As the embers of hope faded on Saturday, someone behind me posited the idea, at some volume, that the referee’s occasional deviations from reality were an EFL plot designed to keep Liam Manning in his job.

That’s quite a theory, a corruption so far reaching it’s designed to keep the manager of Bristol City in his job but not far reaching enough to avoid his tenure being questioned in the first place.

Presumably, in a less heightened state of emotion, they realise how absurd this notion is and that it’s all part of the pantomime, described by Liam Manning, with the dryness of a man quenching a thirst by licking sandpaper, as ‘slightly disappointing’.  

But, we should be allowed these contortions. The inflatable snakes and one giant inflatable penis – a purchase which is surely ruinous to your Amazon algorithm – serves the essential purpose of extending our emotional spectrum.

My god we need it, the death of Abingdon United player Jack Badger is a reminder that the narrow gauge with which we all manage our emotions is rarely enough. As we found when Joey Beauchamp died, words alone seem inadequate, we need both permission and the ability to access more. Football, like the arts or religion or education, can do that, a reminder that the lack of an adequate home for our club should be considered a cultural embarrassment for the city rather than a mere planning issue. 

A great bank of Oxford fans formed its communion along the Atyao Stand on Saturday in anticipation of Manning’s inevitable comeuppance and perhaps his demise. A noisy and vibrant display of collective emotion which was surely more in hope than expectation. It may have proved a nail in the coffin, but I couldn’t see the City owners sacking Manning after a defeat against the team they’d poached him from, it’d just highlight the error of their original decision and lay waste to their credibility.

Much has changed since my first visit to Ashton Gate in the early eighties, when a Bristol City fan near us sang solo about his pride in owning a tractor. It was a song that my dad found so funny he’d recall it decades later. It’s now a reassuringly modern place, which still enjoys its traditional location and status in the community. It should be a reminder of what we have to gain by embracing our club into the city, not what we have to lose.

Far from being overawed by our new surrounds, it should whet our appetite of what we can become. Eventually the Bristol City fans would mock us about losing on our ‘big day out’. Damn straight, the Championship is a ten-month tour of duty, an odyssey, a crusade. We have buckles to swash, we don’t expect to lose, but we accept it as a consequence of our adventure. There may be a time when these games become mundane and the defeats become frustrating, but that time is not now.

As a biblical rain shower cascaded from the skies, causing fans and both benches to scatter, we opened the first half in typical style. The ball was moved around with careful precision, like we were handling a porcelain vase. It created an assured shell inside which Siriki Dembele danced and improvised, stretching and disrupting the City’s lines of regimented defence. 

After a couple of forays, just before the half-hour Dembele cut inside again, rode a couple of challenges and threaded the ball through the City backline where an Oxford player had ghosted into a gap. To my right someone shouted ‘Go on Sparky!’ to my left someone yelled ‘TYLER!’ – on the pitch Ruben Rodrigues lifted the ball beyond the keeper for the opening goal.

The net rippled, a tide of disbelief consumed the away end. We’re still rubbing our eyes at being in the Championship, but to score away from home, with this narrative, pulled our emotional elastic into a new dimension. The woman behind me, some way into her sixties, who’d clapped along gleefully to the ‘who the fuck is Liam Manning’ song, was high-fiving the Stone Island casuals packed into the back of the stand as their vapes and phones scattered into the mess of bodies. Football bridges generational and class divides like no other.

We gathered our senses as the game eventually returned to its pattern, in response, they had their moments, as a home team should, but we had our chances. Dembele bounced a shot off the bar, a reminder that we weren’t to be messed with.

As half-time approached we were looking comfortable when, without warning, the substitute’s board went up and Josh McEachran trotted to the sidelines to be replaced by Will Vaulks. McEachran’s circadian rhythm suits the Championship, his withdrawal – alongside the loss of Cameron Brannagan – disrupts ours.

Manning brought on Yu Hirakawa at half-time. The Japanese winger’s mischief matched Dembele’s, messing with Greg Leigh and pulling us out of shape. Our taughtness unravelled just enough for City to gain a foothold. We needed a buffer, with the final half-hour approaching, the inevitable tide of pressure that would come needed more of a margin than we had.

Then, Tyler Goodrham and Rodrigues tied Luke McNally in knots allowing the Portuguese to slide the ball to Harris in front of an open goal. We talk about needing a broad emotional spectrum, we were now in a moment of the narrowest margins. Harris had drifted about three inches too close to the near post, he needed to guide the ball towards the far post to evade the City keeper. His foot was millimetres too open, the ball diverted beyond the post. 

The punishment was almost immediate, a neat passing move inspired by Hirakawa brought the equaliser from Armstrong. And the number seven pulled the thread again with fifteen minutes to go, dragging our back-four over to deal with his trickery. It meant Kioso left a gap that Harris felt the need to close down. The ball, Roberts and the momentum of the challenge seemed to go in different directions. You couldn’t definitively say the challenge caused Roberts to fall, but the tide was against us, the referee pointed to the spot. The rest was inevitable.

Again, we were exposed in the final third of the game, gradually drawn back and eventually overcome. Narrow, competitive defeats also mean that draws and wins should be within our reach when the gods choose in our favour. This is the axis around which we currently pivot. 

In a week that we lost Steve Hardwick, a goalie who played more top-flight Oxford games than any other and whom, but for a couple of quirks of fate, would have been in goal at Wembley in 1986, we should recognise our privilege. To have this stage and to feel that we still have the opportunity to develop and grow should bring us great heart.

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