Pride Of The West Country ?

Anything yellow and blue
Post Reply
OUFC4eva
Grumpy old git
Posts: 2369
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:57 pm

Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by OUFC4eva »

Image

Image

Image
recordmeister
Middle-Aged Spread
Posts: 1808
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:34 am
Location: London

Re: Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by recordmeister »

Well, I nearly boycotted the game because Slumdon have so many players on loan, which simply undermines the idea of what football should be ... (of course not!) ;)

What a match. We were so poor in the first half. What was up with Dunks? The worst game I've seen him have a in a long time. The midfield, in the first 45 just didn't have a clue who was going, who was staying, who was playmaker, who should be protecting the back line, who would be picking up loose balls. It's was an utter shambles and any team worthy of being a L1 club would have destroyed us and sent us in 2 or 3 down at Ht.

Thankfully we were playing Slumdon who are abysmal. Their tackling is late (and boy did we learn something from Wimbledon yesterday about how to go down- Mags did a roll which would have seen him send up in Marlborough if the dug outs weren't in the way!) they had no cohesion; nothing. I'd be amazed if they stay up.

Second half, a big turn around and at around 60 mins Slumdon simply fell off a precipice: their fitness went, their shape got even worse. And we hit our stride. They couldn't get the ball off us for the last 20/25 mins.

Kane made a big difference for the short time he was on. I don't want to single any player out as being poor, because as a team we won the game. But when it comes to playing well, stand up Marv (a striker who we now leave back on the halfway line at corners in case of counter attacks) and that strike from Hall. Come on! I don't know if we'll see better than that at the Cunty Ground. Oh and Ledsons tackling!
Kernow Yellow
Grumpy old git
Posts: 3075
Joined: Thu May 11, 2006 5:16 pm

Re: Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by Kernow Yellow »

I don't think we were that bad in the first half. We didn't cope with their shape very well, and often found a single centre back exposed by a long ball. But we were already clearly the better football team, as evidenced by their crude attempts to stop us playing - six yellows and a red card wasn't it? Whereas neither of our bookings was for a foul. Their goal came from some very sloppy defensive play from Lunny and Dunks, two of our weaker players on the day. Neither of them had a poor game though. Dunkley was made to look worse by the lack of defensive cover around him, and there were a number of suspect clearances, but he made some crucial tackles. Lunny covers the pitch well and gets involved, but his distribution was wayward, as it can often be. Ledson by contrast was superb again. What a player he's becoming.

The second half we murdered them, and 2-1 doesn't really reflect our superioity. It's rare enough to see Us win at the County Ground, and that's certainly the first time I've seen us come from behind to do so. But the most pleasing aspect was seeing us swagger around their pitch even before we'd taken the lead. A lot of the credit for this must go to Chris Maguire, who was obviously well up for the battle. His seven-fingered lap of honour after the final whistle was a bit silly though, if amusing enough for Us celebrating in the away end. Vigouroux's red card was equally amusing, but probably a bit harsh. Oh well.

I see there's a big report in the local papers about trouble before the game. I got the train up, and was therefore one of the many hundreds of Oxford fans marched from station to pub, pub to ground and ground back to station. I can completely understand that this is a bit intimidating for the locals, and the pictures make it look like a bunch of hooligans steaming around town, when in fact it was very largely well-behaved (if exuberant) fans simply going where the police insisted on taking us - just in very large numbers. Is there an alternative to this when we go to Sw*ndon? I don't know. I can see that given the geography of the town it would be a bit risky just to let everyone go where they like. There were, for once, plenty of home fans out to cause trouble. And trouble there was, though I think it's being a bit exaggerated in the newspaper reports. While the police were individually doing a good job and not inflaming tensions, it was sheer stupidity to march close to a thousand of us round the Magic Roundabout before kick-off where a large group of Sw*ndon fans had gathered with malicious intent. Before we knew it we had flares, food and even glass bottles thrown at us. Unsurprisingly some were thrown back, and it looks like skirmishes broke out although I didn't see any. It was pretty hairy for a moment and the police definitely lost control. In hindsight it was stupid to allocate Oxford fans a pub in the centre of town, when there were plenty of other options with different route marches available. After the game was much more orderly, and I would say that our fans behaved pretty impeccably on the long slow march back to the station, but again the pictures show that it's pretty disruptive for the wider community. Speaking of trouble, the teams weren't exactly setting the best example, with Appleton apparently sustaining an injury in a tunnle fracas. But I guess that's what gives these local derbies the extra thrill.

Oh, and the three points were very welcome too. We're sitting ever more comfortably mid-table, and our eyes can definitely start glancing up the league a bit more...
SmileyMan
Middle-Aged Spread
Posts: 1637
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:39 am

Re: Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by SmileyMan »

The only disappointment was that one of the bottom four wasn't winning at the same time so that we could put the Scum in the relegation zone!
recordmeister
Middle-Aged Spread
Posts: 1808
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:34 am
Location: London

Re: Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by recordmeister »

Having just watched the highlights, it's really unfair that Hall gets booked for going into the crowd to celebrate. He stops and the wave of yellow shirts behind him push into the crowd!
OUFC4eva
Grumpy old git
Posts: 2369
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:57 pm

Re: Pride Of The West Country ?

Post by OUFC4eva »

Post Reply