslaunch balls into the box in hope of snatching an unlikely equaliser or winner?One in every ten aimless punts might succeed. Manchester United create a singlegood chance with a 80-90% chance of conversion.

At the heart of United’s success is patience not panic,quality not quantity. This isn’t typical of English football, but thenManchester United, with their sustained dominance of domestic football, isn’t atypical English club.

For all the complaints about our home form, we are slowlycarving out a season in which we look capable of sustaining a charge atpromotion. The 1-0 win over Hereford putting us into the play-off positions, thisis not an explosion of success, but gradual finding of our mojo. The home formwill come, of that I’m sure.

Oxford United 1 Accrington Stanley 1

2011-09-27T21:42:00.002+01:00

To me, the problem isobvious; Peter Leven is a liability when he’s facing our goal. He needs someonelike Paul McLaren to mop up when someone nicks the ball off his toe or anaudacious cross-field pass ricochets off an oncoming striker’s shin.

The reason he’s aliability in that position, is that he has magic in his boots going forward,he’s a passer and passers don’t have the ball for long. That means it caneasily fall into the hands of the enemy.

The longer a game goes on,the less effective he is, perhaps it’s tiredness, maybe he gets sussed,whatever, he is just more susceptible to losing the ball.

So Leven’s protector needsto be on his money, particularly later in the game. Chris Wilder is concernedthat McLaren doesn’t have the fitness he needs at this point in his career toput in 50 90-minute games in a season. It’s not an unreasonable assessment.

The impact is particularlyacute at home. When you’re the home side, there is pressure to attack and chase the game. The awayside with no expectations when behind, can more easily counter-attack and play a risky and devil-may-caregame. As the home side, it is not advisable to sit on a lead when your opponentsare prepared to pile forward recklessly.

Away from home, once you're in the lead, there is noneed to attack. You can sit and absorb and hang onto a lead.You’re not expected to win, let alone attack, so sitting on a lead away is OK.

At home, Leven issusceptible to giving the ball away to opponents who are prepared to risk allto attack. Without McLaren mopping up, and in the case of Saturday, with amakeshift centre of defence, we get put under a lot of pressure.

Wilder’s response at home,understandably, is to try and inject energy into the midfield when it appearsto flag. In trying to go onto the offensive – replacing McLaren with Payne - webecome more open.

If we tightening things upwith Andy Whing, then everything becomes a bit sludgy. If you don’t play with Leven, thennobody is feeding the strikers, Batt and Davis and everything grinds to a halt.That leaves Heslop without the space he’s currently enjoying that allows him touse his prodigious shooting skills.

The answer, of course, isthat McLaren should be able to last 90 minutes and Leven shouldn’t give theball away. But, a bit like Neil Warnock said of Joey Barton; if they were thatgood, then wouldn’t be here.

I don’t know the answer –perhaps we should switch to 4-4-2 as the game progresses offering a bit moreprotection to Leven. It’s not the universal answer to all ourproblems, though. Neither should we get carried away that the problem is a deep andunsolvable one.

The bigger picture is thatwe are in an excellent position. If we were leading the table we would besalivating and taking our eye off the prize of promotion. For me, we are alwaysat our best when chasing, not leading.

Barnet 0 Oxford United 2

2011-09-20T21:43:00.001+01:00

Perhaps Sam Deering saw it as just being professional; thelittle hitch-kick into tight tuck following the challenge from Jake Wright thatresulted in Wright’s dismissal late on in the win over Barnet on Saturday.

To be fair to Deering, it seems unlikely he was aware thatWright was the man making the challenge and that he was on a booking. It doesseem likely that he was simply executing a deeply ingrained response to achallenge. Forget the professional foul; that was the professional dive.

Pundits refer to this kind of cheating as ‘drawing thefoul’, and use it in that patronisingly exclusive way that puts you as a fan inyour place – ‘if you’ve never played professional football, then you wouldn’tunderstand.’

No doubt Deering will have brushed off the criticism hereceived from his former manager, coach and team-mates. Its just part of thegame, that’s what Alan Shearer and Gary Linekar say.

But if you’re going to be a professional cheat, then you’vealso got to be very good with it. Sam Deering isn’t good enough to act allprime time. During his Oxford career, he occasionally came on to ignite somepace into a game when it lulled, but when used from the start, he rarelydelivered.

Compare him, then, to Alfie Potter, both very similarplayers, both afflicted with a talent that is difficult to channel,particularly in the lower leagues. What makes Potter different to Deering, andwhy, I think Chris Wilder persists with him and disposed of Deering is becausePotter works. You never get complaints from him; he bounces off lungingtackles, and he overall mentality seems pretty level headed. Wilder can seethat Potter offers something, and is prepared to work with him to get the mostout of him. Deering, on the other hand, became too labour intensive to be worthimproving; whether that was making racist comments on Facebook, turning up totraining late, or not delivering on the pitch.

Deering will never play for Wilder again, that’s for sure,so I don’t really expect him to show respect for his former managerspecifically, but, as I say, these are deep-set learnt behaviours. The more hedoes it, the more he’s likely to do it, the more he gets a reputation the lesslikely he is for managers to bother with him. Potter, on the other hand, ismuch more likely to sustain a career in the game.

Dagenham and Redbrige 0 Oxford United 1

2011-09-17T20:37:00.001+01:00

Football, at its very best, demands that you use a broadrange of emotions. Happiness alone is not enough. In fact, the more guaranteedyour happiness is, the less attractive football becomes. The early rounds of the FA Cup tell youthat. A home tie against a non-league side – and the promise of a festival ofgoals – will not generate big crowds. However, games against bigger teams,when you’re not likely to win can be a sell out.

On Tuesday night, following the 1-0 win over Dagenham andRedbridge, Chris Wilder got sniffy when his interviewer asked about a RyanClarke save in the closing minutes. He considered the question to be negative,resented the implication that we’d rode our luck.

But we need those moments of harum-scarum; it puts the goodtimes into stark relief. That’s areason that away wins tend to be more satisfying than a home one.

There was quite a bit of fall out following the draw withBurton. Someone commented that Jake Wright’s position should be under threat,albeit with a caveat that he’s still 'a legend’. When JP Pitman was loaned out toCrawley – a surprise to everyone, I think – somebody commented that it wouldhave been nice to see more of Pitman – good or bad. These were strangely guarded criticisms.

For nearly 3 years, it’s been good to be an Oxford fan. Buthave we got too nice? We seem to have an almost endless capacity for goodwill.Even the likes of Midson, Deering, Creighton and Green were brought up as peoplewho would never have got us into the 'parlous' state we’d found ourselves in (i.e. 1 defeat in 5). The endless niceness ignored Deering’s inability to reach the penalty boxfrom a corner, or Green’s patchy finishing. Effective though they were at the time;are they potential saviours now? No.

Perhaps we need someone to boo. Our boo reflex is all flabbyand unexercised, we can't discharge the range of emotions needed toenjoy football. We need a Matt Murphy, when the good times were rolling in 1996, wecould always channel our frustrations towards Murphy. It satisfied our need to criticise.

Because we need to be frustrated at football, and because wedon’t have anyone to be frustrated with, it means when negativity comes, itdoes so as one big overreaction, as we saw against Burton, followed by one big overreaction of positivity, as we've seen against Dagenham. We need to be more on the level.

Oxford United 2 Burton Albion 2

2011-09-13T22:16:00.002+01:00

Your boss calls you into his office. He’s looking at somesales figures. You’ve been with the company for nearly three years, you joinedwhen they were on their knees, but in that time you’ve improved those figuresyear-on-year.

He looks up and asks you how sales are this month. A littlebelow budget, you say, not the worst you’ve had in the last year, but broadlyon par.

He fires you on the spot.

Would this not strike you as a) a little unfair and b) anact of complete madness? This is effectively what those questioning ChrisWilder’s position are suggesting following the draw with Burton on Saturday.

The pundits claim that football is a results business. Thisis just a way of building a wall that creates the myth and legend of footballand the magic and genius of its exponents. Name me one business not built, insome way, on results? But, what other business judges its performance over just90 minutes? Surely it’s better to judge a manager on a full season?

I accept that you can’t wait until the end of each season tomake a full assessment of a manager’s performance. Sometimes you’ve got to cutyour losses before your season and, perhaps, your very existence is condemned.

Gut feel sure as hell isn’t a good measure. How about a 46game rolling points total? That way you smooth out short-term blips in form andhot streaks and get a much better feel for overall progress. Well, in the first46 games following promotion (including cup games) we accumulated 63 points.

In the 46 games up to and including Burton on Saturday weaccumulated 64 points. We were 5 points off the play-offs last year, that meanswe’ve clawed back 20% of the points that would make the difference between apar finish and the play-offs. And that 46 game sequence includes a 3 and a 5 gamelosing streak. Moderate form to will see us much further ahead in terms of theoverall target of the play-offs and promotion.

So the statistical trend is upwards, Wilderis making progress, why is his position being questioned?

Crewe Alexandra 3 Oxford United 1

2011-09-05T22:40:00.003+01:00

Football is a business of extremes. No other industry would employ Peter Ridsdale with his track record of taking sustainable businesses and depositing them on the brink of oblivion. No other business with a turnover less than your local supermarket goes from the virtual liquidation to sitting on £1.4 million in cash in barely 2 years.

That’s apparently the position that Bournemouth is in, if their chairman is to be believed. I work for a company with a similar turnover to Bournemouth, we’ve never come near to liquidation and we have twice that amount in the bank. Despite being a business with considerably more financial strength than them, we would consider it utter madness to make a snap investment decision of £225,000 (with ongoing costs of £200,000 a year), which is basically what they’re reportedly committing to with their pursuit of James Constable.

Last week, Sky trumpeted the £440 million spent during the transfer window as though this was a triumph. No concerns about the £3.1bn of debt these teams are already in?

These ludicrous extremes cultivate similarly extreme reactions by fans. The 3-1 defeat at Crewe, our first defeat in 4 (5 if you include the 90 minute score against Cardiff), has been greeted by fans as Armageddon.

And now there’s panic surrounding Constable and the possibility that he may go out on loan. The general consensus seemed to be that if he had played, then we’d have won. Which either suggests a) Constable would have grabbed a hat-trick or b) he is a demon in defence. Rationally, neither is true. The reality is that things went badly and we lost. Constable is not the single difference between good days and bad days. The reality is far subtler than that.

Should Constable go, the impact cannot be measured on any single game. Look at last year; he contributed 17 goals. The worst, and most unlikely, scenario is that those goals will not be replaced. Eight goals had no impact on the points gained from those games. If the team could find 9 more goals between them over the season, Constable’s contribution (in goals alone) could be mitigated. Simplistic, perhaps, but it illustrates that the No Constable = Instant Death scenario is nowhere near the truth.

I don’t want to lose Constable; he is pivotal to the team in its current guise. He gives it an identity it hasn’t had for years which has helped bring the fans and club closer together. But, the psychological impact of his departure far outstrips the tangible impact on the team’s performance.

We’re still working from a solid base, the adjustments required to neutralise his or anyone elses departure are relatively small. Losing to Crewe and Constable leaving does not equal capitulation. It doesn’t mean Chris Wilder is a bad manager. You have to look deeper than a single scoreline or individual player decisions if you want to know the state we’re in.

We have a level-headed chairman, a manager that has improved us every year for two and a half years, and a group of players who have proved themselves at this level. Adjustments are needed, partnerships need to grow, a strongest eleven needs to be identified, but the long-term trend continues upwards; only extreme reactions will prevent that from continuing.

What now for James Constable?

2011-09-01T14:04:00.005+01:00

For a short and very intense period on Wednesday night it seemed like James Constable was slipping from our grasp. The known affections of Luton and Swindon earlier in the window were joined by a serious and sustained approach by Bournemouth.

Luton’s approach would have been relatively easy to rebuff, the money they needed to offer needed to be substantial, they wouldn't have had much scope to up any offer to the point of it becoming a no-brainer. Plus, the player himself would have to swallow the fact he would be dropping out of the League again.

Swindon’s approach, if there was any seriousness in that at all, was always going to be difficult. Constable would have to be stupid or incredibly arrogant to want to make the move in the first place – and I don’t believe he’s either. The club would have to deal with the fact they’ve sold a key asset to a rival and stare down the resulting the PR calamity.

Bournemouth – not a promotion rival - was a different kettle of fish altogether. The reported fee of £225,000 would have comfortably have paid for 2-3 players. As much as Constable represents the soul of the club, we are far from a one man team. His loss – though a blow – can be mitigated by Craddock and perhaps Smalley (who looks out of position, currently).

Apparently the deal broke down over Constable's personal terms. He's a ‘proven’ goalscorer which carries a high tariff. But, he's also had experience of going to league clubs and being side lined like he was at Shrewsbury. He's 27, so his next move is crucial. At Bournemouth he would have to prove himself. If it doesn’t work, the trapdoor could open once again and he may well see himself back in the Conference. From which it could take him some years to return back to the League.

He would want to be compensated for taking such a risk with his career, particularly when you consider what he'd be leaving. The sort of club that would be able to comfortably afford Constable at such a high price is likely to be at the top end of League 1 or the Championship. And for any club in that bracket; Constable, as opposed to an available Premier League striker on the slide, would represent a massive risk.

Meanwhile, at Oxford he has a barrel load of good will and a nice long contract. His aspirations to play higher up the league could be fulfilled at the club. So does he stick or twist?

There is clearly a market for him, which is good for the club, because come Christmas they can sit tight and wait for the bidding to start. For us, of course, it means that the New Year transfer window could be an even more painful affair.

Oxford United 1 Aldershot 1

2011-08-29T21:32:00.002+01:00

Real success typically comes at the end of the season; a cup win, league title or promotion giving you a whole summer to reflect in its glory. No such headspace is offered when you win a mid-season derby; instead you have to have to jam a summer’s worth of self-congratulations into a less than a week.

Inside the club, Chris Wilder’s interview on Yellow Player confirmed that there was a ‘good buzz’ around the club following the win over Swindon. He admitted, though, that the 3 points and ascent to 7th were a complete after thought.

To exacebate things, my own appraisal of the game was picked up by the Guardian who billed it as one of their ‘favourite things of the week’. Suddenly this site was awash with thousands of visitors. It’s fair to say, that this wasn’t a typical week.

It took me a few days to realise that there was a game on Saturday. I hadn’t really given it much thought; perhaps I assumed that the Football League would grant us special dispensation or something. Pre-match talk was of a heroes welcome, not another 3 points.

A pre-game splash of rain helped tone down the sense of occasion and the usually buoyant Aldershot fans – a shadow of the blaze of colour that came to the Kassam back in 2007 – forgot to bring their best drums, meaning the atmosphere was very League 2. Peter Rhodes-Brown couldn’t resist a couple of mentions of ‘Your Swindon heroes’ but the crowd didn’t rise to it too much. It seemed, at first, that despite everything, it was going to be business as usual. Like waking up from a massive night out only to find that you don’t have a hangover (albeit for the reason that you’re probably just still drunk).

We started the game comfortable and in control. They lost a player in a most irritating and benign way – bringing a player down is not exactly dangerous play and it’s only a goalscoring opportunity if Lewis Guy brings the ball bouncing 2 feet above his head under control. But hey, Constable scooped in the opener shortly afterwards and we looked set for a good afternoon.

But when we tried to step up a gear we couldn’t. It was like we had one of those illnesses in which you have a deep and indescribable tiredness. A form of footballing glandular fever.

Which is, perhaps, what we do have. Last year was a lot of fun, but we were caught out by teams more organised and savvy. This season there is more emphasis on assuring the midfield with McLaren sitting to provide a platform for Leven to make plays.

But, McLaren is three games back from injury, Leven just two. Both went from being the creative centre piece to virtually non-existent as game progressed. Whing, who was drafted to play the McLaren role when he eventually puffed off after an hour, really hasn’t found his mojo yet and looked leggy having had to chase McGlashen up and down the left wing. Our engine room was drained.

The trick of bringing on Batt and Potter to reignite some pace didn’t work, partly because the central midfield was gutted. Leven sprayed increasingly tired and speculative balls out to the flanks and everything fell flat. There was no time for a plan C.

It was disappointing, but far from the disaster that many said it was. Leven and McLaren will get sharper. Guy, who would be playing a couple of levels higher if he could score, will be replaced by Craddock. Although it would be good to have points on the board, sitting in 9th a point off the play-offs, away from the headwind of expectation that would be brought on by being higher up, it perhaps a good place to be at this time of year.

Kassam All Star XI - Strikers part 3

2011-08-24T20:56:00.006+01:00

Yemi Odubade and Steve Basham took us into the Conference era and were joined by the enigma that was Rob Duffy. Duffy’s extraordinary achievement was to score 20 goals in a season and still fail to impress an Oxford public starved of success.

Duffy’s goal tally was inflated by a large number of penalties. When these eventually dried up, he quickly fell from favour. His coup de gras was rolling the ball gently into the arms of the Exeter keeper when clean through and facing promotion and immortality in the face during the play-off semi-final in 2007.

Duffy’s impotence meant a number of replacements were tried to save our season. Marvin Robinson was a massive battering ram who eventually wrecked himself in a car crash. Chris Zebroski was the real deal and very nearly made the difference.

These paled into insignificance in comparison to Kristaps Grebis. Grebis was a Latvian with Champions League experience. He arrived midway through the 2006/7 season and looked utterly lost. Which pretty much describes our decision making at the time. He made just four appearances, but goes down in Oxford history as one of the all-time worst signings.

2007/8’s big summer signing was Gary Twigg. That fact alone proving how destitute we were . The myth of our largesse within the Conference remained, we signed Paul Shaw, but as soon as he realised what a mess we were in he moved to Hungary. Hungary, I tell you.

With Darren Patterson’s appointment came a flurry of loan deals including one Matt Green from Cardiff. Despite a troublesome knee, he just kept scoring. That summer it looked like he would make his move permanent. As people queued for their season tickets, and Nick Merry preened himself preparing to parade his new star, Green headed south and signed for Torquay. It was one of the greatest swindles in nothing-league football. He’d be back, though, being part of the strike force that got us to Wembley and back to the league.

Darren Patterson really knew how to sign a striker. At the start of 2008/9 he signed two loanees; Jamie Guy was one, the other James Constable.

Guy was an instant hit, storming the pre-season but was injured just before the opening game. He wasn’t the same when he returned, chugging his way to Christmas before being dispatched back to his parent club with just five goals to his name.

Constable was a slower burn, the catalyst for him coming to the fore was Chris Wilder. Sometimes Wilder’s decisions are moments of genius. An early decision was to invest his spirit and philosophy into Constable. Constable was Wilder on the pitch, someone he could trust and we could follow. He is so much more than a striker; he’s the only true icon of the Kassam Stadium era so far.

Around Constable Wilder built a powerful strike force. Perhaps it was a way of buying himself some time by announcing that Sam Deering was our best player days after we lost him to a broken leg. Fans wanted so desperately for Deering to succeed, but he, um, came up a little short.

Deering has his little part in our history; exchanging passes with Alfie Potter at Wembley before Potter slammed home the third decisive goal. Potter too is somewhat of an untouchable amongst fans and seemingly the manager.

Jamie Cook, The True Carrier Of Hope, had his moment of fame. But the classic trio was Constable, Green and Jack Midson, who will always be fondly remembered for his titanic performance at Wembley, but also The Miracle of Plainmoor.

The trio didn’t last long. More guile was needed for the league and Chris Wilder brought in his favourite ever toy; Tom Craddock from Luton and the mercurial Steve MacLean.

But throughout all of this was Constable, no Kassam Stadium XI will be complete without him. When we come to review the 20th anniversary of the Kassam Stadium; his name will be first on the teamsheet.

Swindon Town 1 Oxford United 2

2011-08-21T22:17:00.009+01:00

Removed from the collective consciousness that is the 3pm Saturday kick-off and ignored by TV, it was fitting that the derby win was dumped into a football vacuum, meaningful only to those who truly understood it.

Ours is a derby that repels those not in the know; other derbies give the outsider reference points to help their understanding of the rivalry. At least you can empathise with derbies coming out of Sheffield, Manchester, Milan and Glasgow because we all know what it is to dislike our neighbours.

No such thing for Oxford/Swindon, this is a fiercely parochial affair. The clubs don’t share the same county, let alone the same town, and the likes of Wycombe, Reading, and the Bristol clubs are dotted around to confuse the picture geographically. Its name - presumably chosen by the Derby Naming Committee - is practically in code. Ask most people what the A420 is and they’ll shrug blankly – it’s a road, right? Radio 5 thought it was the M4 Derby.

In theory, there is a class divide but it’s hardly something that permeates the rivalry. Both sides consider each other to be ‘knuckle dragging, inbred scum’ as opposed to upper/lower class or Catholic/Protestant scum.

It’s not a rivalry based on class or religion or economics, but on football, two teams that have grown to dislike each other on the football field and in the stands. Important only to those involved. Outsiders are not welcome. Perhaps it’s the intimacy of the fixture, and the ambivalence of everyone else, that makes it so intense. When you’re stuck in a vacuum nobody hears you scream, so you might as well scream at each other.

The lack of meaningful games between the two clubs has contributed to its increased intensity. Previously there was little more than a nagging, depressing familiarity about defeats at the County Ground. Look at footage from 15 years ago and you can see empty seats in all parts of the ground. People simply couldn’t muster the energy to drive down the A420 for another panning – it wasn’t so much like being stabbed in the heart, more like grumbling irritable bowel syndrome.

Only in 1996 when Skinner and Baddiel started banging on how long it had been since England’s last triumph, did people start to actively quantify ‘hurt’. Nowadays most people know how many weeks of hurt it’s been since you scored from a left-sided set piece. 10 years ago if you asked someone how long it had been since we’d won at Swindon and the answer would typically be ‘ooh, a loooong time’. Somewhere along the line, it was given a label, a ticking clock – 36 years, 37 years, 38 years – it was hardwired into our psyche. Not even that permeated into the stat-hungry mainstream media. Sky was more interested in Paolo Di Canio’s sending off than the breaking of a hoodoo.

The A420 Derby, the 38 year-old voodoo, the bubble of the County Ground, the world looking at anything but what was going on in Swindon. A local derby for local people. The coming together of all these factors took us to Sunday and That Game.

At the brink of triumph, I still I fear that as the team and manager head towards immortality that we find out, in fact, that they are anything but. But each test, no matter how daunting, is confronted and smashed to pieces.

Constable, the soul of a club. The target of a mad fascist Italian manager. Is he on the brink of leaving? A Swindon fan? Off form and unhappy? If any or all of these are true, he remains the constant we can rely on. Football fiction is strewn with heroes rising, phoenix like, when a challenge is put before them. With everyone looking on him and his every move, there he is with the two goals that matter. Read any Roy of the Rovers story, and you’ll see James Constable’s Oxford career. In a cynical world, he’s a proper boyhood hero.

This is the football many of us fell in love with. Not through a TV lens, but live and without the voyeurs of armchair fans making comment and analysis about things they know nothing about. Those who saw it weren’t the privileged few with connections to large corporate sponsors. They were people who go to games every week. Football as a visceral, not intellectualised or media friendly experience.

Those outside the bubble caught only snatches of what was going on. I was one, I gave up on the County Ground years ago when all you got was cold, wet, bullied by the police and threatened with violence and then stuck behind a tractor all the way back down the A420. The football was secondary, the derby, as a sporting event, was virtually non-existent. Football needs mass media to survive, but there is something special about it being hidden from everyone but those who cared enough to be there. The scarcity of coverage, the stories from those who were there, this is how legends are created.

For us this was part of a Grand Slam – a Wembley win and a Swindon away win. What would complete it? A league title, perhaps? These require different effort, resources, skills – but in terms of the impact they have on the club and fans, this is the triple crown that could open the debate as to whether Chris Wilder is the best pound-for-pound manager we’ve ever had. Two down, one to go.

Under Wilder and Kelvin Thomas everything is in place. We have a club with the cohesion and a force of personality that could go onto achieve many things. Wembley: done, Swindon away was the next step towards achieving unprecedented legend.

I thought this sort of thing disappeared with the naivety of youth. I was wrong. The only down side from Sunday is that, in terms of this fixture, if we win every derby game for the next 38 years, it will not get any better than this.

So, Constable is a Swindon fan is he?

2011-08-19T14:11:00.002+01:00

So, Paolo Di Canio says James Constable is a Swindon fan.

Firstly, let’s deal with what is, perhaps, the closest thing we have to a fact on this. All evidence suggests that he is, in fact, a Spurs fan.

And secondly, so what?

We know he’s from Malmesbury, 15 miles from Swindon, and that he was 9 when Swindon got into the top flight. Similarly, I was 9 at the beginning of the Glory Years and lived 15 miles from Oxford. Although I’d started going to The Manor a few years before that, the attraction of Oxford in the top flight is something, naturally, me and my dad couldn’t resist.

So it’s not inconceivable that Constable went to the County Ground during their Glory Year (Year not Years) and that he developed an affinity towards the club. That’s fine and expected, he probably checks their results from time to time. However, it clearly isn’t enough to declare himself a die-hard.

We can also be certain that Constable is not an Oxford fan, certainly not one in the same sense that you and I are. He couldn’t spontaneously recite *deep breath* JudgeLanganBriggsShottonTrewickHebberdHoughtonBrockPhillipsCharlesAldridgeThomas on demand. But I can imagine that, given the experience he’s had here, when he’s in his dotage, he will check our results and occasionally reappear at the ground to wave to the crowd.

Even if Constable has a Swindon leaning, are we to assume that he has been operating as a sleeper cell and that he joined Oxford 3 years ago, putting in a series of full-gas performances, propelling the club to its healthiest position in over a decade all in preparation for Sunday?

And, even if he is an avid Swindon fan, and hater of Oxford and everything it stands for, even if putting on a yellow shirt is like having shards of glass rubbed into his back, are we truly to expect that he will deliberately turn-off on Sunday sending us to our doom? Even if his performance dropped by 5%. I’m guessing he may be substituted.

I repeat, Mr Di Canio... so what?

Admittedly this could be all about Di Canio trying to bag Constable for himself rather than Sunday specifically. There seems to be something in this story as both Luton and Swindon have made public their interest and the club have, thus far, done little to push them back. Presumably any offers that have been received are in the right ball-park, and there is a contingency in place should he leave. I would be surprised if Thomas and Wilder will allow the player to go until they are absolutely comfortable they can benefit from it. It’s not as if Constable has much emotional leverage – such as family commitments or, say, a boyhood desire to play for his beloved club.

Oxford United 2 Shrewsbury 0

2011-08-18T21:28:00.003+01:00

How much does a team reflect its manager’s personality? Mourinho’s mix of cynicism and panache? Ferguson’s belligerent myopia? Guadiola’s effortless chic? Wenger’s cerebral aesthetic?

What might Chris Wilder’s team say about the man, and, indeed, vice versa?

One part of Wilder’s personality is cold, focussed and analytical. That was so evident in Tuesday’s win over Shrewsbury. The team was poised and patient, particularly with Paul McClaren in midfield and James Constable providing the pivot around which good things happened up front. We didn’t chase the win, it just happened. This is calm, grown-up, adult Wilder and that was his team.

When he's in this mode, his interviews are based on glib clichés; ‘being bang at it and professional sending the fans home happy’. This is necessary. It keeps him out of trouble, allows him to stay focussed.

However, under pressure, he can say silly things; for example, during last year’s bad run he pre-empted the first question of an interview by asking whether people wanted him to resign. And then there was the famous outburst about fans living in the past. The inner child gets the better of him and he loses his cool.

This is the other side to him; a nervous tick, a desire for release from the shackles of adulthood. Channelled right, it's can be a positive thing. It manifests itself in his fondness for sprites like Deering, Potter and Guy. In his team selection, like in interviews, sometimes the inner-child gets the better of him and he’ll impatiently chase his win by playing them from the start, when, perhaps, they're better coming out to play later, when its safer to do so.

Playing them from the start works sometimes, when the goals come early, before the opponents have settled and before Potter et al have tired. If the goals don’t come or the margin isn’t big enough, the game isn't under enough control and we can struggle.

These are the two sides of Wilder and his teams, they fight each other constantly. You sense that he can never quite settle, he wants to be a successful manager, which means detached professionalism. He also wants to be a child playing wreckless, freeflowing, attacking football.

Onto Sunday and That Game. There’s a frenzy building creating an environment in which it could be easy to lose your head and try too hard for the win. You see this happen in other managers, big games come along and they make inexplicable team choices; leaving star players on the bench or giving debuts to juniors. Let’s not throw all our tricks at them in the first five minutes. There is quality from front to back in this Oxford side. Controlled aggression is where its at. Do the job right, and it might just happen. Hold firm everyone.

Oxford United 1 Bradford City 1

2011-08-15T21:49:00.001+01:00

As if the blurry mess of turf in front of the North Stand needed to remind us, That Game is coming up next week.

The spectre of That Game was evident everywhere during the draw with Bradford on Saturday. Radio Oxford were banging on about how important form was - we wouldn’t want to go into That Game on a bad run. Because, obviously, there are some games where a bad run of form is completely desirable.

The team doesn’t feel settled; eighteen players in three games; is it injuries? Squad rotation? Panicking about getting the formula right for That Game.

A goal up and holding firm, the three points were bagged and… the mind drifts: “this augurs well for That Game”. It’s not just the players, but the fans too. We concede when, with a bit more concentration and application, we could have been out of sight.

Michael Dubbery confirmed the shadow of That Game after the match, saying that it was all he’d heard about since he’d arrived at the club. It probably doesn’t bother him as much as others; he’s played in big games throughout his career – his form certainly suggests it’s of little consequence.

Players and managers may not feel the spectre of a big game as individuals, but each fragment of doubt, complacency and apprehension within every player, official and fan builds up to be one massive mental barrier.

Expect more tonight, a complete no-win situation. If we take three points, then we’re back on form and ready to take on the scum. If we lose then we’re doomed. The players will be sent off with a flea in their ear and, if they need it, more pressure to perform on Sunday.

And what about the repercussions? There are already preposterous noises coming from some that Chris Wilder has lost it (some even suggesting he never had it). A win in That Game and he’ll be a legend forever, but we lose and the world will surely collapse. The pressure will grow and we could screw the season up before October is out.

Personally, I can’t wait for next Sunday to be over.

Oxford United 1 Cardiff City 3 (aet)

2011-08-11T21:44:00.004+01:00

With the country apparently teetering on the edge of chaos, and following a couple of nights of rumour and counter-rumour surrounding the imminent arrival of The Mob in the provinces, coupled with the fact that the notorious riot monkeys of Cardiff were in town, I had assumed an exhausted Thames Valley Police, drafted into the capital to get rioters to chill the fuck out, would have forced the postponement of Wednesday’s Rumbleows Cup game.

In my head it wasn't going ahead, so I wasn’t mentally prepared. I half expected to see the Holiday Inn Express in flames and rabid hooded apes swinging from the streetlights ready to rip my face off. I fleetingly considered what I'd do if caught up in a riot, because, as a liberal minded Guardian reading softy, rioting is not really my thing. My sense of perspective spent, it’s fair to say that my energy levels were on a downward trend come 7pm.

I parked on the Grenoble Road, snuggling in between the articulated lorries; their drivers hunkered down for a night of furious wanking to German pornography. There was a familiar sense that an imminent non-event was about to occur. Something the Kassam Stadium specialises in.

There was an easy-going, summer pub garden atmosphere around the ground typical of this part of the season. People are freshly laundered and slightly tanned. Some new faces appear, young women in particular, encouraged by the weather and a sense of not having much else on. They won't be here come November, but I'm happy they are now.

The pitches are good, the players’ fresh, and the pressure not as intense. As an aesthetic, the football is generally better, even if the lack of a competitive context doesn’t quite have you on the edge of your seat. There wasn’t much evidence of the apocalypse. Even the Cardiff fans seemed unwilling to antagonise and cause trouble now that social disorder is a mainstream pastime.

The game bounced along at an easy pace, we had an extended patch in which we could have won it, and they seemed to come into it as their fitness began to tell. There were a couple of goals. I thought of the Japanese tourists queuing in front of me for tickets before the game. They reminded me of a mid-summer trip I took to Fenway Park to watch the baseball 10 years ago. I indulged in the spectacle; eating hotdogs and clapping in appropriate places. More theatre than sport. I hope they enjoyed it, as I did then, ticking 'see English football' off their to-do list. Perhaps they bought some merchandise to take home with them, a yellow shirt - an icon of the overweight working man in its homeland becoming a thing of exotic chic on the streets Toyohashi or wherever.

Eventually as time drifted on the interest in getting home to bed began to exceed seeing out the result. People headed for the exits with the game in midflow and the outcome not yet certain. When Jake Wright ducked a long clearance and Cardiff made it three, he was applauded for empathising with the apathy rather than pillared for the mistake.

And so, a pleasant but underwhelming experience. Given the nonsensical nature of this week’s events around the country, perhaps that’s just what we needed.

Constable and Wright going nowhere, for now

2011-08-09T14:37:00.003+01:00

So, James Constable is going nowhere... currently. And neither is Jake Wright.

That’s the overwhelmingly underwhelming news from BBC Radio Oxford’s interview with Kelvin Thomas today. Constable’s position is consistently under scrutiny, with a persistent fear that he may end up at Swindon.

There are two factors at play here. Firstly, there’s Constable’s position as representing the soul of the club, without him we will become ‘soulless’. Secondly, there’s Swindon’s billing as the devil. So, the fear is that we’ll end up selling our soul to the devil.

We can take the emotion out of this nightmare scenario by looking at Jake Wright’s (non)-situation. Wright has contributed more than his fair share in our success, but unlike Constable, he’s not quite dragged us from the dark to the light in the same way. It’s easier, therefore, to assess Wright’s situation in an objective way.

It is some time since we had players like Wright who have a market value. For many years our best players were pretty much everyone else’s worst. During the Conference years, we either had players nobody else wanted, or that nobody - at that level - could afford. We’ve been at the top or bottom of our food chains for at least a decade, perhaps longer. Now we’re right in the middle. We have players we want to buy, and we have players others want to buy from us. This is a new experience that we’ll have to get used to.

Presumably Constable is as likely to sign for Swindon as he is any other club prepared to stump up the cash for him. Wright, likewise. And that this could happen at any time, regardless of rumour or gossip. Objectively, however, neither is irreplaceable, even within the current squad we have adequate back up.

As Vitalstatistix, the Gaulish chief from the Asterix books used to say “We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!” We need to stop worrying about tomorrow.

Rotherham United 1 Oxford United 0

2011-08-08T21:44:00.001+01:00

Exit summer. I’ve learnt to manage the opening of the season better as the years have passed. It is not the orgasmic starburst that the media would have you believe. Perhaps it once was, when everyone kicked off at the same time, new kits were a rare treat and big signings were less frequent and more recognisable (unless I am the only person who had never heard of David de Gea before he arrived at Manchester United).

The new season now dribbles into life, the Football League does it’s best to make its presence felt, but has cold water poured on it when, on the same weekend, through the Community Shield, the Premier League proves it is still really on its holidays having a kick-about.

Yet, we are hungry for the opening games to ‘mean’ something. Following the barmy unbeaten pre-season, our defeat to Rotherham had some, suddenly, worried about our ability to finish and defend, and the new signings and, and, and.

But, August is just a bit of a leg stretcher at the best of times. The Swindon derby makes a difference, but only for isolated parochial reasons. Otherwise we’ll have our annual League Cup thrash around, we’ll have a few more looseners to get the drop of our new signings and then the season will really begin to kick in around September.

A long opening unbeaten run builds expectations (look at Port Vale last season), so registering a first loss is almost as important as registering a first win. At least you get it out of the way.

Kassam All Star XI - Strikers part 2

2011-08-01T21:40:00.002+01:00

Much to Ian Atkins’ chagrin, Graham Rix was actually given funds to bring in decent strikers. So in came the curious Lee Bradbury and indomitable Tommy Mooney.

Bradbury was a multi-million pound player at Portsmouth. His career pretty much collapsed thereafter and he eventually found himself at Oxford. Some tried to convince themselves that Bradbury’s ineffectiveness was down to the fact his thinking was ahead of those around him. This was rubbish; in two years he only just broke double figures in terms of goals. Although one was a fantastic overhead kick against Torquay. Firoz Kassam cryogenically froze his Oxford career before his appearance total triggered a contract renewal.

Mooney was a bullish centre forward and grizzled old pro. Like Bradbury, he was a former million pound man. His arrival from Swindon was particularly sweet, although after a single season he buggered off to Wycombe. But, he was brilliant, a proper striker who knew the game. His 25 yard strike against Yeovil was up there amongst the best the Kassam Stadium has ever seen.

Third fiddle was Craig Davies, a precocious Mancunian, who looked like he had all the talent to play in the top division. By all accounts, he was a difficult character; Mooney, in particular, seemed to dislike him.

Although Mooney left at the end of 2004/5, the following season we maintained an embarrassment of riches up front. With Basham, Bradbury Hackett, Brooks, and Davies we looked like we should be threatening the top end of the division. At Christmas 2005, in an act of criminal complacency, Bradbury, Davies and Hackett all left. From Christmas Day to the end of the season we scored just 19 goals, three of those on boxing day.

In place of the departing trio was Eric Sabin, lightening quick, elegant, but underwhelming in front of goal. And Yemi Odubade who first appeared in an Eastbourne Borough shirt during a FA Cup game. I was at the game and when he appeared off the substitutes bench the locals went mad. It was like God was coming on.

In the replay he outplayed us all on his own, hitting the bar and post numerous times. Yet, somehow, we won 3-0 with a Basham hat-trick. Yemi's performances were enough to convince Brian Talbot to sign him on.

When Talbot had gone, Jim Smith scrambled to rescue a sinking ship, bringing Tcham NToya in to spark a revival. The revival spluttered, despite a memorable first game for Smith and Merry against Peterborough in which N’Toya scored.

As we head into the Conference, it’s time to put another one into the Kassam All-Star XI. In a sea of impotent strikers and unfulfilled promises, Tommy Mooney showed in one season what a professional striker was really about. Despite the Swindon background and the Wycombe betrayal, he’s well worth his slot up front.

Kassam All Star XI - Strikers part 1

2011-07-30T21:05:00.001+01:00

The attack for our first game at the Kassam was a real before and after shot. Andy Scott’s signing, during the wretched twilight months of The Manor, was truly truly horrible. Scott was a nice bloke, but an inflated deal spiked with bonuses proved the desperate state the club was in at the time.

Alongside Scott was Jamie Brooks; the prodigious talent perfect for a new era. I took him for granted, putting his precocious lob in the first game down to luck. He scored 10 goals, but I expected him to score 20. It's hard to believe now that had everything gone to plan, his career would have been peaking now a decade on. A move to Arsenal was in the offing when he was struck down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, it nearly killed him and along with it, his career. He stayed until 2006 but scored just three more goals.

Mark Wright knew that a novice and non-scoring striker were not going to sustain the revolution. He had Manny Omoyinmi – a Proto-Yemi Odubade - but when we needed more firepower, he turned to a very familiar face in Paul Moody.

Moody held a special position in the history of the club, spearheading the 1996 promotion team. He’d since hauled his leaden and broken body around Fulham and Millwall and was now 34. He had a much better time than people remember, but was treading water and eventually gave up the ghost after less than a season.

By this time Ian Atkins was at the helm, his signing of Steve Basham was very un-Atkins; whose teams preferred to drop bombs on strikers from upon high. Basham hung around for years, scored lots of goals, not one of which anyone can remember.

Towards the end of the 2001/2 season, a gangling lummox appeared on the touchline. That man was Jefferson Louis. Louis was a peculiar chap, occasionally in trouble with the law, loved by fans not least for his goal in the FA Cup win over Swindon, famous for showing off his naked backside to the nation on finding out we were going to Arsenal. He was unpredictable, which meant he was hated for what he was loved for. At one point Ian Atkins substituted him after about 20 minutes for simply not trying.

Eventually he headed off on the most mind-boggling tour of the lower and non-leagues. According to Wikipedia, Oxford were his third team, in the next seven years he played for TWENTY-FOUR more clubs. We last saw him being ineffectual for Rushden during our play-off semi-final win.

Julian Alsop was much more Ian Atkins’ kind of guy. For the period he was at the club, a true barometer for its psyche. When Atkins was in situ, Alsop was a dependable lump for defenders to launch balls at. One of my abiding memories was his miraculous last minute winning goal against Leyton Orient on Boxing Day in 2003. A man without pace, touch or finesse, out sprinted the Orient back-four before executing a sublime dink over the keeper. It was the impossible goal.

When Graham Rix arrived, discipline around the club collapsed and Alsop The Barometer was fired for ramming a banana up the arse of a youth teamer. Oh yes.

Jamie Brooks’ story is the story of the Kassam. He had the ability to go all the way, but there was something dark lurking preventing it all, a curse that struck at a key moment. And for that, and his talent, Jamie Brooks is the first striker in the Kassam All-Star XI.

Swindon coming... Don't believe the hype?

2011-07-28T22:12:00.001+01:00

Everything about this close season seems to have had the smell of the epic about it. The signings, the tour, the stupendous goal by Alfie Potter in the win over Birmingham. But nothing has been more epic than the run up to the A420 derby.

Yes, there’s been always been a rivalry, and yes, it’s often ugly, and yes, it was always the highlight of any season, but that’s nothing compared to how this match-up is being billed.

In the old days, people didn’t get up at 5am to queue for tickets. I don't remember that ever happening for any game. People didn’t even talk about it for months in advance. They got on with their lives.

Who’s stoking all this? It’s over 10 years since we met as equals when many of the most active Oxford (and Swindon) fans were just children. What is their reference point for the rivalry? Just because they're 'supposed' to have bitter rivals? There's little tangible to cling to, and yet the rivalry is now quite beyond any that previously existed. Perhaps the lack of engagement has created a void to be filled.

Something has changed. The club wouldn't stoke it up, they evidently don't have to and they're usually at pains to play down these things. We’re probably more confident of a win than we ever have been – perhaps we’re even a little deluded about how easy it will be. Are they in crisis? Possibly, but let’s not assume so. Can we possibly sustain this level of nervous energy for another month?

Maybe it's something about having to sell tickets during the close season. We've got nothing else to think about, queuing at 5am is just a substitute for the match day experience. It may just be the impact of the internet, we can maintain constant contact with our Swindon foe, sustaining reductive arguments over months and months. How were rivalries sustained in the old days? Did fans write each other vitriolic letters?

I’m not going. I didn’t even try to get a ticket. You hear of Celtic and Rangers fans that hate Auld Firm games because they’re just full of hate and misery. A win is a relief, defeat just depressing. I'm a bit like that, especially the away fixture.

My experience of Swindon away has always been a dreary affair. I remember being shepherded into a playing field or park after one game so the police could contain the fighting. Another was blighted by racial abuse. And, of course, we lose. We always lose.

As much as I love the prospect of big games, and derbies, and even an away win against Swindon, there’s so little joy in my Swindon past, that I’m struggling to comprehend quite why everyone is just so excited about it.

Oxford United 1 MK Dons 0

2011-07-24T09:31:00.002+01:00

I got a bit bored of the hand wringing that was around in the run up to our win over MK Dons. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like the decision to allow Wimbledon to relocate, nor do I understand how anyone can build a meaningful relationship a club that is such an artificial construct.

And, Peter Winkelman might look like the doorman in a cheap horror porno, but you can’t blame him for protecting his investment by relocating his business from an unviable location to one that might allow it to thrive.

The fans are just buying a product that’s been presented to them. I would find it difficult to support a club that I hadn’t invested lifetime in, but if my football mad son wanted to go and see a live game; and MK Dons was the local option, I might give it a crack.

The FA made a bloody stupid decision, which they now regret. But the practice still goes on, with the support of the footballing purists. Nobody complains when ‘phoenix’ clubs are offered positions in leagues higher than their real status deserves.

Whilst we like to believe our club has been borne from some Arthurian myth. But, most clubs have some murky past; Oxford wouldn’t have survived its recent years without the loyal support of fans whose allegiances were forged during the mid-80s, when Robert Maxwell used stolen pension money to fund our success.

If anything AFC Wimbledon have thrived as a result. In their previous incarnation, they were the ugly wart of the Premier League, but now they’re a model of how clubs should be run. Venal chancers have been run out of town and the fans are in charge.

People need get over it and move on. It has been widely acknowledged as being something that should never be repeated. Just because someone doesn’t make the right decision, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve made the wrong one.

Oxford United - For Sale?

2011-07-20T22:34:00.000+01:00

It wasn’t the biggest Twitter bomb of the week, that was reserved for Jonnie Marbles and his custard pie, but the reaction to the Dispatches – How to Buy a Football Club was fierce.

As the title suggests, the programme claimed to reveal how easy it was to buy a football club. Not that the reporters did that, you understand. They met with a puffy faced Thai, Joe Sim, who claimed he could arrange deals to buy teams like Sheffield United (current debt: £58 million).

With him was Bryan Robson who offered invaluable advice on how to realise the millions hidden in these debt-ridden carcasses. Basically, sell your training ground to a supermarket, bring in loads of brilliant players on loan and reach the Premier League, then sell your club for £100million+. Is that all? Thanks Bryan.

It’s not exactly news that bullshit merchants are looking to make a few quid from football. And Bryan Robson has had his body and credibility battered by the game. So his callousness shouldn’t be a surprise.

More 'proof' came from pictures of Sim with a bigwig from Sheffield United. But if you had £58million of debt, you'd probably share a couple of hours with every kook that came knocking claiming to have millions of pounds in his pocket.

We got a couple of mentions with the insinuation that we were close to falling into an abyss of corruption. We’re a club that has growth potential, a good infrastructure, ground and a sound fan base. Investors scratching around for investment opportunities in football may well consider us a second glance.

That doesn’t necessarily explain how we were identified alongside Cardiff, Leeds and the two Sheffield clubs. Here’s my theory. The lynchpin of British football is Sir Alex Ferguson. Sim was an egomaniac who made much of his contacts with the man, despite the programme's insinuation that he had, there was no evidence that he’d ever actually benefited from knowing him.

It’s quite conceivable that Sim had, at some point, through Sir Alex, met his good mate, Jim Smith. And that somewhere along the line it was mentioned that Smith had connections with Oxford. From that Sim could then claim that through his vague network of football contacts that he could, theoretically, put investors in contact with people who might have an influence over the sale of the club. But that's it really. I don’t think we’re very close to being taken over by evil gambling rings as the programme suggested. We can probably rest up for now.

Kassam All Star XI - Midfield part 2

2011-07-19T08:39:00.001+01:00

The Conference era opened with the signing of Eddie Hutchinson a player that always seemed to need another chance. He looked big and strong, he looked able, but when you expected him to be big, strong and able, he didn’t quite pull it off. So you gave him another chance to see whether he could do it. And he invariably didn't.

Hutchinson's ultimate claim to fame was to be the player who, despite being with the club for 3 years, in his final season was unregistered while playing for us. That cost us 5 points, and conceivably a place in back in the League a year before we actually did it.

Another member of the new crew was Carl Pettefer, a tenacious gerbil signed from Southend. With Chris Hargreaves dictating tempo and Andy Burgess offering creativity, for a moment it looked like, for the first time, we had a balanced and productive midfield.

Like all good things, this came to an end. Like all good Oxford things, it came to an end nanoseconds after it started. Burgess was fleetingly brilliant while the pitches and weather were fine, thereafter he plodded on in the hope that he would regain his early season form. Hutchinson ran around slightly behind the play. Pettefer had an excellent first season, but faded with injury.

It's difficult to know what went wrong with Chris Hargreaves, perhaps it was the shambles around him. As the season progressed his challenges became more lunging and late. The last we saw of him was kicking over a water bottle as Exeter won the play-off penalty shoot out. It was the cleanest strike he’d had in months. He left at the end of the 2006/7 season, where he did a Ricketts and got promoted with Torquay.

As the money ran out, players like the ‘budget busting’ Michael Standing and Phil Trainer came in. Trainer had his moments, but had the unenviable habit of getting slower as he got fitter. Joe Burnell arrived with the promise of much needed bite and leadership. But despite creating the acorn that sprouted an oak, he offered little.

Darren Patterson's reign was also notable because of the raft of loanees he brought. This including the peculiarly coloured Lewis Haldane, a strong, orange, winger who frustrated and dazzled (in more ways than one) in the way lower league wingers always do.

Chris Wilder adopting a midfield consisting of Haldane, Trainer and Adam Murray; who could pass a ball with some style, but like Hargreaves before him, was often left chasing shadows as a result of the ineptitude around him.

By the end of the season, we had a new look; Simon Clist and Adam Chapman came in alongside The Fighting Dwarf - Craig Nelthorpe. Nelthorpe was released at the end of 2008/9 to be replaced by Dannie Bulman. Clist offered unspectacular reassurance which you don't see when it's there, but miss when it's not. Bulman was the magic piece of the puzzle and the Kassam years were blessed with its first and only seminal midfield.

Bulman, Clist and Murray were the perfect mix of aggression, control and creativity. When Murray was sidelined with injury, and following a crisis of confidence, Chapman joined the battle and re-pointed the trajectory of our season to promotion. Promising, following his arrival from Sheffield United, Chapman had been surprisingly subdued throughout the season but found form at just the right moment. Days before Wembley it was announced had been charged with death by reckless driving; which explained everything. With a year’s chokey hanging over his head, he put in a match winning performance at Wembley which took us up.

The Clist/Bulman/Murray/Chapman midfield lasted less than a year. Murray left for Luton, Chapman was doing his time, Clist suffered a series of niggly injuries. To the surprise of everyone, Dannie Bulman was shipped out to Crawley. He got too involved in games, said Chris Wilder, although there were times when we could have done with a bit of that during the League campaign.

From the settled trio of the promotion campaign to the tossing and turning of the first League season. Asa Hall and Simon Heslop came in from Luton, but neither could hit the consistency needed to sustain a whole season in the middle. Josh Payne suffered similarly. Paul McLaren was eventually brought in to offer experience and proved a valuable asset to the squad by anchoring a midfield full of youthful nervous energy. Although the 2010/11 midfield model saw lots of good quality attacking football, there was still a missing ingredient to take us into the play-offs and beyond.

Only Dean Whitehead made the Kassam Years All-Star XI from our first period of League football at the stadium, it seems fitting that the other two members of the squad are drawn from the seminal promotion midfield. Dannie Bulman and Simon Clist, welcome both.

Oxford United Dreaming Spires beat Mass United 2-zip

2011-07-17T21:13:00.004+01:00

Promising to build a team to be proud of, as Firoz Kassam famously announced on our last night at The Manor, sounds a really generous thing to do.

Consider it a little further and it starts to sound self-indulgent, for what it says is that he will transact to us, using his wealth and power, a team for our enjoyment.

This fundamentally misunderstands being a fan; we don’t want to be given a team, we want to be part of a (extended) team. It’s a club, after all, clubs have members and we want to be members.

When it was revealed that Kelvin Thomas was at the controls of Oxford’s official Twitter feed during our 2-0 win against Mass United it was great. Here was the chairman of the club chatting with fans, in-game, about the game as an equal. It was warm and opinionated (his nan could have scored a chance that Dean Smalley spurned from five yards) and not at all corporate. Firoz Kassam once sat with the fans in the Oxford Mail stand, but that was to find out what the catering services were like.

John Lewis is known for its high levels of staff retention and dedication. Central to this is the limit they place on the difference between the highest and lowest paid staff members. The whole organisation is drawn closer together because they legislate against an 'us and them' culture.

The gap between the chairman and the fans (and therefore, the players and manager) is shrinking all the time. Thomas is not imparting his genius unto us mere mortals. He’s just a bloke doing the role he’s paid to do, and as part of the deal, we’ll do the job we’re expected to do. As a result there’s no ‘us and them’ (or us and him), there’s just ‘us’. A proper football club.

Seacoast United Phantoms 1 Oxford United Dreaming Spires 1

2011-07-15T13:34:00.005+01:00

All I remember of the 1988 Olympic 100 metres final was the sprinters approaching the blocks, a brief moment of darkness and tranquillity and then Ben Johnson jogging round the stadium with a wild look in his eye and a triumphant arm aloft. Having stayed up all night to watch it, I fell asleep for a fraction under 10 seconds. I did the same with at least two Mike Tyson title fights watching him enter the ring before waking up to see him standing over the blubbering wreckage of his unconscious opponent.

I have long given up trying to stay up for major sporting events. Therefore, I purposely slept through our draw with Seacoast United Phantoms.

This morning I reached for my phone to check Twitter to find that a hard core of Twellows had stayed up to listen-in via Yellow Player. There was talk of the noise coming from the ‘bleachers’ and that the Phantoms’ goal came from a ‘Light PK’. Yellow Player seemed to fizz in and out of contact throughout the game – unforgivable when visiting Gillingham but seemingly in keeping with the spirit of adventure surrounding the tour. A Phantoms fan made a point that the game was quite a big deal because we’re professional and, more importantly, on FIFA (ergo: famous). The purpose of the game, for them, was that it was an exciting challenge. Something I can buy into.

The photos reinforce all of this; the game was held on Astroturf with a bewildering number of pitch markings for other sports, the surrounding bleachers are makeshift and sparsely populated. It couldn't be anywhere but America, which is, like, proper foreign.

When Saturday Comes has an article this month which talks of the ‘New Seriousness’ in football, where we are encouraged to be terribly earnest about football and its meaningful place in society. This tour is the complete opposite of that horrible trend.