Shrewd Business Practice

Tuesday, 16th August 2011
nPower League Two
OUFC 2 Shrewsbury Town 0

I wasn't intending on coming up for this one. I know all the jibes - 'part-timer', 'fair-weather fan', 'stupid f*cking c*nt'... I've been called them all before, often with justification. But hey, you non-exiles don't know what it's like traipsing up for an evening game when you work near France and live in the centre of London.

Last Wednesday I drove from work, a 5 hour round journey which cost me probably around £50-£60 in petrol. I wasn't doing that again. I can always drive from London after work, a cost of a mere £20-ish, but by the time I get back to London it's 6.30pm and it means I'd struggle to make kick-off to justify sitting in rush-hour traffic leaving London for 90minutes.

But a fellow London Yellow was desperate to go and convinced me to drive us both last night from London at 6.30, even if it meant missing the first 20mins. Well I'm glad he convinced me, as that was a corker last night.

We actually made good time and were parked up at The Blackbird by 7.30, and although that meant no time for a drink or even a Spicy Branos Burger, it meant we were in the ground for kick-off and I was delighted I'd made the effort on such a gorgeous August night for football.

There were an awful lot of police about for some reason. Maybe they were looking for Shrewsbury's Steroid Man whom I mentioned last season. Certainly they were out in force with cameras and what have you, which seemed overkill for a mid-week fixture with no real needle, so I can't think what else they were up to.

Walking down to the ground from the Leys, hearing Perkele's Yellow & Blue song floating across the field and noticing the most spectacular Oxfordshire sunset sky, I had a feeling we were in for a treat tonight - and so we were.

Oxfordshire Sunset: Very nice.

Make no mistake, Shrewsbury are a good side and will be up there at the end of the season. The difference between them and Bradford was striking, in my eyes. It's an old cliché I know but we always seem to do well when a good side comes down to the Kassam and lets us play. And last night, we played.

Special mention I think for the young and oddly named Asa Hall. Odd to me at least, as I've never come across the name before. Perhaps you went to school with dozens of Asas, or had a great-uncle Asa. Well I didn't. I know it's a strange thing to be suddenly bringing up well over a year after we signed him, but it's something that's been bugging me for ages. I've also been pronouncing it in my head as "Assa" for a while too, something I may continue, furtively. Apparently it's an old Hebrew word meaning 'Healer' or 'Physician,' if you are interested. Oh, you're not. OK.

Asa: The Great Healer.

Anyway, back to the game and what more can I say except WOW WHAT A FUCKING GOAL from Heslop. Does it rival Beauchamp's against Blackpool? Well, no. But all the same, what a cracker. And there's an excuse to look at that Beauchamp goal again though.

So, we saw the game out. We passed it around lovely-like, we created and we finished some chances and we kept them out at the other end. To top all this off, Swindon lose at Daggers and we are above them in the League standings for the first time in 11 ruddy years - just in time to play them on their patch.

It's all very exciting, isn't it?

I don't know about you, but I might pop along to that game on Sunday after all. Are there any tickets left?

The Taming of the (Oh no, sorry I can't do it).

The below article should appear in tonight's programme against Shrewsbury. Buy it though - as Martin will put some nice alternate pictures next to it stuff.
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These games are coming thick and fast at the moment, aren’t they? Three in a week – wow. It’s a good job I haven’t run out of things to say yet, isn’t it?


So… what about those riots in London then eh? Yeah, they were pretty fierce and what have you. And the economic situation is still a little shaky, isn’t it? Oh, and did you hear about that man that…ummm, yeah.

Well, tonight we welcome The Shrews of Shrewsbury to Oxford, for another tough early-season test.

Trips to Shrewsbury’s old Gay Meadow were always a treat for me, I loved that old ground. I guess it reminded slightly of our own old Manor Ground – and certainly on my last trip there in 2005 it felt nostalgic, standing on a rickety old terrace behind the goal again.


Gay Meadow: Just Very Happy.

At the time of course, I had little inclination that I’d be about to spend four long years standing on rickety old terraces in non-league, during which time my dewy-eyed nostalgia for grounds of ‘character’ was lessened somewhat by trips to the likes of Droylsden, Southport and Tonbridge Angels.


But for all the obvious advantages of moving to our respective new grounds, fans of both Oxford and Shrewsbury will still miss their old homes in equal measure, I’m sure. Plus Gay Meadow had an old man in a coracle who retrieved the balls from the river, apparently. That’s brilliant.

Trips to Shrewsbury always seemed to involve sitting in a beer garden of the nice pub near the ground beforehand. And if time allowed, an exploration of the town by walking over the ‘English Bridge’ (I always assumed into Wales, but apparently not) and discover and explore some lovely old buildings. Lovely old buildings that mainly served beer, but some lovely old buildings nonetheless.

Matt 'Guitar' Murphy.
I think google image search
has let me down this time.

I went to Gay Meadow on three occasions and the games were all very different affairs indeed. First up was an FA Cup tie in November 1999. I remember this being an exciting game, with goals from Matt Murphy and Rob Folland salvaging a 2-2 draw for Oxford and a replay back at the Manor. The replay was also a cracker which went into Extra-Time – but a brace from the unfairly maligned Murphy again saw us through the tie.

McNiven: Not a goalkeeper.

The second trip was a very strange affair in March 2003. After a collision during the Shrewsbury equaliser on the stroke of half-time, Oxford keeper Andy Woodman had to be taken off with facial injuries, and with no substitute goalkeeper on the bench, the 5’8” Scott McNiven went in goal for the last 45 minutes. I remember wondering why the hell the shortest man on the pitch had been given the gloves, but he had and that was that.

So, imagining the rest of the game was only going to go one way with an under-tall novice in goal, straight after the re-start Jefferson Louis defied my expectations and bags a goal to give Oxford a 2-1 lead.

Gay Meadow: I never saw it this packed.

It was a mad end to the game, with Oxford having numerous chances to finish it off and McNiven thankfully not having much cause to test out his goal-keeping skills with Oxford attacking the Shrewsbury half. There was still even time for a red card apiece in this bad-tempered affair, but Oxford managed to hold on for the victory, somehow. Great game.

The third and last trip to Gay Meadow was in April 2005, and the home side won 3-0. Don’t remember much about that game. Think it was probably a load of old rubbish.
Up The U’s!

Bantam Wait

The below article should appear in today's match programme against Bradford City. That's only if it was deemed worthy, of course.
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Ahhh, the new Football League season is upon us at last!


It might not seem very long since the season finished, especially if listening to my wife complaining about the paucity of football-free weekends. But the summer break still seems to last too long for me and I suspect many of you reading this.

So what do you do to get through the barren months? You could watch a spot of cricket, perhaps. You could even spend your Saturday afternoons shopping, god forbid.

Or, like me, you could try and distract yourself and leave the country on a summer holiday. I decided to go to East Africa and have a real adventure. Now ridden with bilharzia and fearful of having contracted malaria and dysentery too, I wish I’d just got those tickets to Lord’s instead, to be honest.

I must admit – I love August and watching the football in the sunshine in those early weeks of the season. Decked out in shorts and shades, the pre-match lager-shandy, and entering the ground full of confidence and expectation for the coming season.

Passerine: Scum.

And what is this? A long-overdue trip to Wiltshire added into the mix in these early weeks? Surely not! But yes indeed, there it is, burning a hole on all our wall-calendars with a very thick ring circled around it – the date of August 21st. It’s easy to get carried away of course by this upcoming trip, but let’s not lose track of the bigger picture of promotion out of League Two and that the games against the red-breasted passerines are just two games on the way to that goal. But oh, what two games, eh?

Today we welcome Bradford City to sunny Oxford - so last season’s two best-supported sides at this level should hopefully create a great atmosphere for our first home league game of the campaign.

Although obviously we played each other last season (can’t seem to remember playing them away though, for some reason), my most distinct memories of playing Bradford come from when we were in the same division from 1994-99.

The most vivid memory was my first trip to Valley Parade in Jan 1997. The Coach was delayed on the M6 for hours and we eventually arrived at the outskirts of Bradford only to hear that Bradford had gone 1-0 up. By the time the coach limply pulled up outside the turnstiles, there was just 30mins left and many of us were debating whether it was worth paying the entrance fee (which had only been reduced by £2!) to go in. We decided it was with the result of the match still in balance, but just as we entered the stand we heard the roar of 12,000 people above us, and rightly surmised that Oxford hadn’t on this occasion traveled in such great numbers, so it must mean Bradford were 2-0 up and the game was done and dusted.

McElliott: Classy Scot.

To make the memory even more painful, this also proved to be Matt Elliott's last game for Oxford and those dreams of play-offs to the Premiership faded forever as January wore on and we slipped down the league.

It’s a long time ago now – since then Bradford of course did spend time in the Premiership, and the less said about where we went the better, but today we both find ourselves in League Two hoping to bounce back up the leagues.

I’d be quite happy to re-visit Valley Parade, even to watch just the last 30mins, if in a few years’ time it was in the 2nd tier again (And with a 1997-era Matt Elliott playing for us too, if I’m allowed to be greedy).

Up The U's!

Welsh Scarebits

Wednesday, 10th August 2011
Carling Cup, 1st Round

OUFC 1 Cardiff City 3 AET

Always the way isn’t it? The amount of football clichés last night almost defies belief.

A plucky underdog battering a higher-placed team for 60 mins but giving away a poor goal early on.

Referee giving said plucky side nothing, despite numerous penalty claims and dodgy tackles.

Referee not going into his pocket to punish the infringing team for their reckless tackles until 20mins into extra time.

Fantastic Mr Ox grabbing a Branos Spicy Chicken burger on Matchday. But what is this? Getting one AFTER the game rather than before it? Good lord!

That apart though, it was the same, well-worn old story of we played well, probably should have won, but lost to a technically better side last night. I say technically better, because they technically were, technically at least, if you look at things from a technical perspective. But you wouldn’t have noticed that for much of the 2nd half last night, in my opinion. With our new YELLOW shirts* we were like a swarm of bees round beekeepers (cos Cardiff were wearing white, see?).

Beekeepers: Calm.

That’s actually quite a good analogy as despite buzzing round the bastards for ages we never ended up stinging them in the end and Cardiff saw out the last 20mins with a kind of calm and ease that only a beekeeper in his protective gear would retain when bombarded in such a manner.
Well, OK it’s a silly analogy, but I still like it.

As usual, it was quite an effort for me to get up to a night game, working as I do in deepest darkest Kent, before having to return to a currently riotous London after the game. That I made this round trip of 250 miles probably makes me a better person and a bigger fan than you. Probably.

I set off early from work and on the way enjoyed the last few hours of Test Match Special from Edgbaston in the late afternoon sun, listening to lovely Mr Strauss pick up his 50 and help England on their way to becoming the number 1 test side in the world. Ahh Cricket!

But of course, the cricket season was symbolically drawing to a close for me with the close of play last night. From here on in until May, it’s football season, and I was very excited about my first Oxford game of the new campaign.

Arrived in good time at The Blackbird for a quick pre-match pint and discussion of the riots in London this week. A friend of mine thinks he has the solution – a crack Serbian-style Containment & Discipline Battalion to be deployed onto the streets with free rein to kick the living shit out of anyone causing trouble. Whilst I had my doubts that jackbooted martial law was actually the answer, he was quite adamant that it was, and proceeded to expand on the potential for his Battalion’s deployment for much of the rest of the evening.

First half then – not so convincing from Oxford, we didn’t seem to be gelling at times and looked a little out of sorts. Cardiff’s goal though was pretty shocking – I still don’t know how the buggery it went in.
At half-time, a complaint I had about the stink of all the buggers smoking in the toilets and the meekness of the stewards in dealing with it was another opportunity for my friend to expand on the potential of his C&D Battalion.

Battalion members should be issued with metal bars and if the smoker denies they are holding a cigarette behind their back and it is discovered to be a lie – a quick rap from the bar and a broken arm should prevent them from doing it again. All of a sudden I was coming around to the idea.

Second half, and my rose-tinted blinkers convince me that we should have won it in the 90 minutes. We played well and I tell you what, that Leven does look like a touch of magic. Let’s hope he proved to be as anticipated. I also really hope Constable doesn't go to Luton as it seems he might. His work-rate can never, ever be faulted and last night I thought he put himself about and harried the Cardiff back line with aplomb. He would most certainly be missed, for all his faults, in my opinion.


Constable: Respected.

 I really didn’t want extra time, given the drive back to London to still come. And given that we ended up losing anyway and have a far more important League fixture in 3 day’s time – I’m sure Wilder and the players didn’t really want it either. In the end, despite their ET goals being more defensive errors than anything else, they saw the match out and that was that. Disappointing, but loads of positives too and I’m still excited about this season. Just like I am every season.

London Riots: Actually quite merry.

And so back to London. Thankfully the journey home took my car only through Marylebone and Bloomsbury, quite salubrious districts that were hardly likely to see any bricks coming through my windscreen. No police about round there though, so if you do fancy grabbing some free organic muesli or putting together the ingredients for a quinoa salad, I suggest you rioters abandon looting the obvious chavvy branches of Footlocker you live in and smash up the West End instead. Although leave it until I’ve moved back to Oxford, if you could.

I’m totally shattered today after an early start and late return, but despite the defeat it was worth it, as ever. A good game and a good performance and great to see all the old faces again, and hear all their giddy stories.

I’m already looking forward to the Bradford game at the weekend, and I’m back in the programme then too. So pick up a copy and read that, if you want to help the club and my ego at the same time.

Up The U’s!

*Yes, I am quite pleased about that.

Canio Be Serious?

Ladies and Gentlemen, May I present to you the new Swindon Town manager, S. Paulo Di Canio.

Lovely chap. Big fan of that Mussolini fellow, apparently.

Looking forward very much to warmly greeting him and his new team at the Kassam Stadium next season.

You Shrews, You Lose.

Saturday, 7th May 2011.
nPower League Two
Shrewsbury Town 3 OUFC 0

 
I always like the last game of the season, even when there is nothing to play for. As long as you don't end the day relegated there is always something of a party atmosphere about a last-day away trip.

For the travelling 800+ Oxford fans, this was really a non-event - Oxford were playing for pride only. But for Shrewsbury of course, a win for them and anything less for Wycombe at home to Southend, and Shrewsbury would leap-frog our near-neighbours into the last promotion spot. So we had a chance to wreck their party.

I had a full car for a change for the trip to Salop* this weekend. Rising fuel costs dictate that trips like this can't be done alone anymore, however much I'd like to be able to wallow in solitude to a Leonard Cohen soundtrack for the journey. So I rounded up a couple of chaps from London, and a further wastrel from Oxford and off we set to the Welsh borderlands.

It's a funny old town, Shrewsbury. So obviously a bit of a cut-off backwater these days, it has a civic grandeur in places that reminds it was once on the doorstep of the industrial revolution and a very wealthy trading centre some 200 years ago.

It's one of those places that appears a lovely quaint market town with grand civic buildings, but when you scratch under the surface it's quite a rough-and-ready town. A place where the seemingly innocent choice of pub you go into can mean the difference between sharing pre-match drinks with an eccentric bunch of hippies and bikers guilty only of too-much substance abuse over the years; or walking into an angry wall of imitation stone-island jumpers and coke'd-up chavs in tracksuits willing to knock your nose into the back of your head.

Thankfully, after parking up in the town centre we ended up walking into the former rather than the latter - and perhaps the most bizarre pub I think I've ever been to. It was called Yorkshire House and the outside facade in a lovely quiet square next to a beautiful red-stone church did little to prepare us for the delights of the interior that awaited.

This pub you see, had wizards and goblins in it. No, seriously - wizards and goblins. Next to the bar. Wizards and goblins.

I see you don't believe me? Well - here is the proof, as modelled by my lovely assistant Susan.


Wizards...




...and Goblins. In a pub.

Yorkshire House was a metallers pub, with leather-clad patrons and wall-murals of classic Slayer and Iron Maiden albums, and also statues of wizards and goblins by the bar. Well why not I say?

We had a good hour or two chatting to some of the quite crazy locals in there to the soundtrack of Norwegian Black Metal. One friend of mine got chatting to a local who told him he refused to watch football any more because his dad was killed at Shrewsbury's old Gay Meadow ground by a flying tomato which hit him right on the temple. I kid you not, and this chap was either a genius at delivering deadpan comedy or was totally serious.

After our cultural exchange with these crazed Salopians, we got a taxi out to Shrewsbury's new ground. A ground which is a good 3 miles well out of town, surrounded on all sides by fields (fields that had clearly just been coated in shit, judging by the stench), and yet provided not a single parking space for visiting fans. A ridiculous state of affairs and having to traipse back to the town centre was not something I was looking forward to having seen how up for a scrap some of their fans seemed to be inside the ground.

I've not got an awful lot to say about the game itself. More than anything because it was far more entertaining watching the Salopians fighting amongst themselves and with the stewards. There was also the quite hilarious sight of Shrews fans TWICE celebrating what they perceived to be Southend goals, when in fact they were Wycombe goals. Someone must have been having a laugh in there feeding them dud information. Perhaps that is what caused them to kick the living shit out of each other.



"Breathe On 'Em, Salop!"

"Well, either that or kick the shit out of the bloke sat next to you."

90mins came and went, and as an apt reflection for the way the season as a whole petered out too early, our defenders looked like they'd already boarded the plane for their summer holidays by the time Shrewsbury walked through for their third goal. And so, that was that - the season was over.

Our day's adventures still involved trying to get back to our car amidst a mildly-sinister atmosphere though. Whilst walking back amidst the Shrews fans, keeping our heads down just in case any of them were as mentally-ill as they looked they were in the ground, I realised that I wasn't used to this feeling any more. This edgy uneasiness leaving a football game - the feeling that you need to be on guard as it might kick-off at any point.

This used to be par for the course of going to football for me, 10 years ago. The fact is these days I rarely take the train and/or have to walk back to the town centre after a game like I used to- It's normally straight back to the car and off. Plus, for the past 4 seasons we've been travelling to villages or nothing-towns where the threat of trouble just doesn't raise it's head. Other than Luton, the most threatening thing in recent years has been the danger of falling into the duck-pond at Histon and getting the unwanted attentions of a randy mallard.

Nothing did happen on the way back to the car of course, but there was a nervy moment at the bus-stop when I noticed a Schwarzenegger-wannabe who'd been giving it the big-un all through the first half was approaching us, clearly off his tits and also bang up for slapping somebody, if he could.



Shrews Steroid-Man. He looked just like this (or thought he did, at least).

Thankfully, he walked straight past us, probably off home to spit on his mum and beat up his dog. Of course, had he tried it on I'd have used my kung-fu skills on him and he'd have been mincemeat. But I don't like getting the chops flying unless I really have to.

It was a long old day, and the trip home pretty uneventful - but it had all been too much for one of the passengers. Bless.

So, 12th place in the end isn't a bad finish for our first season back in the league - but you can't help feeling that we should have been in the play-off mix, and anything less that that next season will be viewed a lot more critically by most fans than it was this season.

Roll on August!

  

*Yes, that's right, Salop.

It may now officially be Shropshire but I remember when my Phillip's School Atlas clearly marked this borderlands county as Salop. And the locals seem to still like being called Salopians from Salop. Weirdos. Incidentally, Salop is also French slang for a slapper. Haha, you Shrewsbury Salops!

Last Home Game

An Article also published in today's matchday programme against Lincoln City.

Blimey, is it that time already? Last home game of the season? Time flies doesn’t it?


I mean, it only seems like, what? Nine months ago that we were sat here for that Carling Cup game against Brizzle Rovers?

Oh, it was nine months ago. Well there you go then.

It’s been a topsy-turvy old season and that’s for sure. Beating a team a division above 6-1 in the cup, a trip to Premiership West Ham and some fine, fine performances putting us within a whisker of promotion at one point were all on the topsy side of things.

Losing 5-0 at Bradford, crashing out early in the FA Cup, losing points at home we shouldn’t have with some mediocre performances and the season fizzling out two weeks early probably were all on the turvy side of things. Whatever a turvy is. (Actually, didn’t he used to play in goal for us?)



So we will be missing out on play-offs and promotion this season barring some strange points deduction shenanigans, a mass resignation of clubs from the league or a plague of locusts somehow contriving to affect the established points totals (don’t scoff - this was exactly what curtailed the Egyptian League season early in the 1,500 BC -1,549 BC season).



Smokebombs at Accrington. Smoky.

But hey, come on guys – has it really been a disappointing season? It’s an old cliché but we know we’d all have taken mid-table security in August if it had been offered to us, after the nightmare of 4 seasons in exile outside the 92.

And although there is one mentalist who rings up Radio Oxford after every game to say what a disgrace and a disaster this season has been (seriously though, what is that guy on?), I think most of us can say we’ve enjoyed it can’t we? Being a FL club, in the national media every weekend again. Picking up any newspaper’s sport section and knowing our results will be in there – not just in a small-type paragraph at the bottom of the page, but with it’s own little spot and probably featuring the goal scorers from the game as well. Simple pleasures.

Being mentioned every week on BBC’s Football League Show has been a revelation for me too. I don’t always stay up but I always tape it and watch the League 2 bit the next morning, and still give a little cheer to myself whenever our match highlights come on.



Clem & Claridge: BBC Oddbods.



Having the likes of that Clem fellow visit us to do a feature, then being talked about by Steve Claridge and that other nondescript bloke whilst also noticing the little Oxford badge behind their heads on the glass panel. Simple pleasures.

The simple pleasure too of adding to the collection of League grounds visited has been brilliant too (although many of the grounds do still seem to share a lot of the, err, shall we say ‘character’, of the non-league world). I’m now up to 65 of the current 92, if you’re interested.

Yeah, ok, so you say out loud to your mates that counting the grounds is really sad - but we all know that you’ve counted them too at one point and you probably know how many you’ve done as well, don’t pretend otherwise!

So today, as we near the end of that first season back in the league we are playing only for pride and respect for the other teams in the relegation battle, as our opponents Lincoln are still very much looking over their shoulder towards the chasm of non-league that we so greatly returned from last May.

So whereas for Lincoln the fingernail chomp is still very much in evidence – as Oxford fans we can start to sit back and think about next season’s cruise to the title.

Bring on the Swindon.


Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. And another Ha.