I realise now that I probably only have so much capacity for excitement in one day, I don’t think I ever realised that there would be a day where that emotional energy would be used up by a council meeting at the expense of a game of football.

Let’s take the day in order, I thought the club, OxVox and the others that have been involved in getting to this point in the stadium relocation have been exemplary. I’ve looked into Robert Maxwell and Firoz Kassam’s attempts at getting stadiums built and there was no discussion of ‘opportunities’ or ‘benefits’ back then. The timing and tone of the messaging has been superb. 

I thought too, the council proceeding was reassuringly calm and focussed. I don’t know how orchestrated the actual meetings are – I suspect there’s a lot of discussion and decision done in advance of the final public rubber stamping – but it seemed to me to be fair, balanced and clear. Both sides of the argument were received and aired in the same spirit. In the hyperbolic world of local and national politics, this was particularly good to see.

It’s hard to define benefits without stories, so those offered by Harry Hall, Riva Casley and Danielle Walker especially painted a picture of the benefits that can be realised with a successful club. Yes, these are tightly crafted, but they’re also real. 

Above all, it showed the club is in good hands; as one councillor put it, mistakes were made thirty years ago with the development of Minchery Farm (long before Firoz Kassam got involved), there is now an opportunity to fix that.

For me, the last couple of weeks in particular have illustrated that for all the frustrations on the pitch, we are still in good shape with the ability to market ourselves effectively and invest in our future. 

Which brings us onto Wycombe. In a sense the timing of the game couldn’t be worse, the day’s events and sub-zero temperatures made the game something akin to a Papa John’s or Oxfordshire Senior Cup game. If Wycombe fans wanted to stoke this up as a derby; and I am more open to that idea than most people, then this wasn’t the day for winning or losing bragging rights, whatever value they hold. 

When I was at school I took part in a 24 hour 5-a-side game for charity. People would drop in to lend their support, one girl arrived a good 13 hours into the ordeal, there were bodies everywhere and the game consisted of two teams sitting on the floor knocking the ball from one end of the hall to another. Nobody was speaking, if they weren’t playing, people were sleeping until she asked loudly if anyone had looked at their maths homework yet. Being asked to play Wycombe after the day we’d had felt a bit like that, it really wasn’t the time.

This is normally a go-to fixture for me, but our general form, the cold and the prospect of having to park nineteen miles away on the side of a 45 degree hill put me off. I realised late last week that my intentions to buy a ticket always seemed to be on tomorrow’s to-do list and eventually came to the conclusion I didn’t really want to go.

So, following via iFollow did offer a sense of perspective that you don’t get when you’re freezing to death in the stands. I’m going to go against the grain and suggest the difference wasn’t as big as the score or reaction suggested. Yes, it was frustrating, it seemed very routine for them, but there was plenty of endeavour and despite the obvious lack of clear chances, we did periodically threaten.

We are not awful, we are just not as good or thrilling as we’ve been in recent seasons. It can feel like we’re in terminal decline, but I think it’s more that we’re in transition; the centre-back gravy train of Nelson, Dickie, Atkinson and McNally has come to an end, age has caught up with Taylor and Henry, the attempt at injecting experience into the squad (Baldock, Murphy, Wildschut, Jones) hasn’t worked. We need to re-find our mojo, not in the next week during the transfer window, but for next season.

Wycombe, on the other hand, have a system; it’s ingrained in what they do, developed over years by Gareth Ainsworth. Built, perhaps, on an instinct to survive in this division rather than due to a desire to do things ‘the right way’ for the footballing gods as Karl Robinson seems keen to do.

Perhaps, if you put the two parts of the day together, you get more of a sense of what’s going on; the club are building for the future, stadium first, team second. We’ll sacrifice the odd game, maybe the odd season to secure the long term prosperity of the club.

The temptation might be to get rid of Robinson and put in place a manager who will pull rabbits out of hats, securing wins without resources. That can go very right, as Wycombe are showing, or it can go very wrong, as anyone who was around while the Kassam was being built will testify.

I actually think we need a manager who is going to be part of that long term plan and the general cadence of the club, not someone who is going to agitate for more players or simply give up and sulk when things don’t go their way. They would just become a disruptive force in the club.

The stadium is a priority, patience and thought is needed at every stage of the planning process, to some extent, that will be needed on the pitch as well. I do think Karl Robinson understands and that we will ultimately benefit from the continuity. I’m not pretending the season has been a good one, but I think we might just look back in a few years time and be thankful if we don’t panic at the first sign of a wobble.