A League of Gentlemen

Tom Peters says in business you’re either different or you’re cheap.

The announcement on Friday that the EFL Trophy, formerly the JPT, would include Premier League Academy U21 teams was greeted with all the contempt it deserves.

It was a cynical announcement, timed to coincide with the start of Euro 2016 when the media’s attention was already elsewhere.

Initially it appears that Oxford had reflected the fans’ view and voted against the plan when Darryl Eales told OxVox he opposed it. Later it turned out we had voted for it and that Eales had been outvoted by his board. Oxford are, to date, the only club to have confirmed their support for the move but we’re not a lone wolf here.

The fact that the board outvoted Eales is interesting. He clearly isn’t the benevolent dictator we sometimes perceive him to be, it’s good that there are opinions at board level, if everyone thought the same, then some of its members are redundant. There should be debate, that’s what will make the club a healthy one.

The club broke their silence on Saturday with what I thought was a pretty a cogent argument for voting with the plan. The Trophy is a dying competition, it has no sponsor, falling TV interest, there’s little that attracts the fans and it’s clearly a distraction for players and managers.

Having now been through an entire Trophy campaign, I can confirm from my perspective that excitement rarely gets beyond mild interest, even in the latter stages. As I said after the final against Barnsley, Wembley was like a works day out rather than a milestone in our history. It was nice, but it wasn’t vital.  

Don’t get me wrong; adding Premier League U21 teams to the mix is a terrible idea. I can’t imagine why anyone – media, sponsors or fans – might be attracted by the prospect of Stoke City Under 21s v Rochdale or even a Wembley final featuring West Brom v Southampton juniors. Last year’s FA Youth Cup final between Manchester City and Chelsea had an attendance of 8,500, even the Premier League has only so much appeal.

But, it’s difficult to know what else to do with it and the alternative is probably to abandon the competition altogether. The reality is that there is just too much football, and the trophy itself is being squeezed out. 

A friend of mine’s husband suffered a near-fatal brain injury 6 years ago. He’s been subjected to progressively more radical treatment in an attempt to save and then stabilise him. This idea seems to be along those lines, a terminal tournament being nursed with increasingly radical treatments.

But, like my friend’s husband, who is now in a wheelchair, suffers depression and bouts of extreme anger and is probably going to lose his leg; all the radical treatment can really achieve is to prevent it from dying, not allow it to thrive.

There is the suggestion that this is a Trojan horse strategy to allow these teams into the Football League. If it is, it’s a pretty dumb one, the equivalent of the Greeks climbing out of the horse at the gates of Troy to ring the doorbell. If this is part of a secret strategy then it’s obviously failed; Oxford may legitimately be able to vote for the idea as a test, but knowing the fans’ views, could it now vote for Premier League entry into the Football League? If it’s a test, then it’s clear that the results are negative, which is good to know, now let’s drown the idea forever.

There’s no doubt the Premier League holds a lot of the cards; they could end loyalty payments, the loan system, promotion and relegation, and throttle coverage of the Football League on Sky and BT. But the answer to those threats is not to become a cheap assimilation, it’s to become something different.

The Premier League is not an English league full of English clubs. Owners, players, managers, and increasingly, fans are not English. I’m no jingoist, I’m fine with it; I quite enjoy the Premier League although I can’t engage with it any deeper than as a form of entertainment.

But I like the uniquely English phenomenon of having three professional leagues (four if you add the Conference), I like the fact that five years ago we were in the Conference and next year we could be fighting to be in the Championship. I like that fans of obscure clubs travel up and down the country to support their team. As the Premier League becomes global, the Football League has a great opportunity to build itself as something successful and local; a Costa Coffee to the Premier League's Starbucks.

The Football League will be making a grave mistake if it chooses to suckle on the teat of the Premier League in an attempt to succeed. It has so many assets, the Championship is the fourth best attended league in Europe, it needs to build on what it has rather than assimilate itself to a global phenomenon that doesn’t care about it.

As Tom Peters says, in business you have two options – let’s be different, not cheap.  

Barnsley wrap – Barnsley 3 Oxford United 2

The anxiety started early and unexpectedly. Wembley announced a ‘100% bag check’ and my mind started racing. What did they know? Did ISIS consider the lower league’s showcase final to be a ‘soft target’? I’ve never been that bothered about watching the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, I definitely didn’t want to die doing it.

Then there were the 35,000 Oxford fans travelling down the Chiltern line. Twitter ablaze with ungodly start times; would I be too late leaving when I’d planned? What if I couldn’t get on a train? What if I lost my daughter in the crush? A sense of dread about everything apart from the game itself.

In the end ISIS didn’t attack, we did get on the train and my daughter had the time of her life. The place buzzed in the spring sun. We passed a playground full of children dressed in Barnsley and Oxford shirts. They played together, like hamsters in a cage, oblivious to their rivalries until some Barnsley kids, completely without malice, commandeered a roundabout chanting ‘Oxford BOO’. An anthropologists dream.

It was more like a works outing than a football match. People ate lunch in Prezzo, perused the shopping centre shops and stopped to chat awkwardly with people they only vaguely knew because they happen to sit near each other at home games.

A cup final devoid of tension; while the Milk Cup Final in ’86 was the pinnacle of our history and the play-off final critical to our very survival, this wasn’t even the most important game of the week.

But it was difficult not to be impressed by the mass movement of the yellow army. Reassuring that, though you and I choose to watch Mansfield at home over the Bake Off, many thousands of others are with you in spirit; today they’re here in body.

I met Brinyhoof at the Bobby Moore statue, we bumped into each other with our dads at the Milk Cup Final 30 years ago. Last time it was accidental; this time it was planned; completing some kind of circle. We headed to our seats via escalators, bar code scanners and glass doorways. This isn’t 1986 anymore, this isn’t any kind of football we’ve grown up with.

Oh what a joy, a bank of yellow and blue, a happy, united, contented club. A glorious noise. We see a couple of people wearing Weiner Neustadt t-shirts; what Brinyhoof calls ‘Our Sex Pistols at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall’, one day we’ll all claim to have been there, at the start. But, for now, this, we’re all here for this.

In the stadium the pre-match entertainment is underway, it’s cheesy and choreographed, but absolutely necessary. Wembley is so comfortable it feels like you’re at the theatre, it’s tempting to sit passively and enjoy the show. Something needs to ignite it. There are flags and flames, women in tight tops and short skirts, men in military uniform – an anthropologists dream.

Eventually the players appear, Wembley’s great design flaw is that they come on from the side of the pitch rather than one end as at the old stadium. That epically long walk could break players, this short walk from the side doesn’t have the same effect.

The great unspoken is finally spoken, Jake Wright drops to the bench. It’s been on the cards for weeks, he hasn’t done anything wrong this season, but Chey Dunkley’s form makes him hard to drop. Joe Skarz isn’t fit after a season of sterling service, life just isn’t fair.

We start well, though, looking entirely comfortable. After some probing, Alex MacDonald swings a huge cross over and Callum O’Dowda attacks the ball, beating his man and nodding home. The stadium fills with noise; O’Dowda, one of our own, belts down the flank until he’s caught by his team mates. Modern day footballers are too knowing of the cameras that film them, goal celebrations are choreographed for the TV, but this is visceral and real. If his team mates hadn’t caught him, he’d have ended up in the crowd never to return.

Half-time comes and it’s difficult to imagine being more comfortable in a final at Wembley. There’s none of the grizzly angst of the Play-off final or the shock of the Milk Cup.

My half-time routine was pretty straight forward; a trip to the toilet and then a drink. I have to queue for both. I walk back past groups of people casually drinking pints and plastic cups of wine. As I get back to my seat the players are already out. There are thousands of people still under the concourse as we kick off, it creates an oddly sleepy atmosphere.

And it kills us, Barnsley have to come out positively if they’re to get anything out of the game. We need to be disciplined, we need to slow everything down. Call it inexperience, but Wembley is a big pitch, legs become heavy, particularly after a half-time break. We need to hold out for 15 to 20 minutes, control the game, but that’s not really our game at all. Suddenly everyone looks like they’re wading through treacle.

In a flash we’re 2-1 down and then there’s a moment of magic from Adam Hamill. The game threatened to be a shoot-out between Hamill and Kemar Roofe. Hamill took his moment, Roofe didn’t, and that pretty much made the difference between the two teams. Everything else was equal.

Roofe does make his contribution, providing a perfect cross for Danny Hylton to make it 3-2. In the context of the game, it’s meaningless, but it’s a great moment for the club and players.

Waring and Bowery come on, but we’re missing John Lundstram’s more expansive passing. Ruffels has been excellent but his compact game means the strikers are picking up balls 30-40 yards from goal. Man, it’s such a big pitch.

There is no Potter moment, no Jeremy Charles moment, the game peters out. I’m not sure I wanted extra-time, in the end, you know, because of the trains and ISIS. I wanted to win, I didn’t want to lose our unbeaten Wembley record, particularly not like this, but losing was never going to be a heartbreaker. I just hope that the players recognise it for what it is and that it doesn’t distract them from the real objective of the season. Not just because it’s important, but because we, they, deserve the recognition for what our club has become in the last 12 months. 

Millwall wrap - Oxford United 0 Millwall 1

Up until the last quarter of an hour on Tuesday I couldn’t quite decide whether I wanted us to win or simply to avoid screwing it up. This isn’t an unusual feeling for me, I lost the idea of winning as a target a long time ago. Winning is just a by-product of avoiding humiliation.

There was a bit more to it than that. We’re a happy club these days, we do positive things and try to enjoy ourselves. Millwall are a club built on misery and anger; ‘No one like us, we don’t care’; if you extrapolate that to its logical conclusion and they achieve the goal of no one liking them, they wouldn’t exist. It makes you wonder whether they support their club or whether it just happens to be a convenient prism through which their anger about life can be channelled.

It’s not fair to tar everyone with the same brush, of course. I’m sure there are many nice and friendly Millwall fans, as a team I thought they looked good and I’ve always liked Neil Harris, but if there was a reason to win the tie it was to show that being positive is better than being negative.

Tactically we were much more astute than against Blackburn. We absorbed their attempts at gaining an early advantage and played our way into the game. Alex MacDonald, not a player you naturally think of as a leader, was magnificent both in terms of his play, but also the way he calmed everything down, including the ballboys who he felt were returning the ball too quickly.

This had a hugely positive impact on Jonjoe Kenny who seemed to grow up in front of our eyes. His cameo on Saturday was all nervous and jelly legged, which lead to a clumsy foul and a booking. On Tuesday, in almost the same situation, just moments from the end, when the pressure was at its peak, he momentarily looked like he was about to lunge in again. Instead, he stood up, timed his tackle perfectly and picked the ball off the toe of the oncoming attacker. If he can keep it up, then the loss of George Baldock may not be as keenly felt as we thought.

So, a risk-free trip to Wembley beckons; a celebration of what the club has achieved and become, a reward for everyone, on and off the pitch, in the stands and the board room. A reward for positivity. These are special times.

Coming up - Millwall

The drop

Wembley? Well, yes. It's hard to imagine a scenario a more relaxed way of getting there. It's the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, we're at home, we're 2-0 up. Without getting too complacent about it, you could almost rest some players and be reasonably confident about getting through.

This isn't bragging or complacency, it's the simple fact that the JPT is a bonus. Defeat will, in the long term, be forgotten, victory gives us a big day out.

Old game of the day

Millwall wrap - Millwall 0 Oxford United 2

If I’m honest, I thought this would be the one when the wheels fell off. In an already extraordinary couple of weeks, off the back of an extraordinary 8-9 months, everything about the Millwall game was, well, even more extraordinary. I thought that, temporarily at least, the sheer force and velocity of our development and trajectory would blow us to bits. In the same way that a Formula 1 racing car is the most powerful, high performing car in the world but has tyres that last less than 40 miles, I thought this would be the point at which we’d be destroyed by our own power.

Four days after beating Swansea and becoming media darlings, on a Thursday, two games from Wembley, away to a League 1 team; I thought the frailties that have caused these players to drop into League 2, which have been so hidden all season, would show just enough for Millwall to exploit. Surely at some point tiredness; mental, technical and physical, would kick in.

But, and I am running out of ways of describing us at the moment, we were brilliant. Again. To have expectations heightened to the level they were and then meet and exceed them is mind blowing. And the fact it’s us is more astonishing still. It’s not just the application and heart, it’s the craft and creativity. It’s where we were this time last year and where we are now. And, and, AND, it’s the way we’re doing it; there’s no billionaire investment, these aren’t players lured to the club by endless riches. We’re not, in short, financially doped.  

But also, this isn’t just about the result, this might just be about keeping the squad together. When Roofe’s first goal went in, I could see him leaving in the next three weeks, when the second one did, I changed my mind. Roofe, O’Dowda, Lundstram et al now have something beyond the transfer window to work towards; the opportunity to play at Wembley. They won’t get that by moving up the divisions. That and the opportunity to progress in the FA Cup, and promotion, and to do all this together as a squad. They will become club legends.

Moves to bigger clubs and the riches that come with it might well be in their future, maybe even this summer if they keep it up, why the hell would you want to move now?

Coming up: Millwall

The drop

I thought that the closer we'd get to Wembley in the JPT, the more important I'd find the games. In fact, I feel increasingly conflicted and confused. We are two games from Wembley and a chance of some silverware. That's significant because although we got silverware for our 2010 play-off final win against York, I'm not really a fan of the idea that you get a cup for coming second. This could be the first title we lift for 30 years.

On the other hand, it's still the JPT, it's more clutter to our fixture calendar and it's a pointless risk to our perfect Wembley record. I just can't quite calibrate it all. I want us to win, I don't want us to lose. I think ultimately, if we're going to win this and gain promotion, then I want it to continue. If not, then I don't.

This season is a bit like the Star Wars film; a modern reboot of an old classic. In 1985/86 - the year we won the Milk Cup and played in the top flight - we had another chance of a Wembley final when we made the semi-final of the Simod Cup. Technically the Full Members' Cup, it was an attempt to fill the fixture calendar after English clubs had been banned from Europe after Heysel. It was as unloved as it sounds, like the JPT, we managed to make the semi-final to play Chelsea - a widely disliked London club - like Millwall. We lost and they went on to win 5-4 in front of 70,000 people at Wembley. I have a vague recollection of feeling the disappointment of missing out on that day (even though I hadn't given a monkeys about the tournament). Perhaps I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Old game of the day

This is from1995/96 in the FA Cup. It's an absolute barnstormer which ended 3-3 with a goal direct from a Bobby Ford corner in the last minute. On the way home, I saw a Millwall fan, so incandescent  with rage, insist that his wife walk in the gutter rather than on the pavement.  Also features a ludicrous Paul Moody back heel for the first goal. 

Forest Green and Yeovil Town wraps

Oxford United 1 Forest Green Rovers 0 

Forest Green was much more routine than it perhaps looked. They looked physically bigger than us all over the pitch, which may actually have been due to their vile luminous green shirts. Perhaps they were just conforming to the cliche of the part-time pub player, but I guess it's more that they’re specifically built to cope with Conference football in the deep winter.

We may have been more lithe, but we also had added sophistication and class. Their strategy was to use their bulk to unsettle us and maybe get something - a goal - they could defend when they tired. It worked, to a point; we couldn’t settle on the ball and the referee couldn’t distinguish between a genuine tackle and a foul. As a result, we couldn't control the game in the first half and they threatened to snatch a goal.

We just needed to weather the storm, if we could avoid conceding and not tire from the battering, we could press home our quality advantage late in the game. The risk was that they wouldn’t tire (although the way they started, it always it seemed likely they would), that we would concede (we didn't) and that we were effectively planning to find a winner in a 30 minutes game. Of course, when you have a magician in your side, you've always got a chance.

So they leave having given it a good go, we scrape through and avoid the humiliation of a giant killing; which pretty much fitted the template of this kind of game.

Oxford United 3 Yeovil Town 2

Yeovil was an altogether more pleasant and enjoyable experience. Partly because of the performance, but mainly because they were pretty awful and the result, ultimately, didn’t mean very much. There was very little angst in the tie; it was more a cosy night in the pub with friends than a raucous all-nighter.

Even now, just two positive results from Wembley, it is kind of difficult to get excited about the JPT, that said, I did go, which might suggest something is stirring.

Millwall in the next round offers something interesting; Nathan Cooper's passionate pre-match denunciation of the tie made an interesting point. Promotion from League 2 will not see a significant improvement in crowds - there are few 'glamour' clubs. What's more it's a heavily 'northern' division, meaning very few big away followings. So really, promotion only really means something - in a business sense - if you're aiming for the Championship, where things really will improve financially.

Survival in League 1 is not really enough to justify the investment currently being made by the owners, so, if we do get promoted this year, we've got to compete and beat the likes of Millwall next. The tie will be a really interesting test of how close we are to doing that.

The wrap: Dagenham and Redbridge 0 Oxford United 2

They say winning is a habit. Let's assume you build a squad of players ready to step up whenever they’re needed rather than a squad of players made up of some you like and other you wouldn't put out if they were on fire. A successful team drawn from that squad, even if technically 'weakened', should be motivated in the same way as your strongest XI. They all train together so the differences in attitude and approach should be fairly marginal.

In a successful squad, even a weakened team is likely to have all the attributes to be a successful one. Which means that unless you deliberately go out to lose, you're likely to be competitive in every game.

This makes arguments about the relative importance of the JPT and FA Cup academic. Each game, regardless of the competition, is there to be won and if you’re a successful team, it’s very difficult to go out and try not to do that.

It’s an odd time of the season, and it’s going to carry on for the next few weeks with the replay against Braintree, a possible second round tie against Forest Green and another JPT tie. League games become a bit buried.

This has two effects; firstly switching teams on and off is very difficult so you might as well go for everything. Secondly, because of injuries and suspensions, which start to kick in over this period, it is almost impossible to distinguish between weakened and strong team. Take our back-four against Dagenham; on paper a ‘weakened’ defence, but with Johnny Mullins suspended and Jake Wright injured, even if that had been a league game the defence would have looked unfamiliar. Then, next week, with Mullins and Wright potentially back, they could get a run out against Braintree, a game they might otherwise have missed.

That’s the bind of being successful and the thing that successful managers complain about constantly. You get fixture congestion because you’re a decent side, so there’s no real point in prioritising one thing over another; just go for everything.

Coming up: Cambridge

The drop

I missed the Barnet game, so it feels like an age since we were last at home. In fact, my last home Saturday game was Wimbledon, and before that Morecambe. We continue our tour of the lower reaches of the division with Cambridge (18th). It's still fill-your-boots points-wise, before the December challenge of a relentless cavalcade of fixtures.

We go in with confidence, of course, but a good performance and comfortable victory is important given that we lost last time out and the aforementioned games against Wimbledon and Morecambe were both uncomfortable. The Kassam holds less fear than it did, but Saturday afternoons down the Grenoble Road have yet to bring the best out of us.

Old game of the day

The derby. This is the fixture that all Oxford fans look for when the list comes out in June. The video I wanted to find was one of Phil Whelan trying a back-pass in a bog. I like the obscurity of this video, it's only had 80-odd views and has little detail behind it. I spent most of it trying to identify our players, particularly who scored our goal, before working out that it was Cambridge, not us, in yellow. We're in red. IN RED, I TELL YOU.

Swindon Town wrap - Oxford United 2 Swindon Town 0

The news that James Roberts’ brother Ben had been killed in a road accident last weekend inevitably drew the comment that this was something that really puts football into perspective. It’s as if it’s not possible to calibrate the devastation and heartbreak of something like that against an arbitrary benchmark like football without it actually happening.

The club have chosen to hold a minute’s silence for the game against Wimbledon on Saturday rather before Tuesday’s derby. Maybe they couldn’t be sure that Swindon fans, with their emotional distance from the tragedy, would be able to put it into perspective after all?

It was difficult to contextualise the game in a number of ways. It was Swindon, our arch rivals, and we wanted to win, but it’s the JPT, nowhere near as important as the League. Winning would be great, but was defeat that bad? How far do you take the ‘hatred’ on this occasion? Enough for the game to be meaningful, but not enough for it to become a burden. It’s only the JPT and we had work, college and school in the morning.

Missing the point

Not everyone could rationalise it, of course. When someone smashes up a pub, hurting and scaring people in the name of their football club, is there a point afterwards when they quietly realise how utterly ridiculous they are?

Four arrests were made before the game; three were men over 40. There would be children and partners in their lives. Do they look at those people and think about what they’ve done? Do they think ‘why am I such a cretin?’ or is it ‘I’m such a hero for defending the honour of my football club’? How distorted do you have to be to think that? Presumably there is an motivation behind this, but when has anyone ever been impressed by a wheezing middle aged man breaking beer glasses and swearing indiscriminately? Do they ever think of the futility of it all?

Then there’s the daft charade of social media trolling where each side accuses the other of taking it too seriously. A game of one-downsmanship, if you like. The whole thing is a pantomime, but at the same time it has to mean something in order to be worth anything. Where’s the balance?

The big fans’ showdown came as the teams came out; a truly spectacular display in the East Stand which genuinely stunned in terms of scale and ambition. Our Swindon counterparts, who tried to drum up support for their display via social media and threatened to engulf the city in, um, stickers, unfurled some red and white ribbons which seemed to get tangled in the empty seats. They disappeared before the two teams had completed their handshakes while Oxford held firm.

Chasing shadows
A derby is won in the head; play to form and the result goes to form. But, if the occasion gets the better of you then you’re on a hiding to nothing. Perhaps the display helped secure the victory; confident, dominant, calm; both off and on the field.

We already knew they had problems, but I don’t think anyone anticipated just how big those problems were. They started OK, like a decent League 2 side; like Portsmouth, or us. Passing was crisp, movement was good, but we matched them and they didn’t look a threat. Then Turnbull was sent off and they fell apart alarmingly.

There was bickering all over the pitch – a casual disinterest in the fact their defences were being breached time and time again. Vigouroux’s performance in goal was the most bizarre. The bloke is clearly slightly nuts, but his display seemed to reflect externally what was going on inside his team-mates’ heads.

Of course, a sending off is a blow, but plenty of other teams have adapted to playing us with ten men and done well; as we did with them when James Constable was sent off in 2012. Maybe it was a combination of that, and their current form, and the display, and their injuries and their record against us specifically. They were in chaos, an absolute shambles; at no point did they regain any composure.

Think of Di Canio’s Swindon, or McMahon’s; that was like defeating a caged animal. But last night they whimpered and we passed it around them. Perhaps we were just brilliant and we’re not used being just brilliant, but the lack of fight, plan or purpose after the sending off was startling. It’s not bravado to say that this was one of the worst teams, of any flavour, we’ve ever seen at the Kassam.

We, on the other hand, swept them aside. Passing was expansive, defensively we were robust. We looked a threat down both flanks. Jordan Graham looks a winger in the Beauchamp or Allen mould. Everything was slick and positive; I can’t remember us outclassing a team like that before and for it to be League 1 club, and Them, makes it more special.

Making sense

I don’t like Swindon, it would be odd to have a rival that you did. Ultimately, it’s the rivalry I like; it’s probably the best derby in the lower leagues. I love the feeling of tension and the relief of victory, that it feels meaningful even when, ultimately, it probably isn’t.

We spend our lives putting things into context. Pretty much every job involves a process of rationalising and contextualising; making chaos and irrationality logical and systematic. Everything is a process of distilling things which are complex and difficult into a series of processes and procedures.

To be able to indulge in something as absurd as a football rivalry, and the joy and despair that comes with that is a luxury. It makes no sense outside the bubble of the rivalry and nor should it. Football doesn’t exist to put the death of a young man into context; no thinking person needs football to remind them of that. Football exists because senseless, pointless and frankly depressing things happen and it gives us a glimmer of purpose and hope to prevent us all from going completely mad.

Coming up: Swindon Town

The drop

Most games need context, some can exist in a vacuum; Oxford v Swindon in the JPT is very much the latter. This is not about progression in the tournament, it's not even about settling any scores, it's just an opportunity to dook it out with an old friend. A bar brawl rather than an officially sanctioned prize-fight. That's figuratively, not literally, if you're a hoolie moron.

There are those who talk about this being a distraction. If it is, then you would have to question our mental capacity to get promoted in the first place. What's more, it's here, it's happening, we've got to deal with it.

I've been watching Oxford for over 30 years, I've seen one Milk Cup and four promotions; that's a paltry return. Nine derby victories improves that return on investment considerably. We don't play each other very often; we might as well enjoy it.

Any other business

Let's be honest, we're not getting much work done over the next couple of days are we? Whatever it is that you do, and let's face it, most of us do nothing of any particular value to mankind, can wait until tomorrow. Or, if we win, it can wait until the day after that. So, why not use up the spare time you've got to read the Oxblogger series: 30 years of the Swindon Derby.

Old game of the day

So many to choose from; Wilder's trilogy of wins? the 3-0 Beauchamp-inspired triumph of 1996? Too easy. How about this one? The good old days were rapidly coming to an end in 1999, we'd bought Dean Windass with money we didn't have, the Manor was falling apart and a saviour by the name of Firoz Kassam was on the horizon.

But, this was a whole heap of fun.

From the blog

This got 3,500 views and was picked up by the Guardian:

"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."

Read on

Is he the saviour or just another very naughty boy?

Tuesday's defeat to Southend in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy saw the end of a surprisngly glorious run in a particularly inglorious competition. Where one thing ends, another starts as Tyrone Marsh marked his much anticipated debut with a goal and a pretty good shift. The start of something beautiful? Perhaps.  

When I was growing up, based on very limited information available to me, I assumed that certain things were given. I assumed that all teams were on a trajectory that would eventually lead them to glory in a Wembley final. I had three reference points for this; I supported Ipswich Town when Bobby Robson took them to the FA Cup and UEFA Cup, I supported Oxford United as Jim Smith took them to the top flight before handing the reigns to Maurice Evans and onto Wembley, and I read about Roy Race and Melchester Rovers, and their relentless pursuit of glory.

I also believed that every team had a star striker; Roy Race, Paul Mariner, John Aldridge, Dean Saunders. And I believed that every team had a homegrown hero.

First, there was Andy Thomas and Kevin Brock, then Joey Beauchamp, Chris Allen, Paul Powell, Chris Hackett, Sam Ricketts, Dean Whitehead; a procession of homegrown success stories spanning a couple of decades. But there was a barely perceptible trend; whilst not wholly linear, each batch of homegrown stars was slightly less able than the previous set. For every Joey Beauchamp, there was an increasing number of Mark Druce's. As you get older, there's the horrible moment you begin to realise that the conveyor belt of homegrown success is beginning to pump out a load of poop.

You begin to realise, these players are like fattening cattle, they're really only being prepared for sale. But in a sense, that was OK because selling on players you've seen grow up has its own satisfaction. Especially when they're being fattened at somewhere like Oxford, because its not so galling to see them disappear off to the top flight. Slowly, though, they're not being picked up by top flight teams, but by teams at the same level as you, then teams lower than you, then local park teams.

There were people like Simon Weatherstone, who scored a hat-trick in the reserves against Arsenal, and Simon Marsh whose solid performances lead him to England Under-21 status and pretty much anyone Mike Ford decided to play when he was caretaker manager. As we entered the Conference, there were people like James Clarke and Alex Fisher. And Aaron Woodley, who for at least one Radio Oxford preview show was being rushed into first team action in order to boost his transfer price.

We love home grown stars; they are us. Fitter, faster, better looking, more skilful versions of ourselves. But most importantly, they live near us. OK, so they might actually be the sort of people in low cut t-shirts, earrings, Ugg boots and sculptured hair that you want to kick in the bollocks. But when they've been been defiled of all this frippery and put into a yellow shirt, they look like an innocent new born. We want them to succeed like they're our children.

We like to believe their strengths are infinite, their weaknesses don’t exist. In recent weeks there has been a big call for Tyrone Marsh to start. Most people had never seen him play at all, and only the 118 that went to Plymouth in the JPT had seen him in the first team. But some simply knew he was the saviour.

The consensus seems to be that Wilder needed to play Marsh; ignoring that our frailties were principally at the back.

Statistically speaking, if you label enough people the saviour, one should turn out to be exactly that. There was palpable excitement that he was picked to start against Southend. Every ball placed in front of him was greeted with near hysteria; “GO ON TY”.

Whether Marsh turns out to be a Beauchamp or a Mark Druce time will tell. But he didn’t look out of his depth, in fact he physcially he looked the part and got himself into good positions, had a decent number of chances and scored a good goal.

It was a refreshing debut in a refreshing game; the crowd was surprisingly sparse; the JPT isn't exactly the most exciting competition, but a semi-final of any competition which ends up at Wembley has got to be worth a punt. We can all debate endlessly the importance of the JPT, but this season has been great. Those who didn't come missed perhaps the best game we've had at the Kassam since Swindon in the, um, JPT.

That one's for Chris Wilder

Everyone hates Swindon. It’s not just us. If you ask anyone to name a dank, soulless British town then people say Slough. Or Swindon. It is neither a quaint northern relic of our industrial past, a gleaming economic powerhouse, a seat of learning or innovation, or a monument to our establishment. It represents, if anything at all, the rigmarole of everyday life where nothing much happens.

Paolo DiCanio is very Italian. Italy is, in one sense, stylish, engaging and beautiful. But it is also morally and economically corrupted. In one sense we envy its ability to achieve the spectacular – Ferrari, Armani, Da Vinci – but we’re British and we like steadfastness so the erratic behaviour of Italy and Italians gets up our noses. Paolo Di Canio gets up our noses.

Di Canio and Swindon seem like such an unlikely match, but they are perfect for each other because they are so easy to dislike. It is, of course, unfair to tar every Swindonian and every Italian with the same brush, but it remains a fact that many people expressly don’t like the town or the man.

Our manager is dour and pragmatic; he talks about budgets and hard work. He is very British. People like Oxford; it stands for something that we, as a country, can be proud of; learning, innovation, saving lives, improving lives. Great things are achieved in Oxford. It is extraordinary, you ask someone to name a British town that represents great learning, people will say Cambridge. Or Oxford. We are the perfect counterpoint to Swindon.

I suspect that Di Canio and Swindon rather like their reputation, after all, if you can’t be loved, being hated is better than being ignored. The derby is a quintessential good versus bad story. It’s context; whether it be a cup final or Johnstone’s Paint Trophy has an endearing quality about it.

Last night’s derby was a builder; I’d set off early because of parking anxiety. But I parked easily, more easily than a league game. I was in the ground 30 minutes before kick-off. Swindon fans, who had presumably been escorted in, were loud, raucous and in plentiful number. We were nowhere to be seen. I thought I’d fallen into the trap of believing the hype. Nobody was really going to turn up to a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy 1st Round tie, Swindon or not.

Then suddenly, 15 minutes before kick-off the car park – already full of cars – filled with people. Coming from the direction of The Priory; it seemed the entire Oxford crowd were arriving together. They swarmed around the cars like a river. Pausing briefly to exchange insults with the Swindon fans in the ground. Then they poured into the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it. Suddenly, bang on time, the noise was turned on and the place thundered into life.

The game was loud and energetic, but there wasn’t a cramp-inducing tightness in the muscles or the gnawing stomach grumbles. It wasn’t like the game last year. It was more like one of those early season League Cup games we used to land periodically against mid-ranking Premier League teams. A big game we wanted to win, but weren't that fearful of losing.

As the minutes ticked by and penalties seemed to only logical way of getting us home at a reasonable hour, I’d pretty much settled on the idea that the draw was the right result. That way, regardless of the penalties, nobody could definitively make much of what the result meant in the great irresolvable debate of which club rules supreme.

I was enjoying the game, and the atmosphere, but drifted in and out of the specifics. In my head I was filing it away under 'unremarkable, but fun'. The time ticked by towards the 90th minute and suddenly, from nowhere, James Constable was clear. He’d been OK, again, a decent target man, but not full of movement and threat. He could have taken it on, probably would have if his confidence had been with him. But he squared it, and there was Alfie Potter.

You couldn’t mistake the similarity to Potter’s goal at Wembley, just with Constable playing the Deering role. Wilder hooned down the touchline, exactly as he did at Wembley, stopping just short of giving himself wedgey and grass burns with an ill advised slide on the turf.

With all the talk of Wilder going to Coventry, winning the derby, in the last minute with a goal from two players who have been with him pretty much throughout, who he’s nurtured, protected, defended and battled for seems almost too perfect.

There may be more to come from him, this might be it, who knows? But perhaps this was a result for Chris Wilder. A testimonial to his achievements with Oxford. It means nothing in the great scheme of things; but it was a bloody fun load of nothing.