The pain of the sale of Phil Gilchrist to Leicester at the knock-down price of half a million …

From the Rage Online newsdesk Tuesday, August 10th, 1999  

The pain of the sale of Phil Gilchrist to Leicester at the knock-down price of half a million pounds was lessened to a large extent by the long-awaited news that GOSE has lifted the holding order on the multiplex, so it will not be called in and ABC won't be converting their city centre sites (shame!). According to Firoz Kassam this excellent piece of news “guarantees the future of Oxford United” so all he has to do is tie up a few loose ends with the City Council and Taylor Woodrow should be back on site doing remedial work within a few weeks. The normally taciturn Kassam apparently let out a shout of “Yeesss!!” when informed of the news over the phone, and his office staff “exploded”. It would appear that United means more to him than just a business proposition!
United went to Southend tonight for the Worthington Cup first round first leg, with a squad of just fifteen players. Now is definitely the time for Kassam to make some money available to strengthen the squad. As it turned out the U's gave a sterling performance and won the game 2-0 with goals from Matt Murphy and a screamer from Joey. Nicky Banger (yes he's back) had a header disallowed for offside. Check out the match report for further in-depth analysis…

Monday 9th August
Speculation mounts that United's squad is about to get weaker on two fronts. On the one hand it appears, according to the press, that Martin O'Neill is stepping up his attempt to buy Gilchrist to partner Matty at Leicester, and at the same time it appears that Nicky Banger has rejoined the squad on a week to week contract. Either option is damaging enough to United's quest to bounce back at the first attempt (hah!), but both in tandem could spell disaster.
The other piece of news today is ABC's announcement that they have applied for planning permission to knock down the three screen George Street cinema and replace it with a state-of-the-art seven screen multiplex (is a three screen cinema therefore not a multiplex? How many plexes does one need for them to be multi?). This in itself needn't be damaging to United's plans at Minchery Farm, but in the ABC press release Nick Laister, of ABC's planning consultants RPS, stated “The multiplex proposed by Oxford United at Minchery Farm on the periphery of Oxford would not comply with national planning policy, and would be harmful to the City Centre.” The press release continues: “ABC emphasise that the conversion of George Street and the modernisation of Magdalen Street will only be viable if the Minchery Farm application is refused.” Provocative, or what?

Saturday 7th August
The 1999/2000 season gets off to a flying start as United win 2-1 at Stoke, with goals from Matt Murphy and Steve Anthrobus. Read the match report if you don't believe it. Arendse started in goal after Lundin apparently hurt his back in training. Weatherstone was preferred to Cook on the right wing. Watson and Gilchrist were both in fine form at the back although the central midfield of Tait and Murphy looked a tad frail. Derek Lilley made his debut after signing from Leeds a couple of days earlier, but he looked short of match fitness and was substituted for Rob Folland towards the end. The half-time tannoy announcements have to go down as the most incomprehensible ever. Gilchrist looked up for the fight despite rumours linking him with a move to Leicester City. Rage Online's impeccable sources inform us that during Shotton's post-Walsall match bollocking Gilly got up and walked out, throwing further doubts on Malc's man-management ability.
Former U's on the scoresheet today include Andy Thomson on his debut for Gillingham, David Smith (of all people) for Stockport at Grimsby, and the original Deano, Saunders, who came on as sub for Windass to score the winner for Bradford City at Middlesbrough, curiously captained by Robbie Mustoe. Two former Oxford City players also found the net – Guy Whittingham for Portsmouth and Jermaine McSporran for Wycombe.

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