Tuesday, 2nd November 2010.
nPower League TwoOUFC 0 Turkey 2
For some reason, I knew it wasn't going to be a good evening early on yesterday, when I had an argument with the man in the Branos fast food outlet on Blackbird Leys on my way to the game.
Regular readers will know that I often chow down on a Branos spicy chicken burger before home games. It's become something of a ritual this season in fact. Even though I'd heard alleged stories about them cooking flies in their chicken, I simply can't resist their spicy secret recipe, and if it does allegedly trump the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices with the addition of insects, it's a winning recipe. As I said, allegedly.
So, imagine my disdain last night when having ordered a Spicy chicken burger, waited 15mins as others got served before me, the cheeky chappy tried to pass off a NON-spicy chicken burger to me. He obviously didn't realise I was a seasoned Branos man, and fully aware that their chicken pieces have a slight orange tinge to them if they've been coated in their spicy glaze. The one he'd presented to me was not orange...
J'ACCUSE, BRANOS MAN!!!
What really incensed me was his dismissive tone, saying that they didn't have any spicy pieces so I would have to have a non-spicy burger.
OH WOULD I INDEED, MR BRANOS MAN?! Maybe I could just demand my money back and take my spicy chicken lust elsewhere!!! That would teach you, wouldn't it, you spicy-burger tease, you!
As it was, I was pretty hungry after a 2 hour drive from work, so I begrudgingly took the non-spicy burger, with or without the alleged flies. But not before I'd made him feel slightly awkward. A small victory, I thought.
It was only after I left the shop that I realised that the Turkish-run Branos had clearly deliberately refused me my spicy chicken in a bid to upset me before Oxford played their fellow countrymen that evening. Dastardly behaviour indeed, but I had to admire their cunning attempt to put me off cheering on Oxford that evening due to mild food-based disgruntlement.
As it was, my disgruntlement was further heightened on watching the teams come out onto the field - Turkey, not in their traditional red kit, but in YELLOW. What the flying fuck? It was bad enough having to for some reason play a nation state as part of the League 2 campaign (and a rapidly improving football nation at that), but they also get to play in our home colours?
I'd already aired my reservations about the new mostly blue kit earlier in the season - but this now highlighted exactly why it wasn't quite sitting right with me. A team could come to our home and get away with an all-yellow kit, so un-yellow was our own current strip. Very disappointing and I'm blaming that as much as the lack of a pre-match spicy burger for the inept performance last night. Oh, and the players as well. I'm blaming them too.
This was my first match in exactly a month - since the victory over table-toppers Port Vale. How things have changed in that time, and I don't just mean the performance on the pitch, I mean more specifically the attitude of the fans.
True, I wasn't at Bradford last weekend so didn't have to endure the 2nd half collapse, so perhaps the anger was partly justified by those who'd travelled up to Yorkshire to see that. But something that someone who has been away for a few games (such as I) can truly notice more than those there every week is how different the atmosphere was at the KasStad from a month ago.
The optimism - gone.
The confidence - gone.
How quickly things can change. How fickle is both the form of players and the attitude of the fans.
I'm not going to pretend that the outcome last night, against 10 men, was anything less than woeful - but I'm still astounded that people are so quick to get on the players' backs and boo the team. Do people actually think the players will take inspiration from that, or just lose more confidence and play even worse?
Anyone that seriously concludes the former is delusional.
Certainly, we can take little away from last night's performance except that a couple of players may need to take a look at themselves and perhaps have a little time on the bench for the next few games. Some questions again on the tactics, team selection and substitutions from 'Tinkerer' Wilder - we all remember when he got that label last year and the turgid couple of months that came out of it.
To top it all off, the chap in the seat in front of me won the 50/50 draw.
£1,050.
I'm not saying I deserved it more than him, but I did deserve it more than him.
Well, the game is over now. I returned to my car and drove back to London, listening to the rants of the callers on Radio Oxford in a slightly depressed state as you might expect.
It's tight in the league this season - before last night we were 4 points off the play-offs and 4 points of relegation. Things can change quickly, for better or worse. Let's just hope the optimism and the form of just a few weeks ago returns sooner rather than later.
A diversion into the FA Cup might be just what we need right about now.
Up The
Oh, and did you spot the deliberate mistake? The above flag was of course the flag of Tunisia. The flag of Turkey is here below. More Islamic flag-based tomfoolery next time, folks!
 |
| The Real Turkey Flag. Similar to Tunisia. |
No comments:
Post a Comment