Paul Beasley

SUCCESS

It’s now six league games since I said we needed six points from every nine. After three games we’d fallen just short with five points, but with the maximum return from the last three we’re now ahead of target with 14 from 18. So let’s sing it from the roof tops. Well done to the management team and players alike. I am definitely not one of those hoping we lose every week so that a change has to be enforced. I want one thing where OUFC are concerned – success. This should go without saying really.

CHELTENHAM

Sometimes I just write this stuff and other times I read reports and comments on games first. The latter tends to happen more for midweek fixtures.

In this instance I can’t do anything other than agree 100% with Dave Pritchard of the Oxford Mail, “Chris Wilder’s men had shown some classy touches in beating Exeter City and AFC Wimbledon over Christmas, but this victory owed plenty to guts and determination”. The manager summed it up in similar fashion himself.

For all Cheltenham’s possession they never properly tested Ryan Clarke. I grew increasingly confident they wouldn’t score, but not as confident as Tim sat in front of me. “Come on Cheltenham give our keeper something to save” he piss took more than once. I was thinking shut the flip up, you know what’ll happen. But it didn’t.

At present we’re very good at penalties. One chance from the spot was all we needed to win the game. For those who cannot help but be critical of Tommy Craddock perhaps they should note that it was he who won the spot kick and he who took the throw at the start of the move before running (yes running) intelligently into the box where he was clipped. It looked accidental. Does that mean it should or should not have been given? Who cares?

The closest I can remember us coming to a second was Alfie Potter at the OM end. Not for the first time he had done incredibly well to work a shooting chance but then bent it wide and not in.

We’d kept another clean sheet and that has to be down to the entire back line. Alongside the immaculate Jake Wright it was a surprise to see Dubes. Bearing in mind his age, career threatening injury and the length of time he has been without a competitive 90 minutes his performance takes some believing. What a man.

The only other player I’ll make comment on is Josh Parker. I want the guy to do well, obviously, and it’s too early to judge and all that but he looked to me like he didn’t understand what was going on. Perhaps he is way too eager to get that elusive first football league goal but when he didn’t play the most obvious of passes to set up a likely second goal in a tight game it raises serious doubts. Head up young man.

THE PITCH – Again

This was the first time we’d seen it after the postponement and a further rugby pounding. I’d call it stodgy and certainly not conducive to the passing football we (attempt to) play. I feel sorry for the footballers amongst our number. Players like Sean Rigg, instead of running fluently with the ball, have to drag it along. It doesn’t make for a good spectacle. And the roped off area (not during the game of course) in front of the dugouts doesn’t look well at all. 90% mud and 10% grassy stuff? There are rumours around of a partial collapse of infrastructure in this area and also that the synthetic element woven into the playing surface has reached the end of its shelf life and is knackered. If either of these things is true then it is surely down to Firoz Kassam via the stadium company to replace what needs replacing without any quibble.

But even the sad state of the pitch couldn’t really dampen my spirits. After such a run of wins I began to feel really enthused again, and then….

DEJECTION

Whenever the outlook is rosy it doesn’t usually take long before bad things happen. That’s the nature of following OUFC.

Firstly Beano’s appeal was turned down. The linesman was never going to disagree with his mate, the referee, was he? The whole process is a sham and cons no one in the way the referee was conned. For this to have been fair and objective, an independent panel should have looked at the video evidence and decided whether Antwi is a cheating little **** who conned a gullible referee who is not up to football league standard. “Violent conduct, my arse” was the first text I received when the verdict arrived.

Without Beano I was thinking we’d not got a forward line worthy of the name.

Then we failed to keep Lee Cox, for whatever reason. He’s another I consider vital to our effectiveness. I’m thinking this can’t get any worse can it

Yes it can. I was half asleep on Friday morning when I heard on the radio that London Welsh were going to buy the ground from Firoz Kassam. Feck feck feckerty feck.

BUT THEN

A bit of the optimism returns. A couple of, on the face of it given the circumstances, sensible signings. Justin Richards for a month to cover for the absent Beano. As ever there are some of our so called supporters that took about 10 seconds to declare this a crap signing without giving the bloke a chance. Lewis Montrose until the end of the season, presumably to fill the Cox vacancy.

And then Firoz announces that the ground is not for sale and that it was built for Oxford United and he is the custodian of the ground for OXFORD UNITED. Is now the time to point out that a really good custodian would do something about that very important area of land that is surrounded by three stands? Oh, and a fourth stand would be quite nice too. Terracing please for home fans.

SHEFFIELD UNITED

We decamped from stands South to North and got a very different perspective. Being much closer to the Oxford Mail goal line than usual it was much harder to judge if an effort on goal was to the keeper’s right or left or actually way off target. We were sat amongst quite a different clientele too.

From the off I could still see quite clearly the Blades had a sharpness (pun not originally intended) we don’t see in League two. In the blink of an eye from a throw they had a man in on goal. Then with Jake Wright looking odds on to win a header Matt Hill sprung from nowhere to get a decent effort on goal. (Got injured in the process though and had to go off). It was also clear that we would have to work extremely hard to create anything because there was little space about and we had sacrificed Sean Rigg’s wing play for an extra midfield body.

An on fire Beano and the luck going our way would have increased our chances of getting something out of this game from slim to less slim.

There have been times when many, me included, have questioned Beano’s ability to play at League Two level, but he now seems to have that cracked and is playing some of the best football of his career. It was a real shame that we couldn’t see how well he would have done against defenders from the higher reaches of League One. The F.A has cost us, if not in terms of cup progression, at least in a month’s wages for Richards.

I thought Richards started well but faded as the game developed and looked no more than average. The abiding memory is the miss in the second half that would have levelled the scores.

As for the luck, I thought everything went the Blades way, particularly in the first half. I think we got our first free-kick at quarter to four. Everyone around us thought that Wright had won the ball perfectly when Boyeson awarded the free kick from which the first goal came. Cheers ref, not as if the superior side needed any help is it? In the interest of balance though I will say that the “my arse” texter who was sat in the South Stand thought it was definitely a foul. Oh, well.

But through my biased eyes all the other decisions went the visitors way too. We were often left perplexed – but you gave them a free kick when we did exactly the same thing as they have just done sort of stuff. If you can’t beat them cheat with them? Sean Rigg came on, who made us more potent attacking wise, had an opponent’s arm across his chest but chose to try and keep going. Nothing. When the arm was across the other chest the Blade immediately fell to the floor. Free-kick.

Although it was too far away for me to see if it was really a free kick that’s where their second came from too. We’d gone back to the days of being unable to properly deal with high balls into the box.

Their third goal was just academic but obviously flattered the Yorkshire men.

We’d given it a decent enough go and there was nothing to be ashamed about but truth be told we didn’t have the class or never say die cup fighting spirit to get us through.