YORK

But Firstly

I don’t really do this I’m a better fan than you stuff. “I’ve been to 972 consecutive games and you only do 15 a season, so you’re a twat and I’m someone to be bowed down to blah, blah ,blah”. But I have to say on Saturday November 8th I thought the 198 fans who made it to Blundell Park were better men (and women and children) than me. (I’ll obviously never be a child again and have no desire to become a woman – just thought I’d point that out).

Every few years or so I get to a point where my level of disillusionment is such that I query the merits of hitting the road. I was not in a good mood when I left the Kassam after the Wycombe game and I had no takers amongst my immediate mates for a trip to North East Lincolnshire so left it at that. By the time I decided to enquire about the coach I was a couple of hours too late and a couple of other alternatives fell through or weren’t properly pursued – probably because my heart wasn’t 100% in it. So I thought I’d test myself – wake up in the morning, jump in the car and head north on my own? (Some people travel solo all the time with incredible dedication but that is not my modus operandi, although I have done some mad stuff to get to games over the years.)

Come Saturday at the break of day it was grey and miserable. I didn’t get up. To be honest I didn’t feel 100% and rolling over and going back to sleep was made easier by the fact that I’d already missed two games this season due to attending excellent weddings.

As a U’s fan I did however feel guilty. In fact ever since I became of an age when I was old enough and had enough money to travel, I’ve never felt quite right if I wasn’t there unless I was at a wedding or playing local football. And I had quite a few seasons doing the latter at a very low level. Enjoyable it was though. All I ended up with was one Jersey League Division Three winners’ medal and a couple of semi-knackered knees. Loved it. (Message to any kid out there – play for as long as you can. If you don’t, you’ll regret it later.)

So Jerome and his Radio Oxford mates it was for me. He’s good. I’ll never forget where I was when James Roberts scored his first goal for Oxford United. I’ll just say that I wasn’t in the biggest room in the house.

OK, now ready, well nearly

Having missed a game I was looking forward to York a bit more than normal, but again couldn’t get anyone interested in travelling from Bicester. Nor at the other end of the scale could I get Mrs B to make a weekend of it, so the bus it was and despite only leaving the Kassam at 9 o’clock I was in the Minster Inn, in Marygate, just before 2 o’clock. I’ve mentioned this pub before. Even though I’ve always liked it, it still continues to grow on me. I was going to try and describe it but easier to use this from the internet – “The Minster Inn in Marygate York has to rank amongst one of the finest real ale public houses in the World. Not only does it serve a fine selection of real ales but it is also a real pub. Popular amongst locals, students, tourists, dogs and archaeologists alike, all are welcome in this hidden gem of a pub.”

Year after year it has the same landlord who incidentally always wears shorts. And I recognised at least one local drinker.
“How many will Oxford bring? 300” said one local. Not quite that many I thought. “I don’t know” said the landlord, “but I think they’re all in here”. That we had 468 fans present was a tremendous turnout given the time of the year and our league position.

Getting there

Bootham Crescent is a good old traditional football ground which affords a view from the away terrace that is by no means the worst. O.k. the facilities leave something to be desired (at least the men’s toilets now have a roof) but when the Minstermen do eventually move away it will be a sad day indeed.

Right, there now – the match

Traditionally we don’t do well here and with Russell Wilcox now in charge and York having drawn three and won one of the last four I wasn’t expecting it to be easy. In truth though I thought they’d be better than they were.

As the half hour mark was approaching and the game was well settled in to some kind of pattern I’d concluded that when it came to directness, drive, determination, and battling qualities York were ahead but when it came to technique and good passing football the edge was ours.

However given that the former is needed before the latter can come to the fore I thought overall they’d slightly shaded it. They’d had more of the ball and had hit the bar. Then we had a better period, keeping the ball in their half. A free kick was won and Brian Howard aimed what looked like a perfect shot towards the top corner. An even better save from Alex Cisak (we had him on loan in 2007 but he never played a game) led to a corner.

I had thought that Howard had been frozen out as one of the naughty boys after the Cambridge calamity but it turns out that wasn’t the case. He’d been injured, needed injections and after taking the appropriate recovery period is back properly fit. Us fans don’t know it all do we?

Competition for midfield places thus intensifies which can only be a good thing. Andy Whing with his return to full fitness has currently made one of those places his own. His defensive qualities are obviously very beneficial and he also uses the ball a lot better than many people give him credit for. Meanwhile, Josh Ruffels, a regular at the start of the season, has dropped way down the pecking order.

Back to that corner. A flick on from Danny Hylton followed by a finish from young James Roberts and it was a goal to remind us of days gone by when we had Matt Elliott in our midst.

Roberts is showing the finishing instincts that Hylton was earlier in the season. Now, if they were both to do it at the same time where would that take us? Is there a genuine combination there and where does that leave Tyrone Barnett?. And let’s whisper it quietly, Will Hoskins can’t be that far away can he? Wow, more positivity.

By half time I thought we just edged in front but whether this was by a whole goal was debatable.

In the second period York had most of the possession and I thought we needed to have made changes long before we did to ensure we closed the game down to good effect. My changes would have been to get Michael Collins on and I thought that was what was coming when Brian Howard went off. Callum O’Dowda was a surprise. I would also have liked to have seen Barnett on for someone, probably Roberts, to give the York defence a bigger physical presence to have to handle and increase the likelihood of the ball being held for longer periods in their half. Roberts, undeniably impressive for his age, would have made that thought look even more stupid than it possibly is if he had bagged his second on 81 minutes. He was quicker than his marker, still had enough stamina to keep going and get into a very good goal scoring position. The precision of the strike was out by about an inch. If it had gone in – game over. Instead it hit the post rolled across the goal a few inches away from the white line and so it was, for us pessimistic fans, a nervy last 10 minutes.
But truth be told, for all the possession the Minstermen had, they did not fashion many clear cut chances and Clarkie, who wasn’t really stretched that often, bravely dealt with everything he had to.

Much credit has to go to the entire back line. The centre halves could hardly have been any more solid and I’m loving the way Tareiq Holmes-Denis is playing. The classiest full back we’ve had since Christophe Remy? He tackles in such a way that he ends up in possession and you can’t say that about many, if any, other full backs at this level. If his is the DNA we are looking to have running throughout our club then I may just have to have a re-think of my previous spoutings. But of course he won’t be playing for us next season and possibly not by the end of this one.

I’m getting all positive here so I’d better redress the balance. It wouldn’t be me otherwise.

I’ll re-iterate that I think we could have made better use of substitutions. And there was still too much so called “pretty” short passing football in the wrong areas. Some of our better players cocked up in this regard a few times and we would have been punished by a better team than York.
I still think we can improve our pressing and closing down of the opposition. I don’t think we do it anywhere near as often as we should on a collective basis. There was one occasion that stuck in my mind demonstrating the effectiveness of such an approach. Player one got to the man in red very quickly forcing a hurried pass backwards. We also speedily got a second player onto their next recipient of the ball who had little time to control it. He even more hurriedly passed back to a colleague. We were on him too in no time at all. He couldn’t control it. So instead of York being able to retain possession with ease we had won a throw in.

I also think when we have a lone player doing the closing down we can do it in a better fashion by being smarter in getting goal side to prevent a long ball being played. It’s preferable to get them to have to turn and go backwards.

But hey, we kept a clean sheet, scored 50% of all the away goals in League Two on Saturday and were the only travellers to get any points. York remain winless on their own turf.

So I’ve decided to be positive after all, even if that is not how I came across when Selfie stuck a microphone in front of me at the final whistle. I think I talked bollocks. I’d normally say I hope they didn’t broadcast it but as everyone had probably turned the England game on by then probably no one was listening anyhow.

Oh, must mention the referee who was another in the “total tosser” category, not that it influenced the result. There’s plenty that could be said but I’ll limit it to the incident where Roberts was grabbed around the neck / shoulder and swung off the ball. It was in full view of Scott Duncan, York were in possession and for all to see Duncan motioned play on.