I’m reading Bob Mortimer’s novel, The Satsuma Complex at the moment. Having devoured nearly 200 pages in a couple of days, I was asked if it’s any good, to which my answer is – ‘if it finishes well’. 

For the most part, the opening segment is a fairly whimsical set-up for something; there are some interesting characters who live in an interesting scenario, but there isn’t hard narrative driving through it – there’s no obvious heist, no obvious murder, just a man encountering some complications in his life. There are times when it feels like it’s just an opportunity for Mortimer to share some surrealist humour that doesn’t have a home elsewhere. The question will be whether the book is able to pull a story out of the scenario. None-the-less, it’s a reassuringly familiar read, because like Mortimer’s writing, life is a series of meandering, incomplete strands. 

I was listening to The Rest Is Entertainment podcast last week where they were discussing Hallmark’s Christmas movie machinery. Every year Hallmark produce around thirty new Christmas films, each one with an identical plot line involving a hard-nosed city-girl ending up in a small town where she meets a man and falls in love after realising the pointlessness of her massively successful previous life, thereby re-kindling the lost spirit of Christmas. The writing is structured as a nine-act play, so to negotiate advert breaks, in which each scene must contain at least one overt Christmas reference. This is so formulaic it’s also reassuringly familiar because it’s how life is portrayed through the media, a series of clear narratives with a very definite end point.

My children are getting to the transitional phase of their lives where the magic of Christmas no longer swirls around them, but they’ve yet to figure out a different meaning to it. They’ve never experienced a white Christmas, but they’re aware, this year more than most, that the weather isn’t ‘very Christmassy’ (i.e. snowing). They’ve been programmed to believe that there’s a clear snow-filled Christmas narrative, like a Hallmark movie, and even at some level seem to believe that that’s how their Christmases have always been. The clash between what they want the story to be and what it is, is jarring.

We live in endless hope that Oxford United is surfing a story arc that will lead to ultimate fulfilment, whatever that might be. Earlier this season, it felt like we’d found the narrative strand we’ve been looking for to get promotion, then without warning, it ended mid-stream when Liam Manning left.

We so wanted to believe that the story was pre-destined, that we invented a bridging plot to Des Buckingham. Like Manning, he had a pedigree from The City Group, so he’d just pick up the strands Manning left. Plus, he was an Oxford boy, so the trajectory we were on could only continue upwards.  

Following the defeat to Northampton, a new reality is dawning. I’m sure Buckingham and Manning were given access to more tools and training through The City Group, but they weren’t clones who’d been injected with the elixir of footballing success. The idea of a continuity between the two was what we wanted the story to be, rather than what it was.

Now, desperately trying to scratch around to pick up a familiar thread, some are trying to find an explanation for our patchy form and come to the easy conclusion that it must be Buckingham. It’s like some believe that Buckingham was the reason Manning left; to continue the narrative we wanted to see, which he’s now failing to fulfil our unfulfillable dreams. It’s like a Hallmark Christmas movie where the hard-nosed city-girl goes to a small town, meets a man, doesn’t think much of it and returns to the city to carry on her life as normal.

But that’s what life is like, Manning unexpectedly left, along with two key people and inconclusively and frustratingly the story ended there. Buckingham isn’t a continuation, but a new story, it’s insane to judge his ability in six league games. It’s equally insane to assume that the conclusion to the Manning story would have been sure-fire promotion. Personally, I think he’d have struggled with the chaotic nature of mid-season with the fixture disruption, transfer window and injuries tearing up his PowerPoint presentations.

We won’t learn much about the Manningness of Buckingham’s character over the next few weeks, he doesn’t have his own men, he hasn’t got his backroom team, he hasn’t done his PowerPoints and meticulous planning. We will learn more about his Buckinghamness; what does he do when he looks at his bench and can’t see an option or when a player we’re relying on suddenly pulls up lame? What will his managerial instincts tell him – will he be able to make-do? Will know when to go for the points or take a draw? Is he prepared to accept the less-than-perfect option? 

Ultimately, that’s the reality, the eleven players on the pitch is the eleven players on the pitch, we’re not missing Sam Long, Marcus Browne, Kyle Edwards, Billy Bodin or Greg Leigh in the sense they’re characters we’ve forgotten. They were part of the narrative, now they’re not, at some point they might be again. It’s the nature of the messy inconclusive, frustrating storyline of a season. Buckingham has not done anything to cause the dip in form, he’s not misplaced our injured players, ignored the advice of his deputies (because he has none) or dropped Manning’s magical winning formula (because there wasn’t one). He’s starting again from a place he’s inherited, he needs time to rebuild – to get an assistant in, to get an analyst in, to get to know the players, to hope the injuries ease and the January transfer window is kind. Patience is needed, even if that patience lasts a lifetime and never concludes. Ultimately, that’s life.