The week unwrapped

We’ll start this week’s Unwrapped with last week’s news; last Friday the club announced that Cam Bran is our new club captain. Which is like being a team captain but with the added responsibility for collecting the fines for wearing flip flops in the shower. 

CaptCamBran shared his excitement with Swiss Army Goalkeeper Simon Eastwood, who will turn his hand to anything. He was chosen to interview Brannagan for YouTube with a series of searching questions including was he proud (yes) and what were his proudest moments (Wembley).

Brannagan celebrated with an assist in the encouraging 2-2 draw with Leicester City. Regrettably, it was a beautifully under-hit back pass to Leicester striker Jordan Ayew who scooted through to make it 1-1. 

The game was covered by Oxford Mail’s new sports correspondent, Charles Trevor Greyville-Parsons-Trevellyan or ChaTGPT, as he’s known to his friends. Check this wonderfully lyrical description of the first two goals. 

“The crowd went wild as Oxford took the lead against the former Premier League champions. However, just a few minutes later a poor backpass fell straight into the path of Jordan Ayew. And a player of his quality was never going to miss.”

Just like being there. The club also invited some supporters and staff to take part in the annual team photo, which was a nice gesture. Was I excited to be invited to join them? My goodness, yes. Was I actually invited to join them? Well, no.

Opponents | Robinfacts

Things have changed since we last travelled to Ashton Gate. With Liam Manning leaving in the summer, experts say the inflatable snake market may never recover. City have entered their Obscure Bundesliga Foreigner phase with the appointment of Gerhard Struber, a name that can only be pronounced in a thick Allo Allo German accent. 

Having Manning as your manager is like having your mate, who’s a qualified plasterer, sleeping on your sofa because ‘me missus kicked me out again’. He won’t stay long but he’ll leave you in a better state than he found you.

City have started the season with three wins, two draws and a bucket load of goals despite a suboptimal transfer window. Mind you, there are plenty of Oxford alumni knocking about with Robs Dickie and Atkinson securing the back line and Mark Sykes flitting about on the wing. Luke McNally is sidelined with an ACL injury while Marcus McGuane left for Huddersfield in the summer. Confidence is building, so we could be in for a challenging afternoon.

Football friend | Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor could easily have been washed away into the netherworld of non-league football when Chris Wilder released him from Oxford in 2009. For two years he kicked around local non-league football while teaching PE – one of his pupils, Josh Ruffels, would later become a teammate. 

He eventually found his way to the woke carrot munching villagers of Forest Green Rovers, who were enjoying the patronage of their eco-millionaire Vince Dale. After some solid seasons, in 2014 Taylor rejected a new contract to sign for Bristol Rovers, who’d been relegated to the Conference.

Taylor went full James Constable, grabbing 18 goals in their promotion season and another 27 in League Two as they gained back-to-back promotions. 16 goals by Christmas in League One alerted bigger clubs to his services. Of all the clubs, it was Bristol City who activated Taylor’s release clause and he became the first player since 1987 to step across the Bristol divide. The response was so vicious, City manager Lee Johnson received death threats and was doxed online.

The Championship proved a bit hot for Taylor, where he was used in a limited way during his three seasons with the club. In 2019, Karl Robinson signed him for Oxford on loan. 13 league goals in a covid shortened season led to a permanent deal. He went on to score thirty-eight goals in two seasons, linking up with James Henry to form a potent strike force, although promotion remained elusive.

In 2022/23 things began to unravel, Taylor’s goals dried up, although you can’t get high (in the goalscoring charts) from a bad supply (of crosses). On the last day of the January transfer window, he was loaned to Port Vale – managed by his old Rovers manager Darrell Clarke. Rumours swirled about the breakdown of Taylor’s relationship with Karl Robinson for… REDACT! REDACT!

Objectively the decision made sense, but it still felt symptomatic of the increasing farce that was taking over the club at the time. Taylor never played for Oxford again, he was released after his loan ended, re-joining Forest Green that summer before moving to Cheltenham Town and then Salisbury where he is today. 

From the archive | Bristol City 0 Oxford United 2 (1996)

Oxford’s fabled run to promotion in 1996 is well known, to quote the bard Stuart Massey
“Fifteen games we’ve gone, we’ve won twelve, thirteen even, drawn two and lost the one, we deserve this and we’re going to enjoy it. Get in there.”. 

Get in there, indeed. For all Massey’s bravado, the fans’ psyche was more brittle, a late season collapse meant missing out on promotion in 1995. A poor start to 95/96 looked destined for more disappointment. 

Then the run started, it ran and ran some more; we smoked Swindon, crushed Wycombe and Joey Beauchamp scored the goal of the century to beat Blackpool. Then, a last-minute equaliser to Notts County at The Manor was a proper gut punch which rekindled a deep-seated fear that we could still blow it all over again.

With four games to go, we were seven points behind Blackpool in second. Exactly ten tumultuous years since we’d won the Milk Cup at Wembley we travelled to Bristol City who were celebrating 20 years since their last promotion to the top flight with a ‘kid a quid’ scheme. 

The first half was open with Phil Whitehead busy – “have limbs, will save” – according to The People. But, despite their pressure, Oxford should have taken the lead after five minutes when Paul Moody got on the end of a Joey Beauchamp corner and nodded the ball goalwards. City’s Jason Fowler scooped the ball out from beyond the line and off the underside of the bar, even City’s players thought it was in.

The deadlock wasn’t broken until ten minutes into the second half when Whitehead – have limbs will assist – launched the ball to Stuart Massey whose header released David Rush to slot home. Rush raced to the Oxford fans, put his shirt over his head and pulled his baggy shorts up around his gonads. The lunatic. The win was secured with 17 minutes to go when Joey Beauchamp sprinted down the left wing and centred for Paul Moody to ram home the second.

Afterwards, Denis Smith was asked about beating his former club, who he’d managed for just under a year. Modestly said; “If I’d stayed, they’d probably be in the First Division challenging for the Premiership.” And that wasn’t even his most brazen self-promotion that month, on gaining promotion, he said; “It’s been a long time in the wilderness for me since I left Sunderland where people were talking about me being the England manager.” – ‘people’ being the voices in his head, one assumes.

Elsewhere, Blackpool had drawn with Swindon, reducing the gap to five points with a game in hand. Momentum was back with Oxford; a comprehensive 6-0 over Shrewsbury closed the gap to two. On the penultimate day of the season Blackpool collapsed to a 2-1 defeat to Walsall while Oxford beat Crewe to move into second with a game to go. A 4-0 win over Peterborough at The Manor secured the most unlikely promotion.

Want more?

If you’re a true glutton for punishment, then sign up to the Oxblogger Newsletter, an eclectic bimonthly online fanzine written by the fans for the fans. The Pre-season issue is out now featuring your pre-season predictions, what happens when you fall out of, and back in love with Oxford United, an appraisal of The Soccer Tribe, the defence of non-scoring defenders and the surge of kit reveals.

Plus, the latest Oxblogger Podcast which originally planned to cover the panoply of owners that we’ve had over the decades, but eventually just talked about our current ones. Still, there’s a very good quiz about historical Brians. 

And, if you’ve really got this far and aren’t aware, this season marks the 40^th anniversary of Oxford United’s first season in the top flight, The Glory Years is out now the remarkable in-depth story of our rise through the divisions during the 1980s.