When England won their final group game against Wales to qualify for the knockout rounds of the FA Cup, the mood was understandably celebratory. But it wasn’t just about the win, which was routine and expected, there were also quite a few people who were also happy that Wales had lost. 

Obviously, your team winning has the consequence of the opposition losing, but to actively want the supporters of another team to be miserable in their defeat is alien to me, particularly if that team is significantly smaller than yours. I’ve got a soft spot for Wales, they’ve enjoyed the best of times in recent years, they may never experience anything similar again. It reminds me of the rare glory days of following a club like ours, let them enjoy those times while they can. I’m happy to see England win, but I’m not happy that Wales lost, it’s not an emotion I can access.

Typically, for me, the opposition are inconsequential. For all I know, Oxford may retain a group of players who simply change their shirts from one week to the next, a bit like the hapless, anonymous opposition who play against the Harlem Globetrotters as they tour the world. Incidentally, that team is called the Washington Generals, they’ve lost over 2,500 games to the Globetrotters over the years, but have accidentally won twice. Sounds like Swindon’s record against us. No, YOU stop it.

Twenty-four hours before the England game, we drew Arsenal in the FA Cup. I excitedly tweeted a few things that popped into my head before checking myself. Does being animated about being drawn against a big team make us tinpot? Should I play it cool? When we drew Arsenal in 2002, while Jefferson Louis danced naked in the dressing room, Ian Atkins joked that he’d play with five across midfield. Be more like Jefferson.

That’s the point of supporting a team like us; to take joy when it’s given to us. Manchester City drew Chelsea, Manchester United drew Everton, it’s hard to imagine if there’s a fixture in the world which excites those teams in the way a serendipitous FA Cup draw does for a small club when drawn against a huge one.

So, while Big Football whirls around us almost constantly at the moment, I’ve found a spark of happiness in being small, which meant the hapless work of Accrington’s camera operator on iFollow on Saturday was a thing of beauty rather than frustration.

They seemed to be suffering a series of petit mals long before they chose to investigate whether Karl Robinson had a bald patch over following the ball in the lead up to James Henry’s goal. At one point, Cameron Brannagan was poleaxed by a thunderous free-kick. Amy Cranston came on and I was momentarily distracted by the Netherlands v USA game and its seventy-two robot operated camera angles, including four documentary teams embedded in the colon of each goalkeeper (maybe). 

When I looked back to my laptop, Brannagan and Cranston had gone. All that was left was a shot of bare grass. What had happened? Had Brannagan taken a serious turn for the worst? Had he been helicoptered out and rushed to hospital? Was the scene simply too gruesome to show, even to people who had witnessed John Dempster’s Oxford United career?  

I imagined what I’d missed; Cranston drilling into Brannagan’s cranium in a desperate on-pitch intervention, a fountain of blood and fragments of skull spraying all who were nearby, while the players screamed “I THINK IT’S HIS KNEE, AMY.” It seemed that the person whose single job was to follow the ball with a camera for ninety minutes had knocked off for a bit. Bloody unions, is this what you want Mick Lynch?

After they’d missed our goal, rather than becoming Football-Karen and emailing the EFL in disgust, I spent the next few minutes thinking about them standing on the gantry, freezing cold, beating themselves up about the disastrous mistake they’d made. Worse still, they knew they’d done it, but most likely their bosses wouldn’t find out until much later. They would have that creeping fear, like when you accidentally send an email about your boss, to your boss.

At least they made amends for the equaliser, which was unexpectedly struck from so far out, they’d have been forgiven for missing it in preference to taking a few shots of the guttering on top of the stand for the surprisingly popular #wastewaterofinstagram hashtag. 

Anyway, I hope they’re OK, and don’t get into any trouble, I’m not unhappy about the result, whatever it turned out to be. A point away from home should always be considered good-to-par and we’re too middling to be ‘dropping points’ at the moment. While the slick, £220bn global phenom of the World Cup consumes every living space, I’m quite enjoying being a bit small at the moment.