There’s a photo from 2015 of Alex McDonald walking off the pitch after a 1-1 draw against Morecambe. McDonald’s shirt is smeared with mud with the sponsor’s logo, Black and Rounds, peeling off. Under his feet the pitch is wet, sticky and has turned a grey-brown colour. You can clearly see the rugby pitch markings of our then housemates London Welsh. 

We were nineteenth, five points off the League 2 relegation zone. Michael Appleton’s theoretical modernising seemed to have failed amid the muck and bullets of League 2 realists. 

The highlights look like football from another age, the ball catapults around like the players are passing a live grenade between each other. It bobbles along the rutted surface so erratically, every touch is cursed with the terror of losing possession.

A goal down with three minutes to go, George Baldock, four games into his loan spell from MK Dons, picks up a throw-in. He takes it short to Pat Hoban who knocks it back. Defying the fear of the potato patch pitch, he dances through the Morecambe defence and rifles the ball into the top right-hand corner from 25 yards.  

The goal rescues a point, but it’s a start. Baldock had lanced the mediocrity and shrugged off the cold unifying dread. Michael Appleton said these were the players he’d been looking for. While Skarz, McDonald, Wright and Hytlon dragged the team through Appleton’s early months, Baldock was the epitome of where he was trying to get to, others would eventually follow.

Baldock fizzed with a verve and spirit; the pitch, the atmosphere, the context didn’t matter, he chose to be the change he wanted. This boundless effervescence makes his death even more difficult to process.

But, perhaps we should look to how Baldock lived, to cope with how he died. Not to deal with it or resist it, but to live with it and live through it.

The point is, he didn’t have to do what he did at Oxford. We were a brief stopping off point, he was never our player, he could have skulked around for a bit before continuing his career elsewhere. Plenty did during that season. Instead, he chose to buy into what Appleton was trying to do, to set an example to those around him, to never let his standards drop.

He was articulate and engaging in interviews, he recognised the privilege that playing football was, he was a participant, not a passenger. Too busy being a footballer to think about being a footballer.

The summer of 2015 saw Appleton’s revolution finally blossom, Baldock returned to a squad that matched his enthusiasm.

What came next was breathtaking, perhaps the most joyous season in our history; and that includes the back-to-back titles between 1983-85. We watched as the club transformed in front of our eyes, it was like the blooming of a thousand flowers, the seeds of which Baldock had planted.

I look at those fixtures now and can see them in vivid colours; 4-0 at Brentford, 2-2 at Luton, 3-1 at home to Notts County, 2-0 against Swindon, 5-1 at Stevenage. Building blocks of a legacy that will echo through the generations.

By Boxing Day, the revolution was in full-swing; I went with a friend who had no more than a casual interest in Oxford. We sat in the North Stand, I’d eulogised about what we’d become, but feared, as we often did, that we’d blow it. 

At half-time, with the scores 0-0, we ate Quality Street and drank a beer and I listened as my friend searched for words he couldn’t find or maybe didn’t exist. What had happened? Who are these players?

It got better, after half-time John Lundstram broke the deadlock. On 67 minutes, Baldock cut in, demanded the ball and advanced into the area. He had this way of running, upright, his hands low at his sides, never giving away his next move, Exeter backed away trying to read his body language. Baldock made a couple of stepovers before driving home for 2-0. Sercombe would dink in the third in the last minute to make a perfect afternoon. 

A week later we’d roar back from 2-1 down to win 4-2 at Notts County in a performance of herculean spirit that cemented our momentum. Eight days later we faced Swansea in the FA Cup and put on a display of breathtaking attacking vivacity; our third breakaway goal signalling the emergence of Oxford United as a modern football club.

Four days later we did it again, dominating Millwall in the JPT Trophy in a more understated, though no less impressive giant killing. It would set us on the way to Wembley.

Baldock would never get there, three games later Karl Robinson recalled him to MK Dons’ League One relegation battle. On the radio, a young fan called to say they had a Baldock’s shirt, his response was to tell the fan to stick with his team and never lose faith. After all, it wasn’t about him, it was about us.

He played just 47 games, but invested ten times that into his short time with us. The foundation stones were laid, Baldock returned to MK Dons where he won player of the season, he’d eventually end up at Sheffield United with Chris Wilder and play in the Premier League. He deserved nothing more.

Baldock didn’t just retain faith through those early days at Oxford, he was the faith. It grew around him like a vine. He never sought any thanks, even when he was alongside players that were less talented, he worked with them as equals. His qualities, as a player and a person would shine through and draw people in. Legacy is what you leave behind. In so many ways Baldock’s legacy at Oxford still lives with us today.