The week unwrapped

It’s been a topsy turvy week in Oxford; Chris Wilder returned to Sheffield United, then returned to play us, then returned to Yorkshire with their first win of the season on Saturday. Three days later, there was sort of, nearly, maybe, but perhaps not a counterbalance as we cruised to a creditable goalless draw against QPR on Wednesday.

With the international break on the horizon, a few players have been staring at their phones hoping for a call. Mark Harris was drafted in to shiver on the Welsh bench for the friendly against England at Wembley and their World Cup qualifier against Belgium a few days later. Filip Krastev will stepover his way to Bulgaria for games against Turkey and Spain. Greg Leigh will face Curacao and Bermuda in what sounds like an extended holiday to celebrate his 31st birthday, which was on Tuesday.

Perhaps the most surprising is Ciaron Brown’s inclusion in Northern Ireland’s squad for their double decker against Slovakia and Germany. Brown has played just one half of reserve team football since being injured last season. Along similar lines, Ole Romeny – injured since the summer – is in the Indonesian squad for games against Saudi Arabia and Iraq (I think I’d rather be Greg Leigh, to be honest).

No doubt Jack Currie will be using his break to hang out with his celebrity friends after it was revealed he’s mates with Matt Lucas.

Hornetfacts

Watford were tipped as divisional dark horses this season, at least that’s what I heard once on a niche podcast. If that kind of evidence is good enough for American foreign and economic policy, it’s good enough for me.

Watford’s managerial strategy is similar to the hosting arrangements on Have I Got News For You, they have someone different in charge every week. Saturday’s manager will be Uruguayan Paulo Pezzolano, which is the kind of name that sent Nick Harris into semi-retirement. Look out for Paulo’s overnight bag sat by the dugout.

It’s almost as if constant instability is a bad thing, but their season has started fitfully with nine points from their opening eight games. This might be because their Georgian midfield wizard, Giorgi Chakvetadze – part name, part explosion at the Scrabble factory – is injured and hasn’t featured this season. While we shouldn’t assume that beating Bristol City will give us a three points at Vicarage Road, we can go in with nothing to fear. 

Football friend | Les Taylor

Les Taylor is widely acknowledged as being one of the nicest men in football. Signed for Oxford from Wallsend Boys’ Club – the same club Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley and Michael Carrick played for – in 1973, he made his debut for Oxford in 1975. A year later he was made captain, one of the youngest to play the role.

He was moved from full-back to midfield when Peter Houseman was killed in a car crash in 1977. Eventually he was sold to Watford in 1980 for a record £100,000, a deal which saw Keith Cassells move in the opposite direction.

That move was significant for lots of reasons, Cassells proved a goalscoring hit while the money was essential in keeping Oxford afloat in the years before Robert Maxwell arrived. It was even more significant for Watford who were promoted to the First Division in 1982. The following year Taylor was voted player of the season despite the presence of players like Luther Blissett and John Barnes.

He missed the start of the 1983/84 season after Gary Briggs injured him in a pre-season friendly, but completed the season captaining Watford to the FA Cup final, which they lost 2-0 to Everton. He was loaned to Reading in 1986 and that April was on co-commentary for Radio Oxford at the Milk Cup Final.

After retiring in 1990, he became a hospital porter at the John Radcliffe Hospital before returning to Oxford in 1992 as Youth Team Coach. He had a variety of roles including Woman’s Manager, Head of Youth Development and Academy Head of Coaching bringing through the likes of Tyler Goodrham. He was also a key influence over Des Buckingham during his early coaching career. He eventually retired in 2022, 49 years after he first joined the club; not a bad shift.

From the archive | Oxford United 1 Watford 1 (1987)

Sometimes what happens off the pitch is as important as what happens off it. Think Karl Robinson telling everyone the police were coming after a fracas in the tunnel against Sunderland (they weren’t). Or, Rob Hall hiding behind Chey Dunkley and Michael Appleton when the fists were flying against Swindon in 2017.

In 1987 the First Division clash between Oxford and Watford promised to be a dank affair. Both had been a rare bright spot in a grim decade of hooliganism and finance difficulties. But Oxford, though mid-table, were feeling the strain of losing their best players and Watford were third from bottom after losing their talismanic manager Graham Taylor and struggling with the transition under their new manager Dave Bassett.

Watford’s owner Elton John had other problems, he was suing the Sun newspaper because of allegations about drug taking and hiring rent boys. There were even suggestions he might be gay.

So, what better way to forget your troubles than a game of football? Unless it’s selling your stake in your boyhood football club for £2m to Robert Maxwell on the morning the two teams met. Let’s face it, we’ve all done it.

The morning papers were dominated by the deal. Technically it was between Elton John and BPCC, one of Maxwell’s companies. Maxwell was technically owner of Derby County. If BPCC owned Watford, Kevin Maxwell owned Oxford and Captain Bob owned Derby, the Maxwell’s reasoned they could avoid Football League’s rules about multi-club ownership. What’s more, the Football League bought it.

For Maxwell it meant he would influence 15% of the voting rights for the Football League, great if you were planning some kind of takeover of English Football. Not that Maxwell was a voracious empire builder or anything.

After the news broke, at kick-off Elton and Bob sat at the front of the London Road while the press clamoured for photos. The game itself passed largely without incident, serving up a 1-1 draw. Afterwards, all the talk was about the takeover and more specifically about the future of Watford manager Dave Bassett, who looked haggered from his Watford experience. 

After the game, John declared himself to be Bassett’s biggest fan before leaving the ground. Despite this, eventually Bassett snapped unleashing a torrent of abuse to the press “You decide to build up a boy from Wimbledon into a superstar and then you knock him down” the ‘superstar’ shouted “At the end of the day you will do me a favour and get me the sack. That’s the best thing that could happen to me, for me to be paid off.”

Just another nice day at the football. Everything went a bit bananas after that, and in the end the takeover didn’t happen – you can read the full story in The Glory Years. In the end both Watford and Oxford were relegated, Dave Bassett lasted another month before being sacked by his number one fan. So it all turned out nice in the end.

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.