The week unwrapped

The last thing we need right now is a sad Greggles Leigh. The international break brought the last round of World Cup qualifiers and our bounding bouncing hero was all set to take his place amongst the pantheon of the greats. Jamaica had two shots at qualifying for next year’s tournament, blowing the first one with a 1-1 draw away to Trinidad & Tobago. Not to worry, the big one was a home game against teeny weeny Curacao. Jamaica hit the post three times (one from Leigh) and were denied a last minute penalty by VAR as Curacao ground out a 0-0 draw. Now Jamaica have been drawn to even more teeny weeny New Caledonia in the play-off semi-final where they’re set to play Kidlington Under 9s or something.

Elsewhere was a mixed bag. Mark Harris started for Wales against Benji Buchel’s Liechtenstein, securing an unconvincing 1-0. That set up a must-win home game against Macedonia in Cardiff. Harris sat things out on the bench as the Welsh ran riot winning 7-1 to qualify for the play-offs where they’ll face Bosnia.

Northern Ireland lost 1-0 to Slovakia, in which Ciaron Brown was on the bench. Brown then won a penalty to beat Luxembourg 1-0. They now go into the play-offs by virtue of their Nations League performances and will play Italy. World Cup qualifying is basically like a primary school sports day – nobody is allowed to lose.

Apart from Filip Krastev, that is, the curate’s egg started both Bulgaria’s games, losing 2-0 to Turkey and then scoring and beating Georgia 2-1. The win added three points to make a final tally of, um, three points.

Also on international duty was Will Vaulks, who was winning the FIFPro Players’ Voice Award in Lisbon for his work on suicide prevention. Vaulks is the absolute best of us and we’re lucky to have him.

In other news, babyfaced billionaire Erik Thohir has increased his controlling interest in the club according to a short and solemn statement on the club’s website. And you know what that means, don’t you? Or to put it another way, do you know what that means, because I don’t.

Elsewhere, the Oxford Mail are breaking all the big stories. This time they’re reporting that “Oxford fan” Michaela Strachan (and for that we mean, has been seen at games with Timmy Mallett) dropped the bombshell that she’s always fancied universally fancied Brad Pitt. Strachan was talking to globo-ticketing schysters Ticketmaster about her upcoming shows in the Oxfordshire towns of, um, Guildford and Cambridge. Keep it local, you guys.

Borofacts

Middlesbrough have given off strong best-of-the-rest vibes for a couple of seasons. But with none of last season’s relegated Premier League teams starting well, they’ve become a bit more of a best of everyone. Currently they’re second in the division behind Coventry which should give us cause to shudder. The only glimpse of hope is that they’ve had their roots ripped up when manager Rob Edwards was poached by Wolves.

His replacement is set to be Hammarby coach Kim Hellberg who are currently second in the Swedish Allsvenskan. Form has wobbled a little since Edwards resigned with two draws and a defeat in the last four, but having spent a mere £28m in the summer, it’s fair to say we’re going to be up against it.

Football friend | Dean Windass

In the 2000s everyone wanted to be David Beckham and as a result we had Lewis Haldane, in the mid-1990s everyone wanted to be Paul Gascoigne and as a result we had Dean Windass.

Windass’ transfer to Oxford in 1998 made no sense. We were broken, the Kassam Stadium was a half-built rusting carcass which had plunged us into a financial crisis like we’d never seen before. Our owner, Robin Herd, having gambled and lost, was extracting himself out of the financial mess he’d created. The Manor, already too small for the Championship, was under threat of having its capacity reduced to an unviable level due to new regulations around all-seated stadium.

So, we blew nearly £1m of money we didn’t have on Aberdeen striker Dean Windass. Don’t get me wrong, we needed firepower – Paul Moody had gone to Fulham and Nigel Jemson to Bury and Windass was a proven goalscorer. The only part of this equation that didn’t work is that we didn’t have £1m to spend. Let’s put that into perspective, in 1998 Manchester United spent £12m on Dwight York, so Windass was viewed to be worth a 12^th of Dwight York. In 2025 Liverpool spaffed £125m on Alexander Isak, meaning Windass was worth £10m in today’s money.

Windass was a cheeky chappy, full of japes and scrapes, in 1997 against Dundee United, he was sent off for a second booking, then sent off again for verbally abusing the referee and then he managed to get a third red card for uprooting the corner flag on his way to the dressing room. That proved to be the final straw, Aberdeen were ready to offload and we were ready to empty our empty piggy bank to help them.

At first it seemed to work; Windass scored on his debut against Bristol City and continued to score regularly appearing to pay back his huge fee. The problem was that with the loss of Matt Elliott and Phil Whitehead, our defence was porous which might be because we’d spent £1m on one striker. Perhaps it was the philosophy of ‘if you score three, we’ll score four’ that Kevin Keegan implemented at Newcastle around that time.

Except we were conceding seven and not scoring eight. We shipped seven at Sunderland in September followed by another seven against Birmingham at The Manor three months later. Windass scored a consolation goal, cupping his ears in front of the London Road as though redeemed.

In January we faced a grotesquely enriched Chelsea side in the FA Cup. Windass’ header from a near-post corner gave us a shock lead which nearly caused a sensation until Gianluca Vialli threw himself to the floor with Kevin Francis’ leg dangling and Frank Leboeuf converted the penalty.

Staring relegation in the face, Windass uprooted to Bradford, who were heading for the Premier League. Two years later he joined Middlesbrough where he stayed until 2003 before re-joining Bradford and then his hometown club Hull City.

The game | Middlesbrough 4 Oxford United 1 (1998)

History is punctuated by great kisses; Charles and Diana, Scott and Charlene, well this is a story of a kiss that never was, leaving the tantalising question… what if?

The 1990s was a decade of twists and turns, sometimes good, often bad. In 1997/8 Oxford seemed to take a definitive twist in the wrong direction. Matt Elliott was already gone and on Christmas Eve 1997, Denis Smith left to take over at West Brom as building of the new stadium was grinding to a halt saddling the club with crippling debt.

By the time the club appointed Malcolm Shotton in late January 1998 the club were a point outside the relegation zone having played more games than those around us. Shotton provided an authoritarian jolt which saw six wins and a draw in nine games.

Although the run petered out, Shotton led the club into the final game of the season in 12^th. The fans were purring as they headed to Middlesbrough who were aiming to secure a return to the Premier League. 

Middlesbrough couldn’t have been a greater contrast, their relegation season had featured Brazilians Juninho, Branco and Emerson, and Italian Fabriziano Ravenelli. They were managed by former England captain Bryan Robson and they played in a new, completed, stadium.

Relegation had seen an exodus of foreign players, but in their place came Paul Merson, Andy Townsend and Paul Gascoigne. Despite this, they still needed a win over Oxford to secure promotion.

So, it was a rare treat of a no pressure game where we could have some fun at least making it awkward for the home side. We managed to frustrate them early on with the help of Phil Whitehead, a tension that was exacerbated by the news that Sunderland had taken an early lead. As the players headed for the tunnel at half-time, Sunderland were sitting in the automatic promotion spots while Boro faced the play-offs.

Everything changed in two minutes in the second half when Alun Armstrong fired two quick goals releasing the tension and cracking out the party poppers. Craig Hignett added a third and fourth capitalising on some breathtaking defensive ineptitude. 

There was enough time for Nicky Banger to grab a consolation from Joey Beauchamp’s cross. 

At full-time Middlesbrough celebrated as Paul Gascoigne raced over to his hero Martin Gray to make sure he got the legend’s shirt, an exchange which involved Gray attempting to plant a kiss on Gascoigne’s cheek. The rebuff is as tragic as it is awkward. Still, Gazza rolled away with Gray’s shirt and ended up doing a lap of honour in it.