If it does all end....

[x586]

a) Would probably go and see Leicester City to see how I found it, and with the boys when they're older - I suspect that they might be Leicester fans naturally, as we live in their &quotheartland&quot. Whatever the case, any &quotnew team&quot would be local, and not the last 20-odd years of following a side that are 90 miles away.

b) A-Ro's comment on this strikes a chord.

c) I've never liked the Kassam, nor the football that has been on offer there. Pre-2001, the whole matchday routine was part of life, and enjoyable in the most part - barring several &quotlong&quot drives home in the 2000-2001 season .......

[yellowportly]

... if they could just hang on 'till Thame's ground is built and they're back 'ome then that'd suit me ... reading the locale rag, I get the impression that Thame are as sh*t as the yellows at the moment,so it would not be too much of a bind to transfer my allegience

[Paul Cooper]

Good questions.

a) Definitely not. I would go and watch the odd game (Stoke friends, maybe Oxford City occasional other games). Mainly to continue the football bug wiht my son.
b) it would make me a little bitter about football to be honest. My love for it would reduce.
c? Certainly not as I was lucky enough to see United win the Milk Club and get 3 promotions. I also still enjoy going with my friends and son.

[Geoff]

(a) No. I live near High Wycombe and couldn't stomach going to see them. Part of being a supporter, to me, is the make up of the squad. The youngsters coming up thorugh the ranks. The solid professionals who commit themselves to your club and you can have some affinity with. The 'big buy' of the new season, watching him (Jamie Guy?) live up to expectations, or not. When I watch another team it's just 11 blokes playing football. Tonight is a good example of an evening when I've had to convince myself to go the match. The demise of Oxford might be the excuse/opportunity to explore different interests.

(b) It would decrease my interest greatly because I would not be monitoring the progress of the other teams in the same league as Oxford. I would not be looking out for the latest ex-player to score a hat trick for his new club when he blatently couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo whilst playing for us. I take a passing interest in Match of the Day and that would continue. I follow the progress of British clubs in Europe and that would continue. I would continue to support England, probably with the same frustration that I currently support Oxford.

(c) Not at all. I have some wonderful memories of supporting Oxford. The atmosphere at the Manor, especially as a child. Going to matches with my late dad. Wembley in '86 (travelling home with a QPR fan!). Although I currently don't attend away matches, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and chatting with fans from other clubs when I did. Finding your way to the grounds and seeing how they compare with your own. Only one bad experience at away games and that was with an obnoxious Swinedon fan.

[Jimski]

(a) No, only an AFC Oxford type club, which I'd see as a continuation of the current club. However since the move from the Manor, I'm not sure I've quite felt the same about the whole Oxford United thing anyway. I am still obsessed, but not to the same degree. As x586 said, the pre-match in those days was so good, now all I do is go to the match and then home again. Oddly, any AFC Oxford might actually rekindle the original feeling - or at least until we spent the inevitable six consecutive seasons at step 5 despite having crowds twenty times the size of anyone else...

(b) Nah, I hardly take that much interest in other football these days anyway. a cursory look at the various tables each Saturday is about it really. And Euro/WC aside, I don't really watch any televised matches any more.

(c) *Definitely* not wasted, though the last few years may seem it. Nah, even recently, the away trips have been good fun. And I've met loads of lovely people through OUFC, even if I now rarely see many of them any more.

Anyway, it's off to Grenoble Road now for another wasted evening (most likely).

[GodalmingYellow]

Do note the following isn't intended to be fatalistic, or to make any assumptions, or do anything much except ask questions people are bound to be asking yourselves.

But seeing as those questions exist, I ask, out of curiosity....if the club were to close:

(a) do you think you are ever likely to attach yourself to another club to the same extent you're attached to OUFC, or to any extent at all?

(b) do you think it would affect the way you view football in general - would it increase or decrease your interest in it?

(c) would you, to any extent, view the time you've spent following OUFC as wasted time?

I have my own answers to these questions, but I'm interested in yours....

I already have small attachments to Godalming Town in that one of my companies sponsors one of their players. Obviously it isn't the same as supporting OUFC.

My definition of a football club has nothing to do with the players, or stadium. It is the supporters that makes a football club. So I would support an AFC OU type option provided that it followed the demise of OUFC and was borne out of the supporters desire to keep the club going, effectively just making use of a change of name.

I wouldn't find supporting Oxford City as being the same thing, unless there was a formal merger of the clubs, as the two clubs have co-existed and been opponents.

Don't ask me to be able to defend the above though, it is heart driven, not head driven, and I would probably change my mind if circumstances dictated.

I have not only a dis-interest in the Premiershit, I positively despise what it stands for and it would be in no small way to blame for the demise of OUFC in my view. So I could never support a Premiershit team that wasn't OUFC or a derivative thereof.

In the absence of an OUFC in some shape or form, I would watch Godalming Town much more.

How could supporting OUFC ever be a waste of time? Apart from my family, it is the most important thing in my life.

[Kernow Yellow]

a) Certainly not to the same extent. How could I? It's unimaginable.

But to any extent? Who knows? I currently live miles from Oxford, and if any of my kids showed an interest in football, I'd definitely try to encourage allegiance to their local team (Plymouth? Truro??) in preference to Man U/Liverpool. Even if that involved taking them to non-Oxford games.

In fact, I'd go further and say that I could imagine this happening anyway, even if Oxford survive as I obviously hope they do. Especially if we don't get back in the league. But Oxford United will always be my team. Always. Even if they were to disappear tomorrow.

b) Decrease. No question.

c) No. Sure, there has been a lot of time that has left me feeling thoroughly miserable, and a hell of a lot of money spent. Tens of thousands. Maybe more. But it's also given me some of the most memorable times of my life. It's defined who I am more than almost anything else.

[Kernow Yellow]

This topic has made me think just how much of the club died on the 1st May 2001 for me. The Manor was an incredibly important place from the age of around 6 onwards, and the Kassam Stadium just hasn't replaced it to any significant degree. Sure the football being rubbish hasn't helped, but I have never got the same feeling as the old matchday routine - leaving Thame at 12:30, parking down Lime Walk, rubbish lager in the Supporters Club, watching the team punching well above it's weight, all the same faces on the LRT (left), back in the club after the game (along with the players).

Easy to remember all the good times and blank out the crap I admit, but should the worst happen, 99% of my favourite memories will have happened prior to the move.

Agree with this 100%. Although I'd put the date later, for the charity game vs QPR, when many of my all-time favourite players graced the pitch one final time. Part of my heart died that day, not just part of the club. Life has never been the same since. No exaggeration.

[Roo]

This topic has made me think just how much of the club died on the 1st May 2001 for me. The Manor was an incredibly important place from the age of around 6 onwards, and the Kassam Stadium just hasn't replaced it to any significant degree. Sure the football being rubbish hasn't helped, but I have never got the same feeling as the old matchday routine - leaving Thame at 12:30, parking down Lime Walk, rubbish lager in the Supporters Club, watching the team punching well above it's weight, all the same faces on the LRT (left), back in the club after the game (along with the players).

Easy to remember all the good times and blank out the crap I admit, but should the worst happen, 99% of my favourite memories will have happened prior to the move.

Agree with this 100%. Although I'd put the date later, for the charity game vs QPR, when many of my all-time favourite players graced the pitch one final time. Part of my heart died that day, not just part of the club. Life has never been the same since. No exaggeration.[/q







Oiy Kernow........SHUT UP!

Not because this is sentimental claptrap........but because I stood next to you at that game and I know just what you mean......and it's making me sad......so SHUT IT!

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

I don't have many good memories connected with Minchery Farm - I was at the Slumdon game I suppose but I didn't enjoy it all that much.

Still, just a few weeks ago I was dropped off at the stadium, where I hadn't been for a long time, picked up my ticket, found myself sitting next to an old friend, shouted hello to another (don't think he heard me) and enjoyed a remarkable game which my team won, by six goals to three. I then had the contrast of a a very pleasant walk in the country, to Sandford, over the lock and down the towpath to Radley. It was a lovely day.

[Swissbloke]

A- I don't think so, I couldn't follow another team with the same energy. Oxford are the reason I'm so in love with football. Going up the LRT as a teenager, singing and then the goal celebrations all that mushed together to form something solid.
I do have second teams - Hereford and Geneve Servette for family reasons, QPR for like a year or 2 in the late 80's. I don't think I could support a prem team as I work in Islington have enough of Arsenal and Spurs fans moaning about really petty shite. National team doesn't come into it, I follow Switzerland and England but that's different to club support.

(b) I work within the &quotfootball&quot industry so no, I would be just as interested but with a huge amount of jealousy if we the worst did happen.

(c) No, Being an Oxford fan is part of me and who I've become. I'm proud as punch to be a yellow and have some amazing memories of those who I stood with on the Left side.

On a really sober note, things changed for me at Nappy's funeral just after we left the manor, realising that this guy who'd spent his life supporting the club passed away only months before we moved into the new stadium. The atmosphere and being able to congregate next to people who you actually know changed at the same time and altered the match day experience.

On to a more positive note, I'm taking a friends son to the footie this season, he's 12 and it's his first season ticket. Seeing the excitement and thrill he got from last night's win against Cambridge and I see in some way that passion being re-created in a younger generation, there's just not enough of them though......

[newhinkseyyellow]

a) Having first watched OUFC in 1963, I would need to reach the age of 98 to invest as much time in another club. That's unlikely and I don't think that passion and support can be just transferred to another club, at the drop of a hat.

(b) I have definitely become more cynical about football. The fans seem to be the last to be considered in any meaningful way. The lack of a Supporter's
Club at the KS is indicative of this.

(c) Never - I have great memories of good players, promotions, Milk Cup wins etc, but younger fans are not so fortunate, in this respect.

[neilw]

&quotPart of my heart died that day, not just part of the club. Life has never been the same since. No exaggeration.&quot ........

Exactly how I feel. Time doesn't seem to help either. I want my little boy to experience and feel what we had, but it's just not there is it. Yeah, maybe a new ground takes time to build it's own legacy, history and the like, but there was something so very special about Headington on a match day. Nothing compares. The club's spirit and soul just didn't want to move grounds.

Losing the club now won't hurt as much as losing the Manor

[amershamwrighty]

Great questions.

a) I might wander down the road and watch Chesham United, or occasionally Watford because I have mates who are fans but OUFC have been a massive part of my life since about 1960 and there will never, ever be the same emotional tie that has dominated my life and my overall mood for all that time

b) I have become increasingly disillusioned about The Search for the Soul of Football, to the point where - heretically - I would worry about the identity of the club and those who turn out in our colours if we were to climb through the leagues and start to worship Mammon, PR and the Stock Exchange. Who doesn't feel sorry for genuine Newcastle fans ?

c) Never. In a million years. As Nick hornby memorably said 'I have charted my life in football fixtures' or something like that and it is absolutely true.

[Matt D]

i've been avoiding this thread as i don't want to think about it. but having just heard the brighton fans when they were one penalty kick away from knocking manchester city out of the cup, i have to say that there haven't nearly been enough nights like that for this to end for me now. following on from someone's earlier 'post-1996' comment, i can say without hesitation that in my time supporting oxford the bad times have outweighed the good, and having invested my emotions in this club to this extent now, i can't bear the thought that there won't be a few nights when i get to watch oxford do something amazing and think: 'that's why i stuck around'.