The week unwrapped

In the face of excruciating pain, endless screaming, and a mess of blood, sweat and tears, you’ve just got to keep pushing and pushing until it finally arrives. I’m not talking about CaptCam’s new baby, I imagine he pinged across the delivery room like he’d spotted Sam Long breaking out of defence. I’m talking about the battle to secure our first win of the season, you silly billy. And, what a beauty the 3-1 win over Bristol City was.

Talking of CaptCam, he hobbled off with nine minutes to go and was straight on the road to the hospital to welcome Brannababy, Leo who eventually arrived on Monday. We’ve been reassured that CaptCamBranFamilyMan, having landed the big one, hasn’t thrown the baby back in the river like a prize winning carp, and that fish-based Hey Duggee episodes are on heavy rotation.

Opponents | Bladesfacts

If you haven’t been following Sheffield United’s story, let’s recap; last season they accumulated 90 points, which is crazy. In the play-off final they were 1-0 up with 14 minutes left but lost in injury time to Sunderland, which is mad. They sacked their manager, which is bonkers. The new manager, Rubén Sellés, took them on a five-game losing streak, which is bananas, so they sacked him, which is wild, and appointed their old manager, which is Wilder.

Old Chrissy ‘chuckles’ Wilder is back to scowl his way through his third spell at The Blades. Apparently one of the reasons for the original rift was the use of artificial intelligence in scouting for players. Wilder much prefers good old fashioned common sense intelligence like sniffing jockstraps and kicking players in the nuts to see if they’re tough enough.

His reappointment wasn’t enough to prevent a sixth straight defeat last week against Charlton leaving them bottom of the table, but as a man who once got a tune out of Kevin Sandwith, Wilder’s Blades will, no doubt, be a different proposition on Saturday.

Football friend | George Baldock

George Baldock played less than fifty games for Oxford and was never our player. And yet, long before his tragic death in 2024 he was voted Oxford’s eighth best player of the 2010s, a regard that has only grown deeper.

Michael Appleton’s arrival as part of a startling summer takeover in 2014 was greeted with some suspicion. Appleton’s managerial history was generally viewed as one unrelenting catastrofuck. The tone of the takeover was at odds the ethos of the club – which might be characterised as ‘inoffensively drifting’. 

It didn’t help that Appleton had a face like granite and huge tattooed arms of coiled thunder. He did have a plan, but when that didn’t work he revealed that Plan B was ‘there is no plan B’, like he was Mr T or something. This uncompromising approach seemed to fit his alpha-male silverback persona and monotonal delivery, it wasn’t long before fans were questioning his future.

Appleton churned through a multitude of loan players trying to find the right mix to match his Plan A. Through the blizzard of hopelessness arrived George Baldock on loan from Karl Robinson’s MK Dons. 

Baldock arrived to play on a potato patch pitch in front of restless fans. We were five points above the relegation zone by February 2015, exactly where we’d been in 2006 when we were relegated from the Football League. It wasn’t lost on most fans that we were facing existential failure.

In his fourth game, Baldock scored a blistering goal against Morecambe to secure an important point. More importantly he set a tone of professionalism, effervesce and effort which set the standards for others to follow. It was no coincidence that we lost just two more games all season.

Baldock returned the following season as the side was transformed into one of the most exciting in living memory. By Christmas we were top of the league, having giant-killed Swansea City and were heading for Wembley in the EFL Trophy. Chris Wilder, then manager of Oxford’s promotion rivals Northampton, saw Baldock as such a threat to his ambitions, he persuaded Robinson to recall the full-back to help with MK Dons’ doomed relegation fight from the Championship.

Wilder signed Baldock for Sheffield United in 2017 and went on to win two promotions, which meant he played in the Premier League. Blades fans hold him in similar regard to those at Oxford. At the end of 2023/4 he moved to Panathinaikos in Greece, having become a Greek national. He tragically died in a swimming pool accident, leaving a legacy that echoes through the club even today.

From the archive | Sheffield United 1 Oxford United 2 (1999)

Some managers are great motivators, some are master tacticians, many are shrewd wheeler dealers in the transfer market. Malcolm Shotton had a gift for shouting, if that didn’t work, he shouted louder. When he first joined Oxford in 1998, it worked, turning the team around to the point where Simon Marsh and Paul Powell were called into the England Under 21s and safety from relegation was assured before our play-off hopes ended.

Perhaps in his difficult second season, the players went deaf or were just bored of the constant earache. There were rumours of fistfights and a bizarre shotgun related initiation which resulted in ‘prankster’ Terry Gordon having his arm broken by Paul Tait.

Perhaps it was the crippling debts from Robin Herd’s failed stadium project that led to Marsh signing for Birmingham, Phil Whitehead going to West Brom and Paul Moody to Fulham before we bought Dean Windass with money we didn’t have, conceded seven goals twice and then sold the striker to Bradford at the beginning of March 1999 to keep the lights on. 

Three weeks after Windass’ departure in March 1999, Oxford headed to Sheffield United sitting precariously above the relegation zone on goal difference and without a win in seven. 

Everything seemed to be going to form when Andy Campbell’s cross was converted by Brazilian Marcelo after half-an-hour. Four minutes later, with the Sheffield defence distracted by the presence of Oxford’s giant striker Kevin Francis, Nicky Banger’s cross was met by Andy Thomson for the equaliser.

Paul Gerrard, signed on loan from Everton after Phil Whitehead’s replacement Mike Salmon had conceded seven on his debut and subsequently retired, pulled off a series of heroic saves to keep Oxord in it. The visitors withheld waves of attack into the last minute when they won a free-kick on the edge of the Sheffield United box. Banger stepped up to bend the ball around the wall for an unlikely winner.

Gerrard returned to Everton, replaced by Pal Lundin, a giant Swedish goalkeeper who’d signed at the beginning of March just after he’d been arrested in Sweden for fighting with a female security guard in a nighclub.

Less than a week later, the club announced that Hotelier Firoz Kassam had bought the club, beginning a whole new era. Fittingly, Oxford marked the changing tides by not winning again until the last day of the season, by which time they were already relegated to the Third Division. Shotton would shout himself hoarse until the October of the 99/00 season, after which he was fired.

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.