The wrap - Wycombe Wanderers 0 Oxford United 0

Any talk about derbies is like a school playground argument about who is your best and second best friend; unresolvable, circular, divisive and ultimately pointless. So, inevitably, as another Wycombe/Oxford fixture swings by, the discussion begins again and remains unresolved. Again.

Most Oxford fans dismiss the idea for obvious reasons; we have established rivalries - Swindon, obviously, and Reading (who we haven't played against for 14 years). Admitting any sense of rivalry with Wycombe would, in the eyes of some fans, bring us down to Wycombe's level. And in their eyes that's non-league despite Wanderers having been a Football League club for a quarter of a century. Every time a fixture does come by, of course, it doesn't stop a scramble for tickets.

Perhaps with a derby, as well as proximity, you've got to have forgotten why you don't like a team in the first place in order it to turn into something deeper. In truth, I really like Wycombe; I like the fact that I've only ever missed one meeting home or away. I like Adams Park, its setting in the foothills of the Chilterns is fantastic and as a stadium it reminds me of The Manor - a bit disjointed, but at the same time complete - a home rather than a stadium. We invariably sell out our allocation which means the atmosphere is always good. The two teams have been evenly matched over the years, so more often than not, it's a good game.

My daughter came to the game on Saturday, she's been to a few sparsely populated enormo-domes which have been comfortable and fun to watch, but she's never experienced the febrile intensity of a packed away end. I would have told her that this was what the London Road was like, but she has no concept of us playing anywhere other than The Kassam. Needless to say she loved it, even if she did hear a few too many shouts of 'cunt' than I'd have liked. I'd also like to think she's aware that the 'wanker' sign is not an innocent gesture of Corinthian rivalries.

Saturday's edition was a fine complement to the series - it galloped along at a fair pace, punctuated by incidents and talking points - injuries, fights and apoplexy. Leaving at the end there was the sense of deep muscle exhaustion which comes with being drawn into something. It might not have felt like a derby, but at times it felt like a derby. My daughter complained that her feet hurt, which is exactly how it should be.

Complaints of our demise or how we should be beating 'teams like Wycombe' are overstated. More often than not this season we have played well, but we lack an additional dimension. For all Ade Akinfenwa's absurdities, and he has many, he does one thing well. Which is standing still. But, like Peter Crouch, Kevin Francis or even Yemi Odubade, you accept his failures because if all else fails, you know the one dimension they have might break the deadlock.

We don't have that - a goal poacher, a battering ram, someone with prodigious pace. The closest we have is, perhaps Marcus Browne, but he can only play for a few minutes at a time. It meant that even with numerous chances, it was difficult to remember a chance we genuinely looked like scoring from.

But that said, there's an energy and effort that should still give us a good platform for the season. We just need to ease any tensions about relegation by scraping together a few points so that we can start looking up.

Whether it's a derby or not is unresolvable, but I'll always look forward to an Oxford Wycombe game, because above all else, it's a very fine fixture.

Promotion wrap - Oxford United 3 Wycombe Wanderers 0

We’ve had promotions before, we’ve had derby wins, we’ve had trips to Wembley, we’ve had giant killings. We’ve never had all four in one season. And that should tell you all you need to know about this year.

Before the Wycombe game, someone on Twitter worked out the various permutations of the final day; we would be promoted in all but a handful of them. Success was not quite inevitable, but failure seemed inconceivable. It wasn’t arrogance, it’s just that it was impossible to think that after months in the automatic places, after everything we’ve been through, that it might actually end up in a big wet play-off shaped fart.

The situation was almost identical 20 years ago when we went into the game against Peterborough needing a win at home to get promoted. We did it comfortably and joyously and I couldn’t imagine it being any different this time. But, as an evidence base and reference point, this was somewhat outdated.

Like the White Walkers in Game of Thrones, there was still a theoretical, undefinable, inconceivable threat. Wycombe could frustrate us; motivated to spoil the party. We could freeze. This is, after all, Oxford United.

In response, the club did what the club does these days; it ignored the what-ifs, and defused the tension with a bar-b-que for the fans at the Oxford Academy. The philosophy was to behave like where you want to be, not where you're at; not eaten by anxiety, but already, effectively, promoted.

The sun shone, and the fans came, and the club delivered another PR masterstroke in a season of masterstrokes.

At the Kassam, people buzzed around the stadium not quite knowing what to do. People sat in their cars reading newspapers having secured their usual spot hours earlier. Their routines disrupted by the size of the crowd and the prospects of what was in store. In the South Stand Upper there was near-silence as people fixated on the TV showing the Middlesbrough v Brighton game trying to avoid talking about what might happen after-3pm.

Earlier, I’d met Brinyhoof in the bar, he was talking with some people from the FOUL days and the old Oxford indie scene who now have management jobs, raise children and pay into pension schemes while running social media accounts for bands that were once wan, willowy and pretty and now portly, raising children and paying into pension schemes. “He used to play in Hurricane No. 1”, he tells me afterwards.

We go in early and do a quick tour of the South Stand, spotting faces from the old days. They work for the club nowadays, or volunteer, or run blogs and podcasts or just hang around social media sites living out the despair and occasional triumphs.

We have the ’86 generation and the ’96 generation. A generation that fund, arrange and make the displays that have transformed the soulless Kassam Stadium into the broiling hive it’s been this year.

At the heart of the revolution is Darryl Eales and Michael Appleton, of course, and the players. But at the heart of the club are the same people who have seen us through relegations and false dawns and disappointments and non-league football and near-liquidation. These people, so attuned to failure, were also confident and calm, more excited than worried.  

Wycombe didn’t roll over though. An early goal may have broken their spirit, but it didn’t come and they went about their business disrupting our rhythm. With the sun beating down and nervous tension things threatened to overheat; it wasn’t pleasant.

And then the rain came, a biblical downpour that hammered down on the roof of the stadium making a cacophonous noise like I’ve never heard before. If this was a rock concert, it was the equivalent of getting a couple of acoustic guitars out and playing some ballads to give the crowd a rest.

Cooled by the rain, Wycombe’s initial burst of energy subsided and the elastic began to stretch, but we still needed something to make it snap. In 1996 it was Giuliano Grazioli’s misplaced header from a Joey Beauchamp corner. Twenty years on; Chris Maguire delivered another corner into the box and careering through a crowd of bodies thundered Chey Dunkley to make a connection. Snap. 1-0.

In many ways Dunkley is the archetype of the Appleton-era. I thought he’d been brought from non-league football as a cheap wage but over the last year he’s developed physically and technically. He is a player who wants to learn and work and the kind that will respond to Appleton’s developmental approach to coaching.

Maguire makes it two from the spot. More the finished article, he seems the type that would respond to Appleton’s desire for players to think for themselves rather than play to a rigid system. For all the talk of Roofe, Hylton, Sercombe and Lundstram, it’s Maguire and Dunkley more than anyone else who have carried us over the line.

There’s a sign in the back of the East Stand ‘A Time For Heroes’, a few weeks ago it looked like ours were injured or exhausted, but the void was filled by Dunkley and Maguire along with Josh Ruffels; a forgotten man who turned out performances whenever and wherever needed. A special-team to close out a special season.

The tension from the ground evaporated. Lundstram’s passing became more expansive, Roofe looked more mobile, at one point Jake Wright majestically picked up a ball from the edge of the box and waltzed out into midfield like Bobby Moore.

Then the coronations, MacDonald jogs off; a player who gave up a promotion push with Burton to join the revolution and never once let his enthusiasm drop. He was the first, the vanguard. When George Baldock went back to MK Dons and Jonjoe Kenny came in there was a worry that it might be enough to burst the bubble, but MacDonald mentored Kenny, protected and supported him and helped him develop into another asset. Did we miss Baldock? Yes. But nowhere near as much as was feared.

Hylton and Roofe are replaced to deserved standing ovations. Roofe almost transcends the club now, which is why I think Hylton won the fans’ player of the year. It's the mix of ability and application, plus eccentricity and triumph over adversity that makes Danny Hylton and the club he plays for a little bit different.

And in the final seconds; a moment to file alongside THAT goal by Alfie Potter. O’Dowda, picks the ball up, rides a few half-hearted challenges and wrong foots the keeper to make it three. An Oxford boy confirming an Oxford triumph. There’s are shades of Joey Beauchamp’s last goal before he went to West Ham; cutting in from the right in front of the home end. That was Beauchamp’s farewell… And O’Dowda?

There are two things that have dawned on me about promotions. Firstly, I know that players rarely support their club, but I want their time with us to be the best of their career, and, the reason I want promotion is not really for me, but for them, to reward them for their effort throughout the season.

Were we the best team in the division? That’s an argument that will never end, the table tells you one thing, but look more broadly and it’s closer than you’d think. We scored more goals and conceded less than Northampton, if you factor in our cup games, we only won one game less. If you consider the physical and mental challenge of our season compared to theirs, then there’s a reasonable argument to say that we have been at least on par. Experimental 361 did some analysis that showed how effective we’d been and Chris Wilder himself once admitted that we were the best footballing team. Were we the best? Yeah, why not?

It’s difficult to overstate how close I was to giving up on Oxford last year. I was bored of the false dawns and wasted Saturdays. I was no longer bound by a blind youthful loyalty, maybe I could pick and choose my games like a casual fan. This season was a last chance saloon, I had visions of signing off this blog and actually walking away from the club, going to find something better to do with my limited spare time. And then this season happened, and it has reignited everything I love about the club; success and excitement, tension, camaraderie, but also effort and hard work and reward. Oxford United, how did I ever doubt you?  

Wycombe wrap | Ashton leaves

Wycombe Wanderers 2 Oxford United 1

Nathan Cooper said it after the draw with Carlisle; going into the game against Wycombe having not lost in the League at Adams Park for a decade, was a concern. A decade unbeaten away from home is extraordinary, eventually there will be a point at which things start to become ordinary again.

There was the usual guff the game's validity as a derby. Wycombe and Oxford are close to each other and there was a scramble for tickets - the first time I’ve missed out on a game I wanted to see since Leeds in 1994. The game was clearly keenly anticipated.

One person dismissed Wycombe as ‘irrelevant’; the football version of Marie-Anntoinette’s ‘Let them eat cake.’ It all started to sound a little bit like Swindon fans do when they play us, claiming  unconvincingly, that Bristol City are their real rivals. There was talk of that they were ‘tinpot’, all of which ignores the fact that Wycombe have spent more time than us above League 2 over the last 20 years.

Recent victories over Wycombe have had a backdrop of angst about them - last year we were threatened with relegation and they were flying high, the year before it was the last knockings of Chris Wilder’s tenure. There was a feeling of intensity, this time there was a degree of complacency.

Football isn’t like Christmas it doesn’t deliver goodwill to all men. Perhaps inevitably, for the second time this week we were League two’ed by a team who were strong and direct and good at set pieces. It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing style, but it does work.

We’re approaching the middle point of the season, we’ve played everyone, some think that the Wycombe result was the beginning of one of those characteristic Oxford United slumps. It is still too early to tell, but we won’t help ourselves by changing the way we, as fans approach games.

When the season starts you don’t really know whether you’re facing a good team or a bad one. Later in the season it’s fairly clear what type of team you’re facing. One of the things about Wycombe is we apparently know what we’re facing - a tinpot, irrelevant club - and that’s where the trouble starts because there was and expectation of victory.

We head into Christmas in third, it’s a good position from my point of view, but we need to be aware that the job is not even half complete. If this does turn out to be the start of the slump we’ll be asking why we can’t play like we did at the start of the season,  that's a reasonable challenge, but we also need to support like we did at the start of the season.

Any other business - Eales leaves

The Christmas announcement nobody was expecting was that Mark Ashton was stepping down to allow Darryl Eales to become more hands on with the club. Coming after the defeat against Wycombe this created a murmur of uncertainty amongst fans.

It seems logical that this wasn’t a planned change given that it has happened mid-season with the club apparently on the up.

Ashton was on the radio a couple of hours after the announcement, which implies that either he has been paid off so handsomely he's prepared to talk Eales and the club up, or he has genuinely been discussing this for a while. I suspect it’s the latter; why would Eales risk putting Ashton on the radio when it's easier to put a statement on the club’s website and wait to the furore to blow over?

What is Ashton’s legacy? It’s difficult to tell at the moment, as good as our recent form has been, we were awful last year. It might be reasonably argued that he was prepared to act as a spokesperson for the club even when things were a mess and that any work he did put in place in the background is bearing fruit this season. I suspect it’s one of those things where we won’t know his true value until he’s gone; we probably won’t really know for a few months.

What’s impact will the change have on the club? It seems that the main role of a chief executive is to temper the worst excesses of your owner. Kelvin Thomas’ enthusiasm and positive nature counter-balanced Ian Lenagan’s natural conservatism. When Thomas left, the club was fully exposed to Lenagan’s cautiousness (which, it should be noted made him a very rich man and turned the club on its head, so it was not at all bad).

Eales, by everyone’s assertion, is a infectiously positive person. That has to be good for the club in the short term. He is clearly a successful man, but is it because he’s a good businessman or because he's a gambler who has won big just enough times to make him rich? A gambler in a football club is not necessarily a good thing in the long term because it doesn’t take much to plunge a club into crisis.

There is another scenario worth considering; with Eales’ positivity, Lenagan’s natural conservatism and Firoz Kassam, effectively a still key shareholder in the club, it could be that Ashton’s presence muddies the water. If Eales can align the ambitions of all three men, then it could actually be the making of the club.  

Coming up: Wycombe Wanderers

The drop

I couldn’t get a ticket for Wycombe; I can’t remember the last time I failed to get a ticket for a game I wanted to go for. It's only the second Wycombe game I've ever missed home or away. I guess that’s what success does for you.

Wycombe have fallen away a little after last year’s heroics and a decent start. Had they maintained their form, this could have been the fixture to tip it into the category of ‘derby’. Familiarity has bred an increasing degree of contempt between the two clubs, but it still needs something to light that spark. It may be this game, but if not, then the final game of the season at the Kassam has potential to ignite the fuse.

Old game of the day

It's not a derby, but existing animosity makes a pretty good starting point when developing a rivalry. We've had plenty of good times at Adams Park. None better than this from 1996.

Death by a 1000 touches

Three months is not a long time to have had to negotiate two ‘must win’ games, but that’s what Michael Appleton has had to do since the start of the season. The game against Accrington, which we went into without a league win, and the game against Tranmere where we potentially faced defeat at home to the bottom club. These represented potentially pivotal moments in our season and perhaps Appleton’s Oxford career. He negotiated both, but the fact we’re even talking in these terms is a source of lingering concern.

Wycombe wasn’t a must win game, but it was a key barometer as to where we are and how we’re getting on. Whether the game represents a derby or not is still subject to some debate but the animosity between the two clubs does seem to crank up as the years pass. It's not so much a rival sibling, more like a cousin from ‘that’ side of the family. One that you find yourself having to invite to parties even though you think, depending on which side you sit, they are stuck up and living above their station or from the wrong side of the family who brings down house prices when they park in your drive. Whatever the game is, it is a ‘something’, and that in itself gave it importance.

But, more than that, Wycombe last season avoided relegation from the Football League by the skin of their teeth. When we played them at Adams Park they looked hopeless. Despite the late goal and narrow scoreline we completely outplayed them. Now, they’re at the top of the table and yet, there’s been no obvious investment in playing staff and Gareth Ainsworth - who looked out of this depth and lost - is still on the touchline. How have they gone from one end of the table to the other ? And how have we done the opposite?

Here’s my take based on Saturday. Let's employ a deliberately over-simplified measure of quality; for example, the average number of effective touches that a League 2 team might make in a game. Let's give that a figure of, say, 1000 touches. Since we came back into the league in 2010, there have been teams able to spend money on players beyond that base level - Chesterfield, Swindon, Fleetwood and Crawley all spring to mind - perhaps they were able to deliver, on average, say, 1200 touches per game. As a result, whilst it is still possible to beat them in any one-off game, over a season they dominate the division leaving all the others to pick the scraps out of whatever was left over.

Last season was slightly different, although Chesterfield eventually eased home, most of the rest of the division were ‘1000 touch' teams. With everyone pretty much of a muchness, those who used those touches most efficiently succeeded. This was illustrated by our own form and style which was as average as at any point since we returned, but we found ourselves at the top of the table. Our away form, in particular, was spectacular; because when we got the ball we used it well.

This season is much the same; the teams that came down - Tranmere, Hartlepool and Carlisle appear to be in a terminal decline, those who have come up from the Conference are doing OK, but not because they’ve got a sugar daddy sitting in the background. In short, we have much the same kind of profile of division that we had last year - a whole world of average.

So, what’s changed with Wycombe? Perhaps its necessity or desperation, or perhaps Ainsworth is learning his trade, but Wycombe have evolved into a tough and direct unit, in other words, it's not that they have more touches in the team, it's that they're using their 1000 touches well.

They illustrated their robustness early on Saturday with the foul on Andy Whing and subsequent elbow to his head, which was probably deserving of two yellow cards. I don’t fully understand the rules around red cards for penalties or agree with their automatic double-jeopardy nature, but the first penalty could have been another red.

Early on we knocked the ball around; along the back, down the flanks, back along the back, and along the back again. We had one free-kick that everyone went up for and we played it short, and then backwards. We used up our 1000 touches knocking the ball around ineffectually. If you are going to use up your touches so quickly, you've got to hope that you've got a few goals out of it. We had just one.

As much as we matched Wycombe for most of the first half, the second half we were all but spent, all our touches were used up. They were still chugging away with plenty in the locker. The goals, when they came, were the result of robust, direct football at a time when we were done for. The chance of coming back were limited because we didn’t have the spare quality. We wasted so much energy playing it around nicely and getting nowhere, when we needed more, we didn't have it.

The difference between the teams, therefore, is purely tactical. Ainsworth and Appleton both stood on the touchline dressed like young fathers ready to go for a curry with their wives in Chelsea boots and skinny jeans. They’re very similar people with just a few years between them. But Ainsworth appears to have learned that, as a manager, you've got to work with what you have to get results.

The answer to this problem is either to invest heavily in '1200 touch' players or go through the coaching process to get them up to that level. I don't think Appleton has the luxury of either option, so it’s all about working with what he’s got. He can argue that he hasn’t had time to implement players with the ‘right DNA’, but he’s got Clarke, Mullins, Wright, Whing, Barnett and Hylton at his disposal he should be doing better than he is.

One telling shift came in Appleton’s post-match interview. Whilst I’ve been critical of him and the new regime, he has always spoken well and eloquently in interviews. On Saturday he struggled with a coherent analysis of the game; from hearing it you might have thought we’d controlled it and won. His conclusion about the penalty? That’s what happens when you’re at the bottom and they're at the top.

Not true. He’s got the cause and effect the wrong way round. You don’t miss chances because you’re at the bottom; you’re at the bottom because you miss chances, or because you spend all your touches fannying around along the backline rather than creating goalscoring opportunities. Now that Appleton appears to be reverting to claptrap of being 'lucky' and 'unlucky', perhaps he's running out of ideas.   

Is away the new home?

I didn't want to jinx anything, so I tried to keep the fact that our game against Wycombe was my first away game of the season. I needn't have worried, we were brilliantly assured, as we've been all season. Better than being at home, that's for sure.

When I post a blog onto this site, I normally send out three tweets for publicity, one a day. I don't want to spam anyone, but I know that people face a cascade of tweets every day, and so it seems reasonable to give people three chances to spot that a post is there for them to read.

Last week, we played Portsmouth, so I wrote something about, well, Portsmouth. I tweeted it once and returned to the post a couple of hours later to find seven comments and over 700 visitors. That's quite a lot for this blog. They were, of course, Portsmouth fans telling me what an idiot I was for deigning to take a view of their club. I didn't think what I'd written was particularly incendiary; I basically questioned how long their team, which is really demonstrably poor, will sustain such a large following.

After that I didn't bother with anymore promotion; I don't need readers that much, and definitely not of that kind. It's not why I write this stuff. I'm not sure why I write this stuff, but it's not to be abused. I was left to question what's the point was of doing something that just draws a load of abuse, and what kind of mess of a game is it that people feel it necessary to be so?

Anyway, fast forward a week and I found myself in the 'Main Stand' at Adams Park. You know that little section of away seating that exists in virtually every ground, the one you look at and wonder why anyone would choose to sit there? That's where I was, down the side of the pitch; it wasn't intentional, I bought online and I thought I was buying for the proper away stand - the Dreams Stand, or whatever it's called. That's where I've always been before.

It was a terrible angle to watch a game; pitch level, just up from the corner flag, but it gave me full sight of the massed ranks of our away following. Usually when you're part of an away following, you don't get the chance to see what you look like. At Arsenal years ago, I was on the front row with 5,000 Oxford fans behind me; I might has well have been on my own.

It was also my first sight of us away from home, and it was brilliant. Completely the opposite to the 'tired of life' atmosphere currently generated at the Kassam.

I got thinking, though, after Portsmouth fans at the Kassam and Oxford fans at Adams Park, after months of playing at home with glum defeatism; is away the new home?

Our form plays a significant part in answering that question, obviously. Although we left it late, we were superb all afternoon; we were in control before the sending off and kept the ball moving - with patience - afterwards. The goal was absolutely brilliant. And, for all those Wycombe fans who tried mocking us for taking so long to make the breakthrough. We didn't play 10 men, we played 11 men, as always - it's just one of them was stupid enough to get himself sent off. You were well and truly beaten.

But, it's deeper than that. I don't have a theology degree, and I don't really need a theology degree to tell someone that football has many of the attributes of a religion, but it took someone with a theology degree to confirm that this view exists within the academic community.

Back in the 50s football clubs were physically at the heart of their communities. Stadiums towered over terraced housing. The stadium, of course, is the church. And in the past, those 'churches' were unique to your club. That's because stadia in past were build in stages as clubs grew; each stand would be created using whatever the latest technique or style was. They were also built on the club's success using the fans' money. They were owned, physically and spiritually by the community and paid for by its graft.

Now Stadiums, are less likely to be owned by the club and therefore the fans. Either literally, in our case, or stylistically in the case of any club that has moved into a generic enormodome in the last 15 years. It's like trying to build a connection with your local Tesco.

Stadiums increasingly are located next to a Tesco or Asda, or at least away from where supporters live. You have to drive, not walk, to your own home. It is no longer an extension of your local community.

Cars are important in other ways. The first game I explicitly remember going to as a de facto away fan was the 1981 FA Cup game against Coventry. It was an epic journey through market towns of South Midlands. Visiting my grandparents in Abingdon from Hertfordshire was a journey of the scale and complexity of at least two volumes of Lord of the Rings. It required us to stop for fish and chips on the way. Now, although it doesn't always feel like it, our transport networks have improved. Oxford to Coventry can be done in no time at all. And, thanks to the Japanese, not only are the roads better, but cars are more comfortable and reliable.

Even though getting to away games is easier than ever before, simply going to a game is a victory. It's that sense of being part of a movement. We're so dissipated at home, we don't walk to games together anymore, it's car, game, car, there's no congregation at home, but that's all different away. We're galvanised by simple things like we don't quite know what we're doing and by the fact that we're viewed with such suspicion. As I walked into the ground on Saturday, I overheard some police looking down the road talking over the radio; they'd tracked a group of blokes all the way from the White Horse, a pretty rum pub about 20 minutes away.

And from that point, everything feels better. An away win can't be matched at home, an away draw feels like a home win - a sense of satisfaction. A defeat is easier to take away.

Perhaps, home simply is no longer our home. We are a displaced army, our home is barely our home. We're forced onto the road and that, it seems, where our club thrives both on the pitch and off it.

It's only a bit of League 2

Anxious screams deep into injury time to get the ball forward on Saturday was followed by howls of derision at us reverting to the long ball. The pressure counted, eventually, by creating chaos amongst players who are prone to its pressure. Sometimes we seem to forget which division we're in.

The South Stand has a reputation for its air of indifference, but you do see things that you wouldn't necessarily see in other parts of the ground. Timmy Mallet, for example, will appear in the executive box grinning expectantly in a funny hat which isn't exactly funny, but does reinforce his Timmy Mallet-ness. The grin says that either Mallet retains his childlike enthusiasm for life, or it is the brittle mask of a man whose fame, and therefore purpose in life, has long faded into irrelevance. I like to think it's the former. While Timmy Mallet lives, we can be assured that good exists in the world.

When the opposition score at the Kassam, while Oxford Mail stand a declaring fatwa on the goalscorer most of the South Stand mumble something neutral and balanced to their neighbour 'That was an excellent cross… mumble mumble… deserved it really… mumble mumble… he's annoying… mumble mumble… but that's his job… mumble mumble… which is fair enough, I suppose...'. The front row of the executive box, about 7-8 people usually, will leap to their feet and shake each others hands in delight. There is usually no more than one woman, who you suspect has little authority amongst the party apart from, perhaps, driving them home when they're soaked in post-match whiskey. I've always assumed this to be the daughter of the more aged men. They are the 'club officials'; white, male, grey-haired, overweight and typically wearing blazers and club ties. The dusty relic of gentlemen's clubs you thought had died out years ago.

Welcome to League 2. The Premier League will have you believe that football clubs are run by shadowy foreign consortia with your club embedded layers of incomprehensible tax efficient off-shore holding companies or sinister oligarchs who sit like Bond villians stroking metaphorical cats. By the time you get down to League 2, what you're still typically looking at is local businessmen made good that have always owned clubs in this country. What made them their money may be changing; it may be recruitment and software rather than factories and scrap metal, but they're basically the same people.

Midway through the second half of Saturday's 2-2 draw with Wycombe, Sam Wood ranted maniacally at the referee as the result of a Dave Kitson challenge. Kitson stared on impassively, not in an intimating way, but in general disbelief at Wood sustained attack on a challenge which was, at best, 50:50. Rather than engaging in some faux nose-to-nose confrontation, as Michael Duberry may have done, Kitson gave Wood the sign to calm down a bit.

Kitson's seen a bit of the football world, and seems to have evaluated the League he's in. He knows that he won't get flown around in a helicopter, or that every pitch will be like a billiard table, he'll also know that games at this level aren't won or lost on marginal decisions or split-second misjudgements which the Premier League are so keen for Jamie Carragher to squeak incomprehensibly about, they're often down to who made the least mistakes in the 90 minutes. Ranting about a refereeing decision won't serve any purpose at all.

The lower leagues offer a value all of their own; you don't go to games expecting excitement, you go hoping for the surprise of excitement to be presented to you. The difference between a millionaire buying a Ferrari and someone you finding a tenner jammed in the back of a seat on a train. Both offers some thrill, but while the former is expected, the latter is a surprise. In economics, it's known as 'utility'; if you expect everything and get that plus a bit more, the utility is far less than expecting nothing and getting something.

So, despite our excellent start, we shouldn't be surprised that we turned in a lacklustre performance on Saturday. Or that when a ball is put into the box it doesn't go past the first defender. This is the norm, the point is not so much to groan about individual mistakes, but overall consistency of results. Ian Atkins used to look at games in batches of 5, knowing that a duff individual performance is always a possibility, likely even. You trade a few unexpected results, like the win against Portsmouth, against the disappointments, such as the performance on Saturday, and see where you come.

In short, 9 points every 5 games will give you the title, 8 points gives you promotion, 7 points puts you in the play-offs. That's 10 from 4; with Rochdale next week our quota is filled and everything is a bonus to be carried over into the next five games, which look set to prove the real test of our mettle.

Time for clarity?

Everyone, including Chris Wilder, seems resigned to the fact that he'll be leaving the club. If and when it does come it shouldn't be a time for celebration. If a decision can be made now, and he is to go, then perhaps the last three games can be used to recognise what he's achieved for the club, not to continue the unecessary bullying and personal attacks.

I saw Chris Wilder at the stadium on Thursday while sorting out some tickets for Saturdays game with Wycombe. He cut a sad and lonely figure. I guess that was probably analagous. He was alone and few people walk around with a Cheshire Cat grin on their face when they're on their own.

My overwhelming urge was to turn the car around and tell him that he should stay positive and that I personally appreciate what he's done for the club. I didn't, I've had very limited experience of interacting with football folk and it's generally a disappointing experience.

Saturday was another lacklustre performance and another defeat. The 'protest' in the North Stand turned out to be little more than a bed sheet with 'Wilder Out' written on it. Protests are only effective if you have numbers to back it up or when the message is so jarring that it forces you to take notice. This protest hardly offered anything new, and with perhaps, half a dozen people involved, it was hardly the Poll Tax riot. I'm not sure why anyone felt the need to say the thing that many have been saying for some months; unless they thought the distribution of the message via bed sheet would prove a tipping point.

As Tommy Craddock flounced off the pitch, I started to think; what is Wilder managing now? He has players who either know they're going, or are uncertain about their futures or are staying but don't know who their manager will be. It's not an environment in which he can easily exact any control. His post-match interview suggested as much; there was no talk of Craddock being unprofessional and no question of 'dealing with it internally'. It's not like Craddock needs to hide his disapointment, what will that buy him? A place in the starting line up for three more meaningless games?

Wilder is relying only on the players' self motivation to play with the necessary effort to win the game. I don't think this is him 'losing the dressing room' which suggests a fundamental collapse of the relationship between player and manager. This seems like limp resignation that the season is over and next season, for the players or manager or both, won't be at Oxford.

Wilder is stuck in a netherworld between a club manager charged with preparing a team to win games and one without a job. With the season petering out, it's time for positions to be clarified; if Wilder is to go then let's announce it and make the Rochdale game a celebration of what he's achieved. If he's staying then lets get on with planning for next season. There's no point in firing him now; it would be unfair and unkind. It would be good to draw a line under the speculation; Lenagan didn't say that Wilder would be fired if we didn't make the play-offs as many have said, he said that would be the point at which a decision either way would be needed.

Wilder himself seems to be all but resigned to the fact he's going or at least that he no longer has any control over his fate. Many of his interviews in recent days have talked about his time in the past tense. He either knows that the game is up, or he's equally in the dark and just taking the rumour and fan protests as a sign that he's going. With the season over, there's little point in keeping the facade going any longer. I'd welcome the opportunity to give Wilder the send off he deserves; the overwhelming emotion of his leaving shouldn't be one of anger, but of sadness.

History of the Wycombe derby part 4

We'd finally dropped out of the league while 'non-league' Wycombe continued to shuttle between League's 1 and 2. A temporary state, we thought, and it didn't take long to get a chance to prove it. 

In November 2006 things were looking up; we'd were owned by a fan and managed by a legend. We were non-league, but we were unbeaten and brushing everyone aside. With our new set-up it was clear that non-league was a temporary state only. We were on the rampage, unbeaten from the start of the season with 15 wins and 4 draws. Having brushed past Dagenham and Redbridge in the qualifying round we drew Wycombe in the 1st round proper. Appearing in the FA Cup was important; it ensured that we maintained an unbroken place in the history of proper competitions.

There was something fitting about drawing Wycombe. Little Wycombe, the non-league upstarts. It was almost as if they had become a reference point. Courtney Pitt, a little shit of a winger who Graham Rix brought into the club was always the one player who we could mark our decline against. He was awful for us, but as we got worse every time he played us the more like Lionel Messi he became. Wycombe was the club that served that same purpose.

So when we were drawn against Wycombe, this was to be proof that we were, in fact, a league club, just one in the wrong division. Our form was excellent, so we went into it with a real sense of confidence; selling out the away end. We lost Andy Burgess and Rob Duffy before the game, both were interviewed on the radio with the Oxford throng audible in the background. It had a sense homecoming party; with Burgess and Duffy going on about how great it was to be back in the biggish time.

That was the first flicker of complacency that had crept into the season. We ignored that Wycombe, probably, fancied the win themselves. Above all, they were the higher ranked team. We would have to be on the money to get a result away from home. We didn't play badly, but conceded. Gavin Johnson, one of the patched up old crocks Jim Smith was relying on to trudge through a winter of Conference sludge and get us back into the League scored from a free-kick. Momentarily, we believed the original hype. Seconds later Wycombe scored again and we were out. We drifted off into a wilderness of playing St Albans, Tonbridge Angels and the like. They would be playing in a League Cup Semi-Final against Chelsea.

It would be another 4 years before we would meet again. Finally we were back on the same footing following our promotion back into the league. The 2010/11 season was entered off the back of a sense of euphoria. We had become used to dominating sides in the conference, and there was a sense that we'd continue to do so in the future. A double promotion was on the cards.

Early season form was sobering. We smashed Bristol Rovers 6-1 in the League Cup, but we'd lost our first home game and drawn the other 0-0. We headed for Adams Park and left with another 0-0 away draw. While we were organised enough to maintain clean sheets, we weren't savvy enough to score at the other end. Wycombe had just been relegated and were fancied for a straight return to League 1. An away draw and a blank sheet against a fancied team was considered a big positive.

By the time of the return the play-offs were becoming beyond us; we'd had a good crack at the season and done OK. Wycombe, as predicted, maintained their steady progress and as it's often the case in League 2, that was enough to see them sitting in the automatic play-off positions.

By the end of that season, our principle role seemed to be to try to make a nuisance of ourselves at the top of the division. We raced to a two-goal lead which was just about deserved, in a microcosm of the whole season, they chugged their way back into it and in front of a mass of jubilant Wycombe fans equalised through John Paul Pittman. An entertaining 2-2 draw.

Finally, to this season. We headed for Adams Park; Wycombe were suddenly the ones struggling, our form was fluctuating wildly, but we hit them in a purple patch. James Constable, Tom Craddock scored from sweet strikes and Johnny Mullins nipped in at the near post for a third. The 3-1 win was the most comprehensive since the promotion win at Adams Park in 1996. It looked like we were going to challenge the play-offs while they looked in desperate trouble heading for relegation.

And so to today, the latest instalment of the derby that isn't a derby. Much of that is down to Oxford fans' denial of our position. I suspect had the Glory Years not happened, then the Wycombe fixture would have been considered more important than it currently is. In reality, we've been a lower league team for a very long time now and Wycombe Wanderers increasingly represents a key marker for our progress.

History of the Wycombe derby part 3

It started as a fixture that pitted the big boys of Oxford against the plucky amateurs of Wycombe. Eventually Wycombe became a barometer by which we could measure our decline; while they largely stood still we slipped and slipped. 

If the previous four fixtures were the diagnosis of a terminal disease, the next four were the death itself. Over a period of two years we were managed by a convicted child molester, the South American Alex Ferguson and his army of shaman and a barely articulate non-league sergeant major. Oh dear.

Apparently we drew the fixture under Graham Rix in 2004, which was, again, live on Sky. I don't remember anything about it; but that was what it was like around that time. By the time we entertained them at the Kassam for the first time on New Year's Day we were into the Ramon Diaz farce. With the club suffering from a terminal disease, the arrival of Diaz was a palliative trip to Disney; a fantastical promise, which started with the arrival of new fangled training techniques (Tommy Mooney gushed about training with two balls), there was a thoroughly modern management team and a swathes of homesick disinterested teenage South Americans.

The game on New Year's Day was notable for the sending off of Chris Hackett for violent conduct; a man less aggressive than Peppa Pig. A late Steve Basham goal gave us our first home win against Wycombe at the sixth attempt. The New Year, the new management regime, everyone left optimistic that the corner had been turned.

Of course, it hadn't. The Diaz era descended into grand farce, results petered out and the relationship between Diaz's team and Kassam disintegrated amidst rumours that one or the other had reneged on a pre-appointment deal relating to the sale of the club and ground. The closing game of the season saw the storming of the Kassam as Diaz's team; fired after the penultimate game of the season, attempted to gain entry to the ground.

Before that final game, Brian Talbot was introduced as the club's new manager, he mumbled something about double promotions and shuffled off to plan the grand resurrection. I was an Ipswich Town fan when I was really small and Brian Talbot was a member of their FA Cup winning team. I had a lot of empathy for him; he had also steered Rushden to promotion on a sea of money. He seemed like as good a solution as any. But then again, all Kassam's appointments seemed like the solution at the time.

In the following August Wycombe returned to the Kassam with the defected Tommy Mooney partnering Nathan Tyson up front. Mooney had been a hero the year before having not only signed from Swindon, but also proving to be the best striker we'd had in years. He left after one season, it's a sign of the state we were in that we were so accepting of his move.

We hung onto their coat tails as they ran us ragged. But we edged in front early on, conceded twice and then nabbed an equaliser through Dean Morgan (Who?). As is often the case, a decent result against a decent side gave hope of a good season. Form was moderate up until Christmas, Kassam sold Craig Davis to Verona, Chris Hackett to Hearts and prevented Lee Bradbury from playing so that he didn't trigger and automatic contract renewal.

Like hibernating hedgehogs, we packed away our spikes for the season and settled down for a nice winter snooze. We snoozed our way through a 2-1 defeat at Adams Park with Yemi Odubade, a panic buy from Eastbourne who had run us ragged in a Cup replay a few weeks earlier, scoring his first goal. There was disillusionment about the club and management, and everyone decided that there was always next year and another rejuvenating managerial appointment around the corner. We won three more games all season and fell out of the league in a fog of complacency. Now Oxford were the little non-league fighters and Wycombe the established league club. How things had changed.

History of the Wycombe derby part 2

In 1996 we returned to the Championship and left behind the small-time derby against Wycombe. It would be a brief restbite. Just over three years later, once again relegated and this time in terminal decline, we met again.

High Wycombe is topographically odd town. It sits deep in a valley; its growth came from chair makers who whittled the surrounding woodlands to make furniture. Now, people who live in High Wycombe live on slopes. Your neighbours house is often five feet higher or lower than yours. On either side of the valley are well to-do towns like Marlow, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and Henley. It leaves what a friend of mine describes as 'Valley People'.

You can often find a town's true character by watching its town centre during a week day. This is when the what might be described as 'normal' people are doing normal things, like working. What's left are the people who make a particular town different. In Oxford, for example, the place is full of students and bohemia. Oxfordshire market towns are a sea of grey hair. In High Wycombe, there is a noticeable number of people with limps and pirated Formula 1 merchandise. These are Valley People. Initially they were physically stuck in the valley, as the rich escaped into the surrounding villages; now they're economically stuck as the house prices prevent them from moving beyond the town's boundaries.  The character has changed in recent years because of the Eden shopping centre. This has drawn in Ugg Boot wearing privately-schooled girls and their skinny-jeans wearing boyfriends from the middle class surrounds, but they stay safely located in the shopping centre and rarely venture any further.

Generally speaking, Wycombe Wanderers are a friendly, well run club, whereas Oxford have been a basket case in recent years. When the teams met after a three year hiatus in 1999, we were in full free fall mode. Firoz Kassam was in charge and in what, again, was a microcosm of our wider situation, we played three times in 5 months, each time with a different manager. Oddly, however, we came out of those games unbeaten.

The first was under Malcolm Shotton, the dying days of what had promised to be a glorious return, a nondescript 0-0 draw at the Manor was significant only because it was our first point at home in the fixture. Under Mickey Lewis we won on penalties in the LDV Vans Trophy with the spot kick being scored by giant Swedish error-magnet; goalkeeper Pal 'porn star' Lundin. Lundin wrote himself into minor folklore by doing an aeroplane celebration around a sparsely populated stadium; it was like watching a vulcan bomber finding somewhere to land. With Denis Smith reinstalled we then went to Adams Park and snatched a 1-0 win with a Joey Beauchamp goal. It was as depressing as an away win could ever be. The goal aside the game was terrible; it was cold and grey and the three points were clearly a blip in what was otherwise a terminal and terrible decline.

The final capitulation happened the following year. It was the most terrible of seasons, and the only one in which Oxford, Swindon, Wycombe and Reading would be in the same division. In the six derbies that season we lost all of them. The first game against Wycombe was at Adams Park on a Friday night in September. To add to the indignity; the game was shown on Sky.

I was working in London and arrived late, the interminable walk more interminable than ever. We were already a goal down at that point. At half-time Richard Knight; the season's player of the year despite conceding over 100 league goals, was replaced by Hubert Busby Jnr. The Canadian's absurd name a sign of the the nonsense of the era. He didn't have a proper 'keeper's shirt, but instead wore a training top. Busby's momentary heroism was that he saved a penalty, which had to be retaken. He conceded the retake and we eventually lost meekly 3-1.

By the time we met at The Manor we were managed by David Kemp and had become so insular we were like a troubled teenager sitting in our bedroom listening to The Cure and contemplating suicide with a bottle of Tixylix, just to make a point. We lost 2-1, they celebrated, we didn't care. Somehow for us, their happiness was just a shallow facade; they weren't a real football club like us; one that was suffering. It was hideous.

At the end of that season we finally dropped into the bottom division, while Wycombe would continue to flirt with the division above. And we moved from The Manor and into our new dawn of glory at the Kassam. But that's where we stuck, just waiting for something good to happen to us. Even if it was only that Wycombe might one day drop to a similar level.

History of the Wycombe derby part 1

It's been 18 years since the first Oxford Wycombe game in the football league with the next instalment due on Saturday, what is the story of the fixture?

The thing about the Oxford v Wycombe derby is that nobody can agree if it's a derby in the first place. Oxford to Wycombe is 31 miles down the M40. Oxford to Swindon is 33 miles. Also, we've played Wycombe 16 times since 1994, twice more than we've played Swindon. But I doubt anyone would call Wycombe more of a derby than Swindon.

What Swindon has over the Wycombe fixture is history. The Swindon rivalry dates back to before we were born. So, is the problem the lack of myth? Other derbies span generations; stories get passed down and embellished. These add significance to every fixture. However, speaking as someone who has missed just one league game between the clubs, myths struggle to establish themselves when you know the facts, especially when there's always permanent reference via film of every game?

The first time the clubs met (aside from a few non-league games in the 1950s) was in 1994. Wycombe had been promoted a year before. Like many promoted non-league clubs in those days, they were well run but considered plucky amateurs. Oxford never considered them a threat. Not least because we were mainly still mincing around the Championship.

1994 changed that; we'd been relegated (although in our heads we were still a Championship club), they had been promoted and were full of wide eyed wonderment. In our heads the script was straight forward, they would have a nice day out at a big club, and then we would brush them aside like the amateur no-marks they were.

Wycombe fans packed the Cuckoo Lane end, bless their hearts, look at their excited faces. There was a capacity crowd, the largest the fixture has attracted to date. It felt like a cup tie, but we knew the outcome; we'd let them have their special day out, then we'd smash them on the park and we'll all go home happy.

And then they scored. We were in such a stupor, having completely underestimated Wanderers' ability, that we simply didn't get going. In the second half they scored again with a well worked goal. It was a considerable jolt, we'd lost three times in the league prior to that defeat and were pretty set on bouncing back to the Championship with ease. We took 2 points in the next eight games, winning just seven more games all season including the return, our first visit to Adams Park in the April.

Adams Park is a strange place; it's situated at the end of a seemingly interminably long road that runs through a trading estate. At the point you feel like you've gone the wrong way the road ends with a set of iron gates and in front of you are rolling hills and a neat little ground. We returned still full of expectation, but were undone by the early dismissal of Matt Elliot when the Wycombe attack exploited his one weakness, his pace. A ball over the top and Elliot was left floundering. He pulled the striker to the floor, we screamed with the indignation of a crowd that knew the referee had made the right decision. They scored shortly afterwards, perhaps even from the resultant penalty. I don't remember.

The season's capitulation; a feature of too many seasons to follow, didn't dent our ambition to return to the Championship at the second attempt a year later. The first game, at the Manor, was in late October. We'd won just four league games, the hangover from the previous season seemed to be lingering. That season, and promotion, would be remembered for the late post-Christmas charge, but the Wycombe game held much significance in that success. They humiliated us 4-1 and again we just didn't get going; but, it would be our last home defeat of the season. Something in that result jolted the team into action; and the home form created a platform from which that remarkable late season run could develop.

Within that run - 1 defeat in the final 16 games - brought perhaps the most iconic moment of the fixture. Up until that point, the game had become analogous of our time in the lower league; we'd anticipated success, even expected it, but were continually sucker punched into defeat by teams we might have thought inferior.

We returned to Adams Park with a degree of trepidation. David Rush opened the scoring at the home end in the first half, in the second, in front of a maniacal Oxford support we added two more; one from Stuart Massey and a piledriver from substitute Paul Moody. This was a classic win of that surge, we'd peppered them continuously, and just when they couldn't take anymore, would introduce the galloping beast that was Moody to terrorise them some more. He scored 6 goals from the bench, and when he wasn't doing that he was simply coming on to demoralise defeated opponents. The third goal agaisnt Wycombe triggered the classic picture that lived long in the memory; Stuart Massey hanging off the cross bar and Paul Moody's arab spring.

Five more games and promotion was won; we'd returned to the Championship and the Wycombe game was put on hold for more than three years.

Next... Part 2

Away win. A long time coming, but well worth it.

Saturday's win over Wycombe was the first time I'd seen us win away for 12 years. In fact, the last time I saw us win away, was the last time we won away to Wycombe. It was, from what I remember, the most dismal win ever, like the final twitch of a dying man.

I don't do away as much as I used to. I've seen us at Stamford Bridge, Anfield and Highbury in the league, I've seen us at Lincoln City, Burton Albion and Leyton Orient. I've seen us in York on a Tuesday night, Eastbourne Borough on a Saturday morning and Carlisle on a Saturday afternoon, though not in the same week. I reckon I've seen us at about 30 grounds, which I think is enough to be respectable, but not enough to be a complete mental.

Going through the list, I can remember pretty every away trip; sitting at Crystal Palace as a socially inadequate 20-something with an high flying American executive who I'd been working with on an exhibition. He said he'd wanted to see some genuine English soccer and I mentioned I was going to see us at Palace. He was treated to a pretty entertaining 2-2 draw. The other time I was at Selhurst Park, I was standing in a corner stand whilst being blasted by unseasonable horizontal hailstones. There was the time we played QPR on plastic pitch, they equalised in the last minute when the ball bounced like a golf ball on concrete. There was the time at Loftus Road when we had Simon Marsh and Paul Powell as bona fide Under-21 England players. I thought that under Malcolm Shotton the glory days were back.

I remember the games at York and Carlisle simply because I couldn't quite believe that anyone other than me would be there. I would have gone to Birmingham City but arrived late and locked my keys in the car. I terms of ex-league clubs, I got stuck on route to Boston once and was on the outskirts of Kidderminster when I found out the game had been postponed. They don't count, I know.

In recent years I've not been able to go away much. I have other commitments and the quality of football has hardly justified any reprioritisation. I suspect as my children get older and more into football, we'll head off to some godawful holes around the country in search of away days. I'll enjoy that. But, at the moment, four hours in the car to freeze their fingers off doesn't appeal so much.

Wycombe brought back memories of what makes away games so special. There's an odd mix of familiarity and mystery. The familiarity comes from the fact you're with other Oxford fans, some of whom you might recognise from home games. The mystery comes from the fact nobody really knows quite what they're supposed to do; where do you get in? Where do you get a drink? Most people will have been to Adams Park before, but where at home everyone has their own routine; where they park, when the get into the ground, where they sit; in an away game nothing has a pattern.

There's the unique mix of people; North, South and East Standers sit together. There are the generic football casuals; baseball caps and Stone Island jackets. There are dads and lads, active greys taking in a game during a weekend away (although perhaps not at Wycombe, admittedly) and there are elderly diehards who despite seeming unable to walk, manage to nestle amongst the hoolies, if they were drinking tea from a china cup they wouldn't look out of place. There are those who haven't missed a game home or away for years and have no longer got any real grasp of the world outside a football ground.

The disruption of routine means that the stand is a hive of activity; people arrive late, and just as things start to settle down, others start heading for the toilets. At home, you can time your arrival at the ground, pre-game drink and pee break so that it doesn't disrupt your enjoyment of the game. Away, you could be half an hour late, or two hours early. You could be drinking for hours or heading straight from your car to your seat. At some point, and not usually at half-time, you need a wee. The stand buzzes constantly.

Best of all, however, is the moaning. The bloke next to me criticised everything about Wycombe from the floodlights to the lack of sponsorship (for which he was glad because it meant they'd go bust). When you're away fan, you're cornered. You're penned into one part of the ground; everything is put on a war footing; police and stewards expect trouble. The level of tension is completely disproportionate to the threat of trouble. But, it gives us something else to moan about.

The facilities are usually inadequate. But, let's face it, facilities aren't a big deciding factor in whether you travel or not. Deciding factors are distance and performance. So why should the home side invest in sweet smelling toilets? Also, Wycombe's away facilities rarely need to accommodate 1900 fans, as a result we were left queuing like cattle for the toilet. More moaning.

Amidst the activity and the moaning is the game. OK, they were terrible. I wish no bad of Wycombe, but everything about them feels like they've lost all sense of direction. Their crowd were apathetic, and I'm sure that Gareth Ainsworth is a lovely bloke, but a novice manager trying to dig his team out of a hole while squeezing the last drops of his boyhood dream does nothing for Wycombe. They need an Ian Atikins to piss everyone off and dig in.

But enough about them, we were brilliant. Potter had one of those games which makes you wonder why he isn't playing at a higher level, Constable and Craddock are looking a more potent force with every game. Whing is the universal steadying force in the team and across the club. We're reassured by his presence. The only let down was Chapman who was a little lackadaisical at times. However, even he managed to write himself into Oxford United folk history by revealing he'd played with a burnt nipple.

Yellows 2 Wycombe Wanderers 2

If someone asks you why you hate Swindon, your answer probably includes things like – they’re scum, they shag sheep, or that they search in bins for something to eat, finding dead cats which they think are a treat. But this isn’t why you hate Swindon; this just describes who they are. Let’s face it; you probably have friends who are similar.

A really good derby – and, to be honest, Swindon/Oxford isn’t one of those – are underpinned by religious, economic or class conflicts that transcend the football pitch. When it was announced that domestic violence goes up during an Old Firm game, who didn’t punch the air and shout, “THAT’S WHAT MAKES FOOTBALL BRILLIANT”? A derby is a metaphor for those divides, which levels the inequalities for 90 minutes to decide who is fundamentally right and who is wrong.

The greater the injustice, the greater the derby. I suppose there’s a mild class divide between Oxford’s educational toffs and Swindon’s more blue collar economic strictures. Incidentally, back in [Oxblogger’s rail history editor is on holiday, so enter your own year in here – anyway, it’s a long time ago] when the government were developing its railways strategy, Swindon and Abingdon were both considered to be developed as a key rail hub. Swindon got the nod igniting an economic boom in the town. Oxford v Abingdon could have been our cut throat derby – we wouldn’t have been very happy seeing Joey Beauchamp doing this for Abingdon.

Fundamentally, the injustice and inequality between Oxford and Swindon manifests on the pitch itself. As much as we’ve got our glory years and had our moments, it’s the scummers who have always just about had the upper hand. To anyone who with less than six fingers on their right hand, this is clearly unjust. It’s principally a football rather than cultural rivalry - more Tottenham/Chelsea than Tottenham/Arsenal.

I’m sure there are some who are jealous that Oxford is a world famous seat of learning and Wycombe is just famous for seats, but there is a distinct lack of inequality and injustice in our common history. Both towns are affluent, middle class and moderate. Aside from a frustrated feeling that they’ve had the better of the last 10 years, there is very little to get angry about.

This manifested itself on Saturday, nice day, big crowd, a good atmosphere and a really good game. Yes, we threw it away, but there was a sense of satisfaction that we’d been thoroughly entertained. Perhaps it’s the adrenalin rush of a rollercoaster game, but there is a visceral thrill in seeing 1500 fans going bananas. It would have been good for Tom Craddock to do a Port Vale, but in the end I can’t say I’d have felt massively different walking away with 3 points rather than 1.

I quite like the idea that Oxford/Wycombe becomes the anti-derby. A fixture in which local rivals get together like old friends and celebrate their differences. It would certainly differentiate it from the seething hotbeds of Macclesfield v Stockport or Crewe v Port Vale. It would need a major event – possibly a spiteful play-off final to ever ignite this to the level of a traditional hate-fuelled derby.

Wycombe Wanderers 0 Yellows 0

There was some dispute as to whether today’s 0-0 draw with Wycombe was a derby or not. With my, perhaps too literal head on; I think it is. After all Oxford to Wycombe is 30 miles compared with traditional rivals Swindon (also 30 miles) and Reading (42).

Apparently there’s a Football Rivals Index, I’ve read the report from 2008 and we’re not mentioned once. In fact, Macclesfield v Stockport makes the grade above us. Suspicion about its validity is raised immediately due to the cover featuring West Brom and Wolves mascots arm in arm drinking champagne and not trying to cut each others’ throats out.

The index reassuringly uses a ‘complex formula’ based on a series of arbitrary criteria to measure the derby-ness of any derby. Interesting that although the report says that the rivalries must go deeper than the game itself the index doesn’t measure sectarian or class tension.

The first criteria – the feelings of the supporters – would suggest that the Oxford/Wycombe fixture does not have much derby-ness. Oxford looks towards Wiltshire and Berkshire, Wycombe fans’ heads are turned by Colchester, of all people.

However, the record between the clubs is considered another factor. Although we’ve clearly met many more times in the past, the truth is we haven’t played Swindon or Reading for a decade in the league and have only met them occasionally in the cup during that time. Wycombe, we’ve met 6 times in the same period.

Our record against Wycombe is pretty balanced. But so is our record against Reading. Against Swindon, however, we trail by some way. The inferiority complex is significant. We have, in the main, failed against Swindon. By pinning our frilly knickers to a yellow mast we’ve been proven to be wrong over and over again. It makes us more desperate to prove that our loyalties are rightly placed. The desperation is what breeds the rivalry.

The imbalance breeds a sense of injustice or, indeed, power. This is what gives a derby its greater purpose. Whether today’s game added to that required folklore is doubtful. But it was a highly satisfactory outcome. In the context of this season, it bodes well that we have now travelled to two well tipped teams, in pressurised circumstances, and came away with a point and clean sheet. Bring on you ‘ammers.

Wycombe Wanderers preview

For the first time ever I’m going to miss an Oxford v Wycombe professional league fixture. It’s the only Oxford fixture I can truly talk about with any authority.12 games and fifteen years, plus the 2006 cup game - I’ve seen it all; Matt Elliot’s sending off, Stuart Massey hanging off the cross bar, and a goalie named Hubert Busby.

In ’94 our rivals were Reading and Swindon. Wycombe were well run and non-threatening. Other derbies were blood-letting affairs, our Wycombe game plan was the equivalent of putting our hand on their forehead and letting them swing punches wildly. They were upstarts and pipsqueaks.

In truth by running their club properly, they produced a very effective football team. Adams Park is a neat little ground surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, or at least it was. In a fit of ambition they’ve added a huge main stand, which towers over the other three sides. It looks like someone’s decided to stop a few hoodies from smoking by moving a robotic killing machine in to watch over them.

For the first three meetings we simply expected victory, on each occasion we left miserable and usually a bit humiliated. The run was broken in ’96 whilst in the middle of a once in a generation run of games in which our juggernaut of a team sweep to promotion. The victory was marked by the aforementioned, now iconic, Massey monkey hang and Moody dad-gymnastics. The highlight of the sequence.

Between then and the last meeting in 2006 I stare at the fixtures desperately trying to recall much at all about any of them. I remember Pal Lundin scoring the winning penalty in the Auto Windscreen Shield game I missed, and a barely deserved away win in 2000, and Hubert Busby’s single appearance at a shambolic game I arrived late for, but that’s it.

We’ve traded blows, won a bit, lost a bit, but all the while we were drowning and they were not. In fact, having played in two major cup semi-finals they’ve had a recent history we’d have killed for.

The penultimate league game was probably the best in the sequence, a 2-2 draw with us equalising a couple of minutes from time. A classic in the great scheme of things, but with the crowd nearly 30% down on its ’95 vintage, most had lost interest in the fixture as a derby, in fact it was just another game.

Take a chair, boys

There's rarely a fair result, it's more that there is a range of fair results from which one will derive. In yesterday's case, the fair result ranged from a defeat to a draw. It wouldn't have been unjust to come back for a replay, but we didn't quite offer enough for the win.

We lacked a creativity in midfield; although had Andy Burgess been fit, I fear we may have been a little on the soft side in this department. His absence allowed us to be strong and compact, but though Eddie Hutchinson looked better again, there wasn't enough craft to release Yemi and Basham. We certainly missed Duffy, not for his goals specifically, but for the lack of options. You suspect Duffy and Basham would have softened up the Wycombe centre backs and there would have been an opportunity late in the game to introduce Yemi to press any advantage home

There was no gulf, and Wycombe are a strong side, but there was little venom. It's a derby in geography alone; there isn't the ire that you want games like this to have. The rivalry is more socio-economic - who is higher in the division - than cultural and is probably what makes Wycombe such a nice, but ultimately dull, club.

There seems to be so little about them; the music before the game was Harry J All Stars – Liquidator, a Wolves staple, Daydream Believer (Sunderland); and I wonder what they'll play when they score... what a shock it's Tom Hark by the Piranhas. Nothing about them is particularly unique, nor particularly offensive. Perhaps this makes them the ultimate post-modern club but like house prices in High Wycombe, Wanderers' rise seems to have resulted more from macro growth trend rather than anything else. For the Us to muster 1,835 away fans for a derby feels like we're engaged in some sort of football community service than battling for local pride.

Jim Smith, before the game, said the objective was to get to the third round, get Manchester United away, take the money and run. That may have been the stretch target, but perhaps the key requirement was to register our presence in this year's competition and then go out without derailing the bigger objective. Job done in this respect.