Four Oxford United mysteries almost explained using the help of AI.

In my current job, I spend quite a bit of time banging on about the differences between ‘tacit and explicit knowledge’. If you fancy a free lesson? Explicit knowledge is formal, objective and can be written down and stored easily. It’s the type of information you typically find in books or documents. Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, is more personal and can be subjective. It’s based on individual experiences, intuition, and insights that exists in our heads.

After my 22-year Oxford United sabbatical, I am honestly not too sure how much of my own tactic knowledge has made it to the explicit side. So, using AI to compare with my tacit memories, I thought it might be fun to take a look what it comes up with and compare the two…

Three sides to every story

It was my great pleasure to attend the excellent Florence Park talks for the launch of both Scott Walkinshaw ‘The Glory Years’ & ‘Mad Dog: The Mickey Lewis Story’ from Leo Ackerman and Alex Urwin. If you haven’t done so already, why not? Buy them both now! 

Somewhat to my surprise, at this event, I was called out to do a short Q&A on Oxford United in the 1990s. 

It had not occurred to me that the reason for the ‘Three side fortress’ has not made into the explicit area of knowledge. AI gives us just this.

 The Kassam Stadium has only three sides because the construction of a planned fourth stand was never completed due to financial issues and disagreements with the stadium’s landlord, Firoz Kassam.

Closer inspect reveals that this related to ‘discussions in 2016’ rather than the actual construction phase.

I was engaged in this project between 1995-8, building the three sides was a really smart thing to do. Bear with me…

The National Lottery was newly established in 1994 with a major objective being to improve GB sporting performance with a particular focus on the Olympics.

This was supercharged by the 1996 Atlanta Games, where Team GB finished a dreadful 36th with only one gold medal won by rowers Matthew Pinsent and Steve Redgrave. I remember this quite well and people from our street came outside to celebrate the painting of a single Henley post box. It seems impossible to imagine Team GB not winning a load of medals at every Games. Lottery funding was brought to bear and look at GB now! Money talks, baby!

So, the fourth stand was a National Lottery sized void to be filled. At this time, it was hard to make a link between Olympic success and Oxford United. We needed to team up with some people more connected to that sphere. I still feel it is a bit unfair to name the sport, but will give you some clues, that their GB Olympic record is not the best and their game involves a ‘net’. 

I have remembered the figure of ‘2.7’ linked to this project but I cannot remember if this related to either the size of the lottery bid (£2.7m) or the capacity of the stand (2,700). Both figures sound about right. I think I still have the plans in the loft, so may be able to check!

The club also needed to chuck in some resources but we were advised that this could be just the land to build the thing on. So, you lose 20 or so car parking spaces and get a free stand. The phrase we used at the club at the time was ‘no brainer’. Is that something we can still say?

The stand was to house the national offices of the sport not mentioned above and a gym that could be used by the unmentioned sport, the club and the local community. I had a couple of chats with a National Lottery consultant, who assured us that the boxes had all been very much ticked. The ownership changes at the club in 1999 looked at the ‘parking space for free stand’ deal in a rather different way. So, it didn’t happen.

I had spent a lot of time on this plan, so was annoyed both personally and professionally.  As we all know a three-sided ground is not ideal. I also have an aversion to not taking free money when it is being offered.

Debt bondage

The now often repeated pre-Kassam Oxford United debt figure is ‘up to £15m’.  I guess ‘up to’ is a good way of saying ‘we have no idea’. Or more likely ‘please click this link’?

Celebrity James Bond Villian, Elon Musk is also fond of this ‘up to’ device when he triumphantly acclaimed (made in Cowley you know) ‘up to’ three million people marching in London. He provided evidence, albeit of people marching past the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. So, either it is a very very long march indeed, or Bond can take it a bit easy, as he is only going to be thrown into a pool of goldfish with defective lazers.

I have recently discovered the YouTube world of ‘StuntPegg’, (aka Nieve Petruzziello) who did an otherwise excellent and sympathetic (especially for a Bolton fan in Summer 2024!) piece on the ‘three sided OUFC’. She did of course also quoted the ubiquitous ‘’up to 15 million in debt’ line, which will be fed back into AI.

The only way you get close to this daft figure was if the Manor Ground had zero value as a real estate asset. You also need to understand the difference between ‘Fixed’ and ‘Current’ assets. It is a bit like saying someone with a £250k mortgage on a house (that is worth £500k), is ‘£250k in debt’. It is true but totally misleading. 

So has this become explicit knowledge? I don’t know, so let’s find out! Google AI again.

‘Manor Ground sold for £12m’ 1st May 2002. Sold to Nuffield Nursing Homes, owners of Oxford’s Acland Hospital. According to the Land Registry, the price paid was £12m. 

Some fairly simply maths here, will lead us to a much realistic but less dramatic debt figure. So AI & people please lose the ‘Up to £15m’.

Juve got to be joking…

On the face of it any link up between Oxford United and Juventus does seem ridiculous. So let’s see what Googles AI comes up with? As it happens quite a lot!

Oxford’s unlikely Italian job, Construction News, 27 February 1997

Italian soccer giant injects cash to stop Taylor Woodrow walking off stadium job Juventus step in to save Oxford United. The Turin club, together with the Italian clothing company Benetton, is close to reaching a pioneering deal in which both foreign firms will inject cash into United.

Glenn Moore hears a strange tale of mighty Juventus and a humble English First Division club

“It is very exciting,” said Robin Herd, the Oxford chairman. “They are not just going to send us players. Juventus have managed to combine the traditional technical brilliance of the Continentals with the power and pace of the British game. They will be showing us how to do it. Manchester United have undertaken something similar, with their coaching staff going to Turin to see how they do things. We are hoping to take it one step further.”

The club’s general manager, Ian Davies, was more circumspect, saying: “At the moment it’s still talks about talks.”

Motor racing is the link in this unlikely deal. Having been involved in IndyCar racing and the March team, Herd is a well-known figure in the world of Formula One. Much of that, including the Italian Benetton team, is based in Oxfordshire. Juventus, like Ferrari, is part of the Agnelli family empire.

Herd stressed: “Juventus don’t want any financial influence. They don’t want to interfere in any way with the running of Oxford United.” The Italians were less keen to commit themselves, though.

Two Juventus directors visited the Manor Ground on 2 February and spoke informally to Oxford officials – but that, it seems, is as far as it went.

To see oneself quoted after all these years is quite a laugh. I was toeing the official line here and strange that Robin Herd was not! Very few people in the club knew anything about this plan. Was Robin using ‘Construction News’ as a way of re-assuring Taylor Woodrow that funds were on the way? On the other hand, I think this may have always been Robin’s plan? My evidence for this being that he liked the fact that I could speak a bit of Italian from at least three years before this Juve story broke.

Things did not end on 2^nd February 1997, that bit is not at all true. The real story is much more interesting.

In the 1990s Formula 1 racing was very a ‘boys club’ and nearly all based in Oxfordshire. These people were essentially Robin Herd’s network and best friends. Everyone in F1 loved Robin.

I met and talked to loads of them, including one Flavio Briatore of Benetton, who was Enstone based. So, the Construction news article very much has that bit right. Briatore essentially was the portal between all the parties.

The good bit is missing though. Even in the 1990s Juventus were thinking in terms of a European Super League. At this point in the mid-1990s it would be hard to argue that Juve were not the biggest and the best in world football and there was a feeling in Turin that they had ‘outgrown’ Serie A. 

So here’s the plan that was explained to me by Robin. 

Juve would set up ‘European Super League’ and get kicked out of Serie A. They would, however, still need a team to play a regular league season, this needed to be somewhere outside of Italy.  At that time the next biggest league financially was the then emerging Premier League.

By this stage, having to quit Serie A, they would need to have a pre-existing relationship with, say, an Oxford United or similar. The team you ‘twin with’ couldn’t be too big or the plan wouldn’t work. Arsenal were up to something similar with Beveren in Belgium at the time. This was not common knowledge in the UK but was over there. We know this as Raging Bull FC played the Beveren Police team at the Stadium complex (1-0 (Davies) if anyone is interested) around this time.  What a weekend that was!

Back to Juve. The deal would involve finance and players essentially making the journey to ‘Minchery Farm’ as it was then called. It seems now quite arrogant now, but the Juve feeling was they could easily get Oxford into the new Premier League with a ‘shadow squad’. 

If you check out their winning 1996 UEFA Champions League final line up, then maybe its not so arrogant. Imagine if Del Piero was recovering from injury, he would turn out for the mighty black and white striped yellows. It got to the point where we got a set of Oxford United striped shirts (code name: ‘Notts County’). More about them later.

This is where it got really funky (or ridiculous). Plans were made to up the stadium capacity to something like 28,000 with two tiers and filled in corners, it looked pretty good. Players would be bought and loaned to Oxford. If you think about it, how different is this to say the City Group or the numerous other multi club ownership models that we now take for granted? Most of this plan minus the Euro Super League (yet?) has come to be ‘normal’. 

 I remember one of the players, who it was suggested would be joining Oxford was Federico Giampaolo. He was a goal every 3 games striker in Serie B for Pescara, who had been at the books at Juve and I guess they still had an ownership stake in him. In 2001 I bought a house very near to Pescara (for whom he was still banging in the goals up until 2005), so I have kept in touch with his career, last time I looked he was manager of Bari.

As far as I know, the last Oxford United interaction with Juve was in fact…

1st March 1997, Oxford United 1 Crystal Palace 4 (Att: 8,752)

This was all very top secret, but Juve sent a someone to the game who was, I believe, their ‘Head of European Scouting’. I cannot remember his name, but he was very Sicilian. He’d flown to Heathrow, where we had a car take him to the Manor Ground.

At this time, I would say my Italian, especially relating to football matters, was pretty good. I was also a registered player with ‘CONI’ which performs the FA role in Italy. So, I was confident we could have a good Italian football chat.

The receptionist, Audrey, ushers in this chap, (let’s call him ‘Salvatore’, a very common name in Sicily) into my office. I think I struggled once we got passed the standard ‘buongiorno e piacere’ stuff (good morning nice to meet you). Salvatore opened up and I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. 

Unlike the UK where we have ‘BBC English’ the purest Italian, is generally considered to be found in Tuscan countryside and small towns (not Florence where they cannot say ‘c’ ‘oca ola’ being a regional piss take of them). My Italian had been largely learned in Lucca and the Tuscan countryside. I was therefore doomed to fail.

I did have a plan b; Jonny Park (sadly RIP a couple of years ago) who ran the merchandise caravan at the corner of the London and Beech Road stands had taught English in Rome for years, so was totally fluent in Italian. So, the plan was changed, I was supposed to have watched the Palace game with Salvatore in the Directors box, I was always suited and booted on a matchday. Jonny P was not so (therefore unable to get them in the Directors Box) we got Gary Whiting to find some room in the Manor Club and off they went.

Jonny was a total character, so at least I knew Salvatore would be well looked after and entertained. Which is more than I can say for matters on the pitch where we were taken apart by Palace. Simon Marsh was really the only player who had any kind of game. Could we have pretended to be the team scoring the 4? It did cross my mind! So, after the game we met up again Jonny, Salvatore and I. ‘How are you getting on JP’? Reply ‘Mate he doesn’t speak bloody Italian, he speaks Sicilian’. 

The upside was, with the Bar in the Manor Club, they had been getting on really well. I think the only successful communication we managed post-match was to understand he thought number 3 (Simon Marsh) was good. So, how far was he from joining the European champions, rather than Birmingham City? Salvatore got to see Joey, Matt Elliot, Phil Gilchrist etc. all have off days. Also worth pointing out Palace were on a charge that ended with a playoff win and promotion to the Premier league just two months later.

I suspect Salvatore was expecting to see a team that needed a few additions to be pushing to the top of the table. Sadly, I think normally that would have been the case with this Oxford side in 1997. Barnsley finished 2^nd and we’d taken 4 points from them. I suspect his report said something like keep Simon Marsh and bring in 10 players. Or more likely, just leave this well alone.

So, Jonny P, Salvatore and I were stuck with each other post-match, as he had a late flight back from Heathrow to Turin. Not sure whose idea it was, but Jonny was an experienced Oxford tour guide so we despatched them both off in a taxi to do the Oxford tour of famous sites. So, I guess he got to see the Bodleian, Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian and knowing Jonny, the Turf Tavern and Kings Arms, before being bunged into a taxi to Heathrow.

As I reflect on this whole experience for Salvatore, he had a grand day out. Thinking about it now, it sounds remarkably like the format for Ellis Platten’s ‘Away Days’ channel (but with less ads)!

A bit too late but what does AI say?

Sicilian’s distinct grammar, pronunciation, and borrowed words from Arabic, Greek, and Spanish make it largely unintelligible to speakers of standard Italian.

So, tying up the loose ends…the Oxford United ‘Notts County’ shirts saw almost no actual action. These ended up being Oxford Exiles 2nd Kit. I had played for this Sunday League team since 1980 and it soon became the de facto OUFC staff team. So, James P, Darren B, Deadly Dave, Tricky Trev, and myself carried on the OUFC football weekends, via the Cowley Road on the Saturday night and into the Sunday morning. I am not actually sure if Deadly Dave ever went home? With the benefit of hindsight, I think my personal relationships were probably not given adequate attention. So, to anyone in a relationship with me in the years from 1994-9, I am sincerely sorry and apologise unreservedly!

OUFC worst ever player?

I asked AI this question ‘who was OUFC worst ever player?’

There is no single consensus on Oxford United’s worst-ever player, but candidates often cited include Emiliano Diaz, Steve Anthrobus, and Marvin Robinson, who are noted for their poor form, lack of goals, or brief, disappointing spells at the club. Other mentioned players include Alex Jeannin, Phil Trainer, and Arthur Gnohere, with various sources highlighting a lack of success or negative impact during their time at Oxford.

Even though I have not seen these guys play, as I have missed 22 years of OUFC (1999-2022) some of them may indeed have not pulled up too many ancient woodlands, but they were all still professional players. Shove any of them in your Sunday league team and you would see the difference. 

I once played a Sunday League match against a team including Paul Berry (scorer of a pivotal goal in Oxford history, our 1-0 win against Charlton on Boxing Day 1980). I was much younger and fitter and given the task of keeping him ‘quiet’, which I did for 80 minutes or so until the Exiles made the mistake going 2-0 up. That provoked him into action, new gears were found and I could do nothing to stop him grabbing 2 goals to make it 2-2. Then he calmed down, which I thought was very dignified and the spoils were shared. He knew he was miles better than everyone on that pitch but did not really need to prove that, or make anyone look bad. I think I had thanked him for the Charlton goal before we had even kicked off, as it happened a master stroke.

What we really need to do is to find ‘non-professional’ players who have played for the Mighty Yellows first team.

Did George Weah’s “cousin” Ali Dia perhaps make it up the A34 from Southampton to the Manor? In a reverse Matt le Tissier move?

World famous busker, Ed Sheeran has been given the number 17 Shirt at Ipswich this season. He is I suspect not in their league squad of 25? Although, I am sure OUFC would be happy enough to see him replace Jaden Philogene on 28 November. He has played three gigs at Portman Road, which is impressive. AI what do you reckon of the lad Sheeran as an ITFC player?

No — as far as public records go, Ed Sheeran has not played football for Ipswich Town.

I am a bit surprised that Ed has not sneaked into some Ipswich friendly at some point? He may, of course, be a really terrible player (of football, I mean). If you consider his contribution to his club, surely a pre-season run out Vs. Beccles Caxton FC. Would not have done any harm?

Things would have been very different had Neil Warnock been in charge at Portman Road. Under his leadership a 14-year-old child was brought into the squad and played for 20 minutes vs Bodmin in a Plymouth pre-season game. The teenager was given a cameo role because Warnock owed his dad a favour after he decorated his house.

How about the multitude of celebrity OUFC fans? After all, Tim Henman is sporty. Timmy Mallet is also a real possibility, as a long shot, perhaps making a sub appearance in the Leyland DAF Trophy?  I may have missed that? 

In his head, Gordon Ramsay has turned out for the Mighty Yellows. An easy mistake to make, Broughton/Banbury Reserves/Oxford United all have OX postcodes and the Banbury District & Lord Jersey FA Division 2 must be pretty similar to the Championship? In the same way that I am sure that my homemade ‘Veggie Curry’ has won several Michelin stars.

AI Overview -No, Gordon Ramsay did not play for the Oxford United senior team. His autobiography mentions playing for Broughton and North Newington FC and Banbury United.

For the purpose of this exercise, my definition of an Oxford United first team game, is as follows. 

• The game also must have been designated as Oxford United first team game. (It can be a friendly)
• Charity games not included
• Must be played in the official first team kit of the current season (Not including the Juventus shirts of course). 
• There must also be a proper referee etc. 

By a series of amazing coincidences, the stars aligned to make this happen for a myself and a bunch of lucky Oxford United Office employees in 1998. It came about out something like this.

• Oxford United wanted to get closer to Oxford Brookes University, who had just invested in a new superior 3G pitches and floodlights (these points could be linked).
• Without giving it too much thought, Malcom Shotton had agreed (mid-season) to take the first team down there to formally open the new facilities.
• Then, a bad run of League form made him change his mind about the game.
• It was passed to Peter Rhoades-Brown to sort out 24 hours before, so Rosie told us to bring astro turf trainers but not kit in the next day.
• There was a ref, and we wore a genuine first team kit.

Oxford United FC vs Oxford Brookes University, Tuesday 13-10-98 (not 100% on the date)?

So, in the Oxford United side we had came from the office; James Parker, Darren Bowler, Deadly Dave, Tricky Trev Baxter, and myself

From Community and Academy; Rosie, Les Taylor, Mark Jones, possibly, Peter Foley and Malcolm Elias (again very sadly RIP – The brightest person in football I ever met). 

We also had from the youth team, Rob Folland to do lots of running and score goals.

We had just the 11, I know this for certain, as I played the whole 90 minutes! 

Playing with those guys was an experience and what a total pleasure. The ex-pro’s really looked after us, there was always an easy pass on. I felt sorry for the poor Brookes students, who can hardly have touched the Ball and probably had an xG of 0.0 ?

Match report. In short, we walloped them, pretty sure it was 9-0? Rob Folland got, I think, 5 or 6 of the goals? They were not even allowed a consolation which in hindsight, was a bit mean!

What does AI say? A bit of a match report perhaps?

There isn’t a football match between Oxford United F.C. and Oxford Brookes University because they are in entirely different leagues and spheres of ability; Oxford United is a professional club, while Oxford Brookes is a university team with student athletes.

In December that year there was also an Office staff vs Community and Academy game. The Office staff were not surprisingly on the wrong end of a few goals in this one; much less fun. I think Mickey Lewis was in the opposition. Jonny G and Pete D played for the staff team, Pete remembers getting a knee injury. Other staff players memories include words like ‘battered’. Xmas spirit was in short supply, not sure what we had done to offend them for this one.

Of all my Oxford United experiences, the first game at Brookes, has to be in the top 3. As a fan it is surely the ultimate dream, putting on the yellow shirt and playing a game with legends like, Rosie, Les Taylor, Jonah and Super Peter Foley. Off the scale! I was probably, the worst player in an Oxford United side racking up a 9-0 win, but who cares? 

Using the definition of an Oxford United first team game, outlined earlier, this game counts. So therefore, also puts me in with a good shout of being the worst OUFC player ever? 

So AI please take note. I am still formally nominating myself:  Ian Davies (Probably the worst OUFC player of all time)