Should I let my daughter become an Arsenal fan?

Somewhere in the back of my mind is a memory of a photo. It is of a Wimbledon team celebrating in a changing room. Maybe it was after a promotion was confirmed or perhaps it was an FA Cup win (but, not THAT FA Cup win). The team are in white, as far as I recall. Very vaguely, I remember it being shown on World of Sport or Grandstand, but I can’t be certain as to why. What I associate with this photo is that it was the first time I became aware of a phenomenon called Wimbledon and their then manager Dave Basset.

Wimbledon were in the process of doing something remarkable, though I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. To be honest, I never wholly bought the romanticism of what they eventually achieved; there was very little panache in their approach and we were living out our own glory days, which was much more important and interesting.

Still, nowadays Oxford v Wimbledon does leave me feeling somewhat nostalgic for a glorious past, even if Saturday's game proved that the reality of the 'now' can be a bucket of cold sick over the sepia world of 'then'.

That photo, and both teams’ remarkable rise through the divisions happened when I was about 12 or 13. I’d been going regularly to the Manor for a few years before that, the magic pretty much happened as soon as I started going, no wonder it hooked me in.

My daughter, M, is 8. That's about the age I started going to the Manor on a regular basis. She loves football and has been to a couple of Oxford games. She says she supports Oxford, but there hasn't been a lot to entrance her in the way it did for me. When I was around her age, my dad and I queued for tickets for games against Manchester United and Arsenal, we eventually saw us at Anfield, Stamford Bridge, Highbury and Wembley. That isn't happening for M, and even if we did find ourselves drawn against a big boy in the cup, we can safely say we'd be annihilated.

M has Oxford shirts, she's shown an interest in Crystal Palace, because a boy in her class is a fan. She has periodically flitted between all the big teams; Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool, depending on who is on TV at the time.

In recent months she seems to have has settled on Arsenal, I have a soft spot for Arsenal myself because I used to go to Highbury fairly often as a child. I'm reasonably happy to accept this growing affinity. But now Christmas is coming and I'm toying with the idea that, perhaps, I should cement it and get her a Arsenal shirt.

This would potentially undermine any loyalty she might have towards Oxford, of course. But, in every other area of life you want the best for your children, why insist she be burdened with misery and failure by trying to force them into something as ungiving as a lower-league football club.

Supporting two teams isn't necessarily new; my dad supported both Wolves and Oxford, I followed Ipswich in the early eighties while going to the Manor. The puritan in me wants M to support one team, her local team, in the way you're supposed to. But perhaps we should be a bit more like the French in their attitude to sex and marriage - you have a wife for the practicalities in life, and a mistress for fun. Are we expecting too much for our children to get everything they want from one club?

The alternative might be another shirt from Europe, but Real Madrid or Barcelona both seem so obvious; a bridge too far. I was in Rotterdam recently and looked into getting a Feyenoord shirt, but that seemed was a very expensive way of being counter-culture, and she wouldn't have appreciated the nuance of my decision. National shirts are an option, but I'm not English, at least not wholly. I have a strong sense of my Scottish-ness, probably because when I was growing up, Scotland were the dominant British team or at least on par with the English. Could I bear her in an England shirt, should I spare her the indignity of a Scottish one?

There are a lot of practical benefits of allowing her to become an Arsenal fan; they are on the TV quite a lot and win trophies (occasionally). My gnarled mind, riddled with the evil politics of modern football, cannot abide the thought of having a Chelsea or Manchester City fan in the family, Manchester United and Liverpool are more acceptable because their success is, at least, borne out of their success, Arsenal too. When she realises that Chelsea win everything, she may go back to them, so is it time now to bank what I’ve got and hope that as she grows up, a fondness for Oxford grows and overshadows the flighty glamour of the Premier League?

Back to The Future

There’s no question of the story of the last fornight; the emergence of James Roberts as a real-life homegrown striker who actually scores real professional goals.

There's always a frisson on excitement that comes from an emergent talent like Roberts. There's the vicarious joy of watching someone doing what you always dreamed to do - play and score for your team. We also hope beyond hope that he might be the Chosen One who will propel us forward. A hope to cling to, a sign of a brighter future.

But, tread carefully, for he is not the first, and history tells us that rarely does the flame of hope grow beyond a fleeting flicker.

When I first started supporting Oxford, home grown players that went on to greater things were the norm; my dad predicted an international future for Mark Wright during his league debut against Bristol City. We already had Kevin Brock and Andy Thomas, both in the squad for Wembley in ’86 and both would eventually forge decent top flight careers. Brock, in particular, played at Under-21 level for England. Those two aside, the glory years were characterised by players that were bought in, than by those brought through. However, it there wasn't the perception that we were buying in success. Because it was more normal to have British players coming through your youth system, it wasn’t quite the political issue it is today.

Joey Beauchamp was a ballboy on the touchline at Wembley. There’s a very youthful picture of him in Roger Howland’s Oxford United Complete History wearing that horrible yellow and white striped shirt that became synonymous with the latter glory years… ones which were less than glorious. Beauchamp was almost the son of the Glory Years; being born out of those successes and sustaining them, despite a brief transgression with Swindon, right through to the Kassam Years (the Inglorious Years).

Beauchamp was a proper hometown hero; he supported the club, found that he couldn’t live without it. When he signed for West Ham, however, it seemed that we would forever be a team that grew and then sold our best talent. That didn’t seem a bad thing to me because we weren’t the kind of club who could or even should hold onto such talented players.

Alongside Beauchamp, and to reinforce the theory that there would forever be a conveyor belt of talent, was Chris Allen. Allen was a particularly raw, hardly the type, you’d think, to evolve into an excellent coach. Allen’s head was turned by Nottingham Forest. By the time he left, he’d fallen out of love with the club and we were happy to cash in. Like Beauchamp at West Ham, Allen didn’t last long in the shiny world of top flight football.

Behind them, however, was the player I thought was the most talented of them all. Paul Powell could take teams on all by himself. There were few more exciting sights than Powell cutting in from the left and chipping home in front of a delirious London Road. I thought he’d play for England, and he was periodically linked with moves away. Injury and attitude did for him before he had a chance, a shadow of his former dynamic self, he continued in the margins deep into the Kassam years before falling by the wayside.

There were others; Simon Weatherstone hit a hat-trick in a reserve game against Arsenal which had the London Road salivating. But Weatherstone, when he did get his chance, was limited in his impact and settled into becoming a effective, but unremarkable holding midfielder in the lower leagues. Simon Marsh showed enough form under Malcolm Shotton to be considered for selection at England Under 21 level. Sold to Birmingham, his career fizzled to nothing. Rob Folland enjoyed international recognition with Wales, but didn’t do much beyond a goal at the Madjeski against Reading. Chris Hackett had pace to burn but little sense of direction, a move to Hearts and then Millwall was little return for someone who apparently, and improbably, once attracted the interest of Manchester United and Nottingham Forest.

Of course, with the great dawning of the Kassam years came the latest in the long lineage of great hopes. Jamie Brooks’ debut was at the first game at the Kassam Stadium, and his was the first goal scored; a delicate lob in a 1-2 defeat. I don’t think I fully appreciated Brooks’ talent, I just seemed so obvious that the new era, which would surely herald a period of unbridled success, would have a locally sourced hero on the pitch and, with Mark Wright as manager, in the dugout.

Brooks lasted a season (Wright even less) and was about to go on trial at Arsenal when he was struck down by Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which left him in intensive care. He never truly recovered, although he remained at the club until we were finally relegated from the Conference in 2006.

Brooks’ talents were prodigious, but it was two others who would work their way into the top flight. Dean Whitehead was fully forged by Ian Atkins, who resisted persistent calls to play Whitehead. When he did he matched talent with a prodigious appetite for work which saw him heading for Sunderland, and eventually the Premier League. Sam Ricketts took a more circuitous route. Never a spectacular player, he similarly never let anyone down when he played. Oxford let him go and he dropped out of the league to play for the, then ambitious Telford.

Telford imploded but he managed to get a contract with Swansea, just as they were starting to take off. A couple of smart moves to Hull and then Bolton, saw him playing Premier League football. Of all the supposed greats, it was Wright, Whitehead and Ricketts, arguably the least remarkable, that had the biggest and longest impact at the top of the game.

After Whitehead, Ricketts and Brooks, homegrown players seemed to play for mostly financial reasons. I remember those around me in the Oxford Mail stand talking enthusiastically about Alex Fisher, who scored on his debut, but ultimately needed a few more protein shakes to deal with the physicality of Conference football. Aaron Woodley was so highly rated that the usually cautious Chris Wilder fast tracked him into the first team to ensure that the club could get a fee from any sale to a bigger club. It never came.

During the Conference years, the strategy was never about developing players or anything long term, it was about securing the immediate return to the Football League and then, when that was achieved, out of League 2. Heroes were bought, not bred.

That is until last season, when financial constraints really began to hit once more. The club divested itself of the likes of Peter Leven and Michael Duberry and invested, instead, in a host of ‘Development Squad’ players, many of whom graduated into the first team and gave excellent accounts of themselves. Ian Lenagan’s new vision of a team of homegrown players seemed to be taking shape with Crocombe, Bevans, Marsh all giving good accounts for themselves, and Josh Ruffels and Callum O’Dowda, in particular, making legitimate claims to being first choice.

The pick of the lot, it seems, is Roberts. His goalscoring feats have been bubbling around the margins of the club for the last year or so. When he scored last week he tweeted that ‘it was just the start’; a typically alpha thing to say. Scott Davies crassly followed it up by saying that Roberts would soon be out of the club (and therefore onto greater things). The biggest question is whether he will do, a romantic might try to argue that Roberts is the latest line of great talents produced by the club. More cynical could argue, reasonably, that sustained and proper success have only been enjoyed by Wright, Rickets and Whitehead, of which only Whitehead's success was forged at Oxford. While we will all pray that Roberts does go on to greater things, perhaps even within Oxford, but as history tells us, when it comes to great white hopes, frequently the start is more often than not, swiftly followed by the finish.

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.