Match wrap | Exeter City 1 Oxford United 2

There are quite a few ways in which I don’t resemble a duck, but there is one way in which I do. Ducks are terrible at maths, if they lead a gaggle of four or five ducklings to a river, they can generally keep track of them all. If that number stretches beyond nine or ten they have no way of knowing how many ducklings are in their charge – they just have ‘many’. Stragglers beware.

I’d become quickly overwhelmed doing the calculations for simply attending the game at Exeter; we’d talked about going down if it was a coronation of our promotion. Those dreams evaporated mid-season and mid-table looked the most likely prospect – we weren’t going down for that particular wake. A late rally made things meaningful again and a play-off decider was on the cards. When we beat Peterborough, it looked like the play-offs would be decided against Stevenage and Lincoln and that Exeter would be a dead rubber. There were simply too many calculations, so I stuck to my favoured conclusion – an unequivocal ‘maybe’. By the time the whole thing resolved itself, all the tickets had gone.

Even so, for it to be ‘one of those days’ things had to go our way. We’d needed to win, except in the circumstances where we didn’t, we would need to rely on Lincoln dropping points, or Barnsley or even Blackpool. Frankly, who knew anymore?

Beyond that, Exeter, despite their mid-table finish, were on a good run, but had nothing to play for. Lincoln were playing the champions, undeniably the best team in the division, but what effect would a couple of weeks in the pub have? And they’re resting six regulars you say? Great. Barnsley, at home to Northampton, are in some kind of death spiral having imploded by firing their manager. 

The artistry of a league table is its ability to conceal its truth until the very last moment. After nearly 2,500 hours of football, played for 10 months, from Carlisle to Exeter, the conclusion is determined in the final moments of the last act. It’s a piece of Victorian engineering which competes with anything created by Brunel, Stevenson or Telford.

But there were still too many permutations, it was positively Boolean – ‘Oxford win BUT Lincoln lose AND Barnsley drop points THEN Oxford make the play-offs’. On and on it went, a deep rabbit hole of possibilities. My mind closed off, I disappeared into the abstract and nebulous; we couldn’t do it, not because we couldn’t do it, but because it was too complicated. 

The usual fantasists and dreamers had travelled west, a compulsive yellow wave driven by something beyond the numbers. It’s another beauty of the league table – it means everything and yet, at the same time, it means nothing at all. 

Being in the moment would be crucial, in the past I’ve been caught out by the iFollow delay, goals have been signalled by the buzzing of someone’s phone moments before the ball has gone in on the screen. Devices were put away, so for the next couple of hours, we would live on iFollow time ‘GMT +90 seconds’. 

The screen came on, Exeter’s halfway line camera points at the off-centre Adam Stansfield Stand making it look like the pitch is on the wonk. Fitting really, nothing was normal anymore. Elliott Moore and Joe Bennett returned to the starting line-up, it felt like Des Buckingham, forever the sensible grown-up in the room, wanted the bigger boys in control. This wasn’t a nihilistic pursuit into the hands of fate, we would control the controllables. Damn you Des and your quiet thoughtfulness. He didn’t even want to know what was going on in the other games until the hour mark, although he later admitted he’d been lying, in doing so, he finally admitted he was human.

We opened with a sharp purpose, a clarity which we so rarely see. It reminded me of playing Rushden in the Conference play-off semi-final, or the final against York when we controlled the moment. Last year we faced with a must-win at Forest Green while ifs, buts and maybes swirled around like autumn leaves in a hurricane, perhaps the five players involved that day could draw on those experiences. As much as we wanted it to be over and to force the outcome, we had to allow the drama to come to us. Our patience, which has sometimes manifested itself as ponderousness, needed to be used to our advantage. 

The focussed intensity brought early chances, Ruben Rodrigues should have opened the scoring before Mark Harris pressed Pierce Sweeney into a mistake in the centre-circle and set off towards goal. A smart finish made it 1-0, Harris’ 19th goal of the season; imagine what he could do if he was a natural goalscorer? The players gathered to congratulate him, but there was a steeliness. This wasn’t done yet.

With Lincoln drawing with Portsmouth, it was all working out. Jerome Sale calmed the stormy seas of optimism by assuring us ‘there’s a long way to go’. It was like standing on a sea wall watching a tsunami on the horizon. 

I felt myself recoiling, grief is the price you pay for love; having not expected it, I now thought we could do it. But, if I wanted it too much, the pain of the loss would be too great. I wasn’t thinking of trips to Peterborough or Bolton or Wembley, I was thinking about how we’d recover from this devastating failure. This doom-ridden cave is my safe space.

But while I retreated, the team advanced. Ciaron Brown nearly made it two before Murphy danced into the box and was sent sprawling. Penalty. It’s clearly easier to be in this maelstrom than to watch it.

I can’t figure Cameron Brannagan out; dedicated professional? Street fighter? Thoughtful technician? Homebody? Raging with toxic masculinity? Fish obsessed? The self-declared ‘machine’ drilled in the spot kick. Whatever he is, we’re lucky to have him.

Attention switched elsewhere, Lincoln were drawing and that was enough. Eight minutes of injury time shifted time again. Lincoln were now a few minutes behind us, not only was I on a 90 second delay because of iFollow, destiny was two or three minutes behind that. Time was no longer functioning properly.

Whether the results elsewhere had crept into the dressing room and the enormity of what was happening had started to seep in, we started to concede territory as the second half opened. Perhaps there was an added incentive for Exeter to make a proper mess of things for us. Either way, the plates began to shift, while we were still resolute, everything was happening in our half.

Then it struck, the tsunami hit landfall, as Exeter probed down the right there was news from Sincil Bank. Penalty to Lincoln. The BBC switched audio, we were confronted by sensory overload of watching Exeter attack while listening to Radio Lincoln describing the penalty 250 miles away. The cadence of the commentary matched the drama visuals, even though it was describing something completely different and made no sense. The numbers, the calculations were meaningless. We were in two different timezones and two different locations all at the same time.

Daniel Mândroiu, scorer of the dubious penalty at The Kassam which had set this nonsense up stepped up. The astral influence of fate rested on his shoulder. The beneficiary of gross injustice 10 days ago placed his foot by the ball and inexplicably it gave way, his other foot swept through and connected with the ball, but it was too straight and cannoned off the keeper. As the sound faded back to Nathan Cooper, the Lincoln commentator could be heard saying ‘… and that could be Lincoln’s season done.’ We were gone before we could ask more questions.

We leapt around the living room while an idle dog walker glanced in to see what the commotion was about. Our veins throbbing and heads pulsing, we returned to the screen, the ball was in the back of our net. They’d scored; I don’t know how, but they had. Nathan Cooper assured us the players hadn’t been distracted by our distractions, but I don’t know what to think anymore.  

We were in a sea with no tides, the rip curls and undercurrents could drag us below the surface, or a gentle sea breeze could help us to drift harmlessly to the beach. Fate was packing its kitbag and handing itself over to something beyond fate. It was all very meta. We’d been indulged but marginalised by Liam Manning’s cold execution, then expected too much of Des Buckingham moving his family half-way around the world to pick up where his predecessor left off. But now, we were all there, wherever that was, in that moment. In the stands, on the radio, ninety seconds behind on iFollow, we were at one with nature; it’s taken months, but we were all suddenly in the same emotional space. Stick that in your spreadsheet.

Now, every edge was a knife edge and it was just where we wanted to be. The clock started again, Portsmouth scored and Lincoln’s threat subsided. Another in injury time confirmed it. We were, I think, safely in the play-offs. The final whistle went, celebrations were wildly cautious, it was all very Des Buckingham. The BBC switched to Radio Lincoln, but things were also happening at Barnsley, Northampton had equalised and we’d gone up to fifth. For a few moments nobody knew what was happening.

All the calculations and permutations, the underlying stats, the high presses and low blocks. The grinding rationality of stadium planning, the interminable discussions of contracts and transfer windows, the steaming poisonous fatal abyss that a season in the Championship would bring and still, despite best attempts to bring certainty and riches to those who deserve it least, football’s spirit rises again. And with it, so do we. 

Match wrap | Oxford United 1 Stevenage 1

Last night at half-time, Alan Judge, Trevor Hebberd and Jeremy Charles were introduced to the crowd in celebration of the 38th anniversary of our Milk Cup win (or specifically, thanks to Sky, the eve of). As the three ageing men, who now wouldn’t look out of place looking for tile adhesives in B&Q, lined up for a photo, a few people around us reflected on our the memories of that day.

The memories of the 20th April 1986 still feel closer in time than last Saturday’s 5-0 win over Peterborough. Last week, for those of you too young to remember, there was talk not just of reaching the play-offs, but of who we might want to meet. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to play Peterborough again. Having just beaten them 5-0, we surely wouldn’t be able to do that a second time. And then there’s Bolton who we wouldn’t want to meet because we’d lost 5-0 to them and we wouldn’t want that to happen again. Neither a handsome win nor humbling defeat gives us a direction of travel, it’s the very definition of living in the netherworld.

When Sky Sports announced they wanted to be part of a League One play-off drama they’d ignored all season, it set up a three game, six day home-stand which lived in the netherworld. On one hand, three home games in six days was the perfect opportunity to cement our play-off place, on the other it represented a brutal schedule of increasingly high stakes under which we could easily buckle.

But, the team and fans responded, making one huge effort to pull away from the tractor beam of our existence. The fans turned up in numbers, the balloons, streamers and flags transformed the Kassam. The players responded against Peterborough, but were knocked back against Lincoln thereby setting up the showdown with Stevenage.

Despite our abject record on TV and the frustrating defeat to Lincoln, there was uncharacteristic optimism, the stands were full, Peter Rhoades-Brown announced live on TV that we were live on TV as the players came out (alright Rosie, play it cool), the streamers and balloons cascaded from all sides. The decision to extend the display beyond the East stand was inspired.

The reason we were sacrificing our Friday night was because Sky thought this would be a showdown to decide the final play-off place. If you think about it, we’d have been excited by that prospect anyway, the neutral would still struggle to be moved by it, so really we were only there because of Sky’s desperate need to be involved; they’re the unpopular rich kid at school who only gets invited to parties because they bring the expensive presents.

Of course, it hadn’t panned out that way – Stevenage have been falling away for a while and last week Steve Evans abandoned ship for Rotherham. So it was just us facing our demons and a largely unknown quantity in a Steve Evansless Stevenage.

There can only be one thing more terrifying than facing a Steve Evans team, and that’s facing one still possessed by his spirit. What would we face? All the usual gamesmanship? The agricultural (and annoyingly effective) football? Or a team stripped of their spirit, released from their captures, traumatised by their experiences, still in awe of the sheer scale of his gilet?

While we started well enough, the truth is, in the netherworld you don’t test these things. Living in a bubble, we opened at the same pace we always do, we probed but didn’t penetrate. Marcus Browne, a true netherworld player was looked sharp, which usually means he’s not far away from injury. A couple of early attacks with menace foretold the story of the half.

Rodrigues’ pass broke the Stevenage backline freeing Browne to race into the box, the keeper bulldozed through him, penalty, surely? The referee theatrically ran towards the offence, when he found the good light for TV, he indicated a corner. The linesman, who presumably thought the flag waving displays around the ground were for him, forgot to look at the offence and offer an opinion. It was such a bizarre decision, fans reached for their phones to check they hadn’t missed anything. They hadn’t, for the second game in a row, our destiny was being determined by a bad penalty decision.

But, this is life in the netherworld, we live and die through marginal decisions that we don’t mitigate by creating a buffer. The penalty decision almost certainly denied us a goal, if we were a team that created chances and scored goals consistently, we could be confident these decisions don’t have big consequences.

The problem was compounded minutes later, benefitting from a muddle on the left and a couple of deflections, Kane Hemmings made it 1-0. The response was solid, forcing the Stevenage keeper into a handful of half-decent saves, before Rodrigues was dragged to the floor for the penalty. It was outside the box and seemed to come from a light touch, but such is the way in the netherworld. Cameron Brannagan converted and it was all-square.

There was still half-an-hour to go, only one team had anything to play for, but the siege didn’t quite materialise. A couple of breaks from Josh Murphy should have brought the winner, but equally we could have conceded. We lacked a ruthlessness, an unquenchable desire for success. Murphy’s first chance, he was all alone, at least with his second he had an option to square it to the only player willing to join the attack – 34 year old James Henry. Were we blunted by the six day schedule or just being drawn back into the netherworld’s liminal space where fate masterminds your destiny?

Into the final minutes, the objective couldn’t have been clearer, we needed a winner, we couldn’t just ‘take a point’. But, rather than push them back, we played like it was the thirty-sixth minute of a game in October. We maintained a sensible balance of risk and reward, moving the ball across the back line, waiting for an opening. Time slipped by further and into injury time, and still nothing, held back by an unknown force. Why not let loose? Why not take a risk? I’m not looking for a Plan B, I’m looking for an unrelenting desire to win and only Cameron Brannagan seems prepared to take the risks to make that happen. He gets criticised for his long range shooting, but at least he’s shooting.

The whistle went, there was an eery silence, have we blown it? One game will now decide that, whether it’s in our hands or not is yet to be determined. Frankly nobody knew what had just happened. But this is where we’re at, and where we’ve been for a while. Another season in League One seems most likely, behind Shrewsbury we’re the longest serving team in the division. Our two play-off campaigns in recent seasons were determined by a last minute goal from Josh Ruffels against Shrewsbury in 2020 and a capitulation by Portsmouth against Accrington in 2021. Our destiny determined by marginal moments that could have gone either way. We have players who can thrill and frustrate – Josh Murphy has been wonderful in recent weeks, but how do you judge his contribution over two years? Ciaron Brown is an aggressive, committed defender, but we still concede soft goals, Mark Harris has eighteen goals this season, but doesn’t seem to have a relentless desire to get on the end of crosses and score goals.

It’s not those individual players, it’s the squad and the collective mentality. And it’s not just the squad, it’s the club. We’ve been like this for the last few years. We need to find a relentless consistency that means individual decisions or errors don’t impact us, we need to take risks that give us more chance of reaping rewards. Until we do that, we’ll always be at the behest of things we can’t control. In some ways, we’ve been like this for a generation, we live in a permanent temporary home, always waiting for the next thing to get sorted – a manager, a player, a stadium, an owner. It doesn’t need to be that way, look at Lincoln, look at Stevenage, look at Wycombe, look at Coventry, Plymouth and Luton. These are all teams that have succeeded despite their circumstances, we can’t always wait for the bigger picture to resolve itself.

So the defining week of our season ends with one win, one draw and one defeat which ultimately defines nothing. That’s Oxford United, trapped in the netherworld.

Match wrap | Oxford United 0 Lincoln City 1

There was always going to be a correction. 

Amongst the waves of optimism crashing joyously over the Kassam on Saturday, I had one small nagging doubt. Like Chief Brody in Jaws, spying an ominous fin cutting through the water amongst the holiday makers, there was one thing I couldn’t ignore.

Don’t get me wrong; Saturday was no accident, it was a performance of the highest quality against a very good side in a fantastic atmosphere. Because it was unusual, doesn’t make it fortuitous.

After Peterborough, we’d won three games, scored thirteen goals and conceded none. No team wins every game by four or five goals. No team can avoid conceding for weeks on end. For every action, there’s a reaction, every goal against Peterborough would raise an alert with Lincoln about our attacking threats, every pass would soak more fatigue into Josh McEachran’s muscles. At some point, all these things would conspire to bring this run to an end.

In order to make the play-offs we needed our three win sequence to extend throughout our remaining three league games. Then, to succeed in the play-offs we’d need another three positive results. So, to be successful and get promoted, we needed to conjure up something close to a nine-game winning streak against the best teams in the division. To do that, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

So, there had to be a correction. There was hope that it would be at a time of our choosing, perhaps at Exeter, secure in the knowledge we’d be in the play-offs, we could rest some players and switch the magic form machine back on for the play-off campaign. There was even some discussion about who we might want to face – probably not Peterborough because we’d beaten them 5-0 recently, or Bolton because we’d lost to them 5-0 recently.

There’s a lot said about navigating the play-offs – teams are seen to have an advantage if they have a late run or go in with momentum. But, let’s pause and think about that – a late run is drawn from middle distance running and the tactic of sitting towards the back of the pack before bursting through at the end. Do teams, by choice, reserve some of their form earlier in the season so they can time their run at the play-off places at the end? Did Lincoln, or indeed us, drop points deliberately in order to spring a surprise late season attack? Seems unlikely.

In physics, momentum is ‘mass in motion’, it implies that a force is being applied. But the force being applied to push a team on isn’t physical, it’s not momentum in the literal sense. These are metaphors for one thing – confidence.

With confidence you try things you might not otherwise. Confidence is the difference between Billy Bodin chipping the keeper from twenty-five yards and him heading for the corner flag to protect a lead. It’s an assuredness in your ability; Cameron Brannagan is immensely confident, he feels able to shoot from distance on a regular basis knowing he’ll fail most times and succeed occasionally.

Lincoln came into the game off one defeat in seventeen. They knew their meat and two veg, short back and sides 4-4-2 worked despite their result against Wigan at the weekend. They had the confidence to defend deeply and in numbers, occupying the great plains of space Josh Murphy enjoyed on Saturday. 

I have a sneaking admiration for teams like this, who ignore orthodoxy or established best practice and find a system that suits them. Lincoln may not play progressive football; but they’re very good at what they do. They’re comfortable and confident in their own skin, not something we always enjoy.

This well established confidence gave them licence to be patient, without a point to prove, they focussed entirely on ensuring that whatever they did, they did with purpose. Equally, our risk versus reward model did what it’s supposed to do – we created a couple of chances while conceding a couple of chances. Our confidence from Saturday coupled with their confidence made for a tight and intriguing game. 

By remaining steadfast they opened the door for us to become frustrated by our lack of progress, they allowed the occasion to pull the game apart. They knew that as time went on we’d want to take more risks, the crowd would become agitated and mistakes would create openings. The decisive opportunity came within seconds of the restart, the referee, seemingly caught out by their break, rushed into making a  judgement rather than a decision. We looked on the back foot and certain to concede, when Rodrigues lunged into the tackle it looked like it might be a penalty, which was enough for the referee, even though replays seem to show that clearly it wasn’t. 

From there, by having to go on the front foot, we were on the back foot. As we probed, they overloaded the game with niggles – Browne was battered, Brannagan was introduced and seemed to enter an interminable argument with Ethan Erhahon. Petty fouls forced the referee into a series of marginal decisions, each one making the next more significant and difficult. This all ate time and built tension, the crowd got frustrated and we lost focus. Lincoln stayed resolute,  confident they didn’t need to contribute anymore to the game in terms of entertainment, confident that they could run the clock down and still be heroes. We were caught in their trap and could have few complaints.

So the correction has happened, the penalty decision was harsh and perhaps we deserved a point. The response seems fairly measured, nobody is completely surprised that it happened, even though we hoped it wouldn’t. What’s critical is how we respond and how we retain the confidence we’ve established over the last few weeks. Our response is a choice; we might as well enjoy it, it’s not going to get any easier.

Match wrap | Oxford United 5 Peterborough United 0

I was reading about The Falling Man recently, an iconic photo of a suited man falling head first to his death following the 9/11 attacks. In a split second he appears completely at ease and calm despite the horror he’s just witnessed and the inevitability to come.

One psychologist speculated that, in that moment, rather than a sense of terror, he may have felt euphoric, completely free, controlled by nothing more than gravity. Our lives are determined by so many things that give us very little agency or certainly about what might happen to us, perversely, in his final moments, The Falling Man was in complete control, absolutely assured about was coming next.

On Friday, I had a sense of fatalistic giddiness, the outcome of our week was beyond my control. I was happy to hand myself over to fate. The meaning of success or failure was less relevant than the prospect of catapulting into a week without fear. I hadn’t contemplated a near miss or complete capitulation, but even those prospects made me excited for what was ahead.

Walking to the ground was surreal, there was a man in a fluorescent singlet and matching headband in Gillians Park loudly playing Eastern European soft rock through a Bluetooth speaker while he pumped iron on the outdoor gym. Then a child went past in a small electric car being driven by his dad using a remote control. Something had changed, the world had become lopsided.

Peterborough fans arrived in good numbers and good voice, fresh from their Wembley win and a regulation thrashing of Port Vale. There’s something ominous about them – their manager Darren Ferguson has an association with the club going back seventeen years, their owner Darragh MacAnthony has been chairman for eighteen. They’ve won four promotions and two EFL Trophies. They’ve spent thirteen of the last sixteen seasons in the third tier. They are the quintessential third division assuredness. Unrelentingly solid. They are very much second toughest in the infants.

The teams stepped into sunlight, balloons cascaded from the East Stand, streamers and flags fluttered in the light wind. The stand was alive with movement. It looked good, it felt good. The season had been so grey and introspective, suddenly we’d raised our sights to the prospect of something more worthy than feeding our own self-pity. For once, we’d grasped the occasion. This time, we seemed to get it.

While we suffered the body blows of losing Cameron Brannagan and Elliott Moore, Peterborough stepped onto the field wearing a kit which Brinyhoof described as ‘someone’s left a red pair of pants in the white wash pink’. It wasn’t the pink, it was the washed out shade, the lack of commitment, their sturdy reliable DNA, nearly twenty years in the making, seemed somehow weakened.

Even their kick-off seemed slow, playing along their backline at a snail’s pace, a familiar pattern, ‘modern football’ I sighed quietly. Mark Harris traced the ball like an old man keeping an eye on some noisy kids, checking they weren’t dropping vapes in his garden. Perhaps they were trying to establish some control, but they seemed unwilling, or unable to stamp their authority.

Perhaps they thought they’d play through us; bypassing Josh McEachran and pressing on our shaky defensive line. Maybe they thought they could strike at will. Maybe they’d failed to see the real threat in the plainest of sight.

But McEachran stood strong, he was the platform, intensely metronomic, simple and straight forward. He wasn’t Brannagan, there would be no balls sprayed across the midfield. He would do the right things all the time. And in doing so, he unleashed hell.

Josh Murphy’s form was hardly a secret, on Friday he featured in The Mirror talking about his rejuvenation. Goals, chances and assists have come like a tidal wave in recent weeks. It wasn’t long before he was introducing Jadal Katongo to what a night in Murphy Town was really about. It’s not just his raw pace, as devastating as that is on its own, it’s his reaction speed and acceleration. I’ve only seen that in a few players at The Kassam, and they were wearing Manchester City and Arsenal shirts. He’d show the ball to Katongo, entice him into challenge, but as the defender committed, skip past him whippet quick. If Katongo sat back, he’d would simply run at him forcing him to retreat. Unplayable is over-used in football, but that’s what he was.

After a few minutes, Des Buckingham switched Murphy and Dale Owen over – an old Jim Smith trick – after a renewed battering he switched them back, Katongo and Harrison Burrows, the other full-back and Wembley hero, were probably looking at the scoreboard wondering why time had stood still. We hadn’t reached twenty minutes.

Eventually Katongo succumbed, swinging in with a panicked challenge to bring Murphy to the floor in the box. His protests seemed to be less about the legality of the challenge, more that it just wasn’t fair to have a player of that ability in League One. Harris made it 1-0. 

Ten minutes later, their brittle confidence crumbled to dust, eroding like a sandcastle at high tide. Apparently, when you see something, your brain captures the information in front of you and sketches out what you’re seeing, your brain then fills in the details with logical fragments from your memory bank to make a fully formed picture.

So, when the Peterborough defence, casually played the ball along their backline under almost no pressure before their keeper delicately chipped the ball to Murphy to head into an empty net, my brain couldn’t calculate what had happened. I had no stored memory of that pattern of play, even moments after it had happened, I couldn’t describe it to you. 

Seven minutes later, we were off again, Goodrham accelerating out of defence and rolling the ball into the path of Murphy to run at Kotongo, there was only one outcome as Rodrigues slid home the cross. For forty-five minutes, Murphy had been devastating, completing his journey of redemption – ‘the best player in League 1’ – a typical Robinsonian understatement – was the best player in League 1 and maybe beyond that. He didn’t need his talent bullied out of him by Robinson, or frozen out of him by Manning, he needed something more subtle. Jason Burt, Chief Football Correspondent at the Telegraph, and closet Oxford United fan, described it as one of the best performances he’d ever seen. Ever. By any footballer. Ever. Ferguson replaced Kotongo at half-time, presumably to protect his wellbeing.

I knowingly predicted a fightback in the second-half, or at least a tightening of the game, but we’d pierced into the very soul of Peterborough’s DNA, a DNA years in the making, a DNA which has them comfortably sitting fourth in the table, a week after they’d won at Wembley. They were carrion on the highway, we could play with them.

This was showtime, fluid, elegant and coherent, we grabbed the occasion, doubled down on our advantages, built on our gains. Roared on by a feverish crowd, Fin Stevens’ driven cross was met by Rodrigues with a diving header for number four, like Keith Houchen in the 1987 FA Cup Final. Not yet sated and into the last minute, Greg Leigh launched a long free-kick into the path of Billy Bodin, a quieter more disciplined member of the squad. The sensible thing would have been to go to the corner flag; that’s professional, that’s game management. But that was not this day, he steered the ball wide beyond the demoralised Peterborough backline and directed the fifth into the top right hand corner, a breathtaking finale and a carbon copy of Michael Owen’s goal against Argentina in 1998. It was like we were channelling the history of football.

Despite the worrying injuries and cramps, James Henry breaking down within a couple of minutes of coming on and appearing distraught, euphoria swarmed around a stadium which only weeks ago seemed lifeless and limp. The club re-galvanised after a period of tepidness and turmoil. The best ever performance at the Kassam? Probably. Our best league performance ever? Yes, maybe even that too.

Match wrap | Burton Albion 0 Oxford United 4

Earlier in the season, we opened a door that revealed a light so bright it hurt our eyes. Form that only compared to our greatest seasons. For a club like Oxford, where promotion comes about once a decade and championships are so rare their DNA is kept in the secretive Svalbard seed vault in preparation for the apocalypse, the light was so intense, so ethereal, and so unreal we were drawn to it in mesmerised rapture.

Its brightness was intensified further by what had come before, not just the featureless grey of a relegation battle, but the messy cacophony of Karl Robinson’s chaotic final months rang in our ears and fractured our spirit. Our armistice, the win at Forest Green secured our future, but the experience had ravaged us. The beautiful, pure light of the opening weeks warmed our sallow skin and soothed our sores.

And then the door slammed shut and the light disappeared. Liam Manning looted our backroom staff and left, our form withered, Des Buckingham arrived and stepped into a world he hadn’t expected. Everyone was rubbing their eyes, bumping into each other, some scratched at the door that was once open trying to find a handle. Some simply stood for days pawing at it until their fingers grew numb, preying it might re-open.

In more recent weeks, we’ve started to acclimatise, our title ambitions were just a kink. We were lost but we’re now reconfiguring, resettling into a more familiar role, some moved quicker than others, many are still not there. Trauma takes longer to resolve than you think.

It wasn’t all bad – Oisin Smyth’s howitzer against Charlton, pulling apart Carlisle, a last-minute equaliser against Portsmouth. Some of it was very bad – conceding six at Coventry and five at Bolton. Mostly it was frustrating, a long and boring rehabilitation and renewal, full of false hopes and disheartening setbacks.

Then there was an enjoyable Easter romp against Fleetwood which we felt we deserved for the pain we’ve had to go through. Burton offered another opportunity to step forward, but we’ve tried stepping things up before and found ourselves back on the sofa nursing our wounds. We are all Marcus Browne.

The season’s been going for nine months now, Mark Harris, the world’s most streaky striker, has scored his thirteen league goals in just four of them. Having broken his latest barren run on Monday, he was off again on Saturday. First, latching onto Tolaji Bola’s comedy defensive error on the half-way line to race clear. With enough time to think, and to phone for a car insurance quote if he wanted to, he went beyond the keeper and slotted home. Confidence rekindled, on the hour, he was left to mind his own business while Josh Murphy ran the Burton defence ragged and was free to tap in for number two. Josh Murphy to Mark Harris, the new James Henry to Matty Taylor?

Moments later it was three; if this season gives us nothing else, then the great catharsis of Josh Murphy will be one of its lasting joys. Remembering his long absences and his fitful attempts at regaining form, to see him streaking from one end of the pitch to the other with the freedom of a gazelle makes your heart burst. He may yet decide that there’s more to life than simply climbing football’s slippery pole and stay with us, but he’s too good for this division. If he does seek pastures new at the end of his contract, let’s hope he remembers us as integral to his renewal. There are perhaps, few clubs and in Des Buckingham, few coaches who would have given him the latitude to re-find his form.

Talking of which, watching James Henry score goals nowadays is like watching those videos of old men, crippled by age and arthritis, throwing their walking sticks away and dancing with abandon to street jazz. By his own admission, he joined Oxford because it worked for his family, he’ll be under no illusions now that his career is now in its twilight. But there will still be moments, fleeting flickers of nostalgia which will remind him of what he once was. Each one may be the last, so he needs to savour them – nodding home against Portsmouth and now turning his defender and sliding a shot beyond Crocombe for number four. Let’s hope he’s not full of angst about his future and is just enjoying the sunset of his present.

And so, we turn again and adjust our sights to the defining week of the season; it’s a more familiar hue; we’re no longer honey trapped by the promises of ruthless achievement. We’re back to being hopeful outsiders, perennial short-fallers, the club we fell in love with. We’re not an unrelenting success machine, marching our way to the immoral corporate oblivion of the top divisions, we secretly enjoy the struggle, the precipitous falls compensated by the moments of lasting pleasure. The reality is that we don’t want the struggle of a season in the Championship or beyond that, have the detached sanitation of being a Top 30 Club, but we’ll keep striving for it because that’s why we’re here and that’s what we do.

Match wrap | Oxford United 4 Fleetwood Town 0

I was later than normal getting to the ground yesterday having spent the morning wrestling with setting up an analogue sound system for the first time in about 15 years. As we approached the stadium, an unfamiliar noise emanated from within, it sounded like there was something resembling a pre-match atmosphere. 

‘Someone’s got a drum.’ I said, like a veteran audiophile whose just set up a record player for the first time in a generation, that finely tuned ear never leaves you.

‘That’ll be the Cod Army.’ Brinyhoof reasoned.

It was so loud, I thought it might even be us, but if it was the Cod Army, then they’d evidently come in numbers. Perhaps their relegation fight had stirred the emotions and mobilised the good fisherpeople of Fleetwood to bellow sea shanties all the way to safety. 

Many years ago I remember Bristol Rovers, then on the verge of relegation from the Football League, filling the away end. It was like the cinema scene from Gremlins with bodies flying around and a cacophonous noise. Despite the evident misery of their season, they’d collectively decided to give the team one last whirl. It worked, they won (obviously) and in the process saved themselves. We were fighting for the play-offs, but the defeat confirmed that we weren’t good enough. Oh god.

Getting into the ground, it turned out that the noise was indeed the Cod Army, but the numbers were tiny. Perhaps they’d been over-fished. It was a decent racket, like The White Stripes, Royal Blood and The Pet Shop Boys, you wonder how so few people can make such a noise. Obviously, our response was a gentle expectant silence. Over the sound system Break Out by Swing Out Sister is playing… don’t tempt me. I get it, we all have our home game routines, but nobody seems to have factored in mundane things like ‘cheering a bit’. 

Of course, we started very deliberately and very slowly. It’s in the playbook – ‘play from the back’ although there seems to be a typo in our copy which says ‘play at the back’. Bennett to Brown to Elliott to Long to Elliott to Brown to Bennett and so on and so forth, like the Doomsday Clock ticking down as a reminder of our mortality.

I’d go as far as saying that playing from the back is as damaging to entertaining football as the back pass to the goalkeeper. Perhaps we need a new rule, in the opening twenty minutes, every time the ball completes a full cycle across the back line, the manager has to take a piece of clothing off. Strip Playing From The Back might encourage a bit more energy. No wonder Steve Evans doesn’t entertain all that nonsense.

Where Manchester City’s version of this is purchased from the finest suppliers, ours is a knock-off from Temu, so it tends to break fairly regularly. Sure enough after a few minutes, it did and they fluff a clear chance to open the scoring. As the ball bounced wide, the defence turned as though that had been part of the plan; don’t show them your weaknesses.

Thankfully, Cameron Brannagan is cross about all this; he’s all slap-your-thighs-shoot-from-distance frustrated about the lack of action. Unless he demands attention, the self-proclaimed ‘machine’ gets about as much use as that bean to cup espresso machine you bought after that weekend you had in Italy once.

When he does get the ball, he’s quick to spray it out to the wings to animate our attack. When we go forward, it turns out Fleetwood are utter garbage. Josh Murphy sweeps past people with ease, happy to take risks, but also to sprint the length of the pitch track back and defend. He glides across the pitch, like hovercraft powered by magic powder. But it’s not effortless, there’s enormous amounts of effort involved, maybe the others don’t realise that, I’d say half the fans don’t. Give Des Buckingham credit – he’s got Murphy playing.

Brannagan opens the scoring with a deflected shot as a family arrive in front of us just in time to watch the players high fiving each other. They’re a quarter-an-hour late and will leave with 25 minutes to go – that’s not even trying. 

Fifteen minutes later Mark Harris gets on the end of a superb Murphy cross for number two. Harris is the unhappiest goalscorer in history, like the first things that goes through his mind is that a) everyone is going to now remind him how long it’s been since he last scored and b) everyone is going to expect him to do it again.

Despite the scoreline, a couple of people around us have some pre-scheduled moans that they’ve forgotten about. ‘Sort it out Buckingham’ shouts one. He has sorted it out, at least for this afternoon. It turns out you can just run through the holographic Fleetwood midfield, which is weird because they look so real. Sometimes they pass the ball, but it just rolls out of play. It’s like watching a lower league version of Abba Voyage.

Owen Dale, full of satisfying industry, makes it three. In truth, they have a few clear cut chances – including hitting the bar – which have the potential to make things much more awkward than they are, but the reality is that in a weak league, they’re determined to be the weakest.

Streaky Harris completes the rout with another deflected goal and celebrates like Eyeore finding someone has eaten the last Dairy Lee Triangle. If this was a play, critics would have called it an enjoyable romp. Nobody’s complaining about the outcome or the entertainment, but that Fleetwood character was under-developed and the game lacked chemistry.

I go to the gym on the way home because I’m an absolute hero. In the changing room, someone sees my Oxford top and asks the score. I tell him it was 5-0 – it’s less than an hour after the game and I’ve already forgotten it.

Where it leaves us in a world where nobody wants promotion, who knows? Alive and kicking? Or just alive? It’s just what we wanted, and just what we needed, but it also doesn’t fit the narrative of imminent collapse that some fans subconsciously seem to want to prove a point. If the game were a film, it’s the kind where you need to read the reviews afterwards to find out if you enjoyed it.