MApp took his Lincoln City side to Cambridge United last week, the scene of a catastrophic 5-1 defeat in his first season at Oxford. What happened off the pitch really shook Mr Big Guns. “We lost heavily. I asked a question [of the players] after the game that I probably shouldn’t have asked” he said “When I got the answer, it scared the life out of me.” We cannot confirm that the question MApp asked was ‘Who’s the guy wearing one flipflop and a rubber glove on his head?’ to be told chillingly “That’s Danny Hylton, boss”.
Hylton’s equaliser was against a Bristol City side featuring Rob Atkinson whose rollercoaster career, he feels, is on the up now he’s a feature in the Robins’ back-four. “Football is such an up and down game” said Rob reflectively “Losing a game is a down, getting injured is a down, the Blackpool game [at the start of the season] – that’s a down.” Rob’s endless optimism has been a real boon for City since his move in the summer.
Charles Dickiens
No such downs for Atkinson’s predecessor, sulky sixth former Rob Dickie, now he’s at university with Queen’s Park Rangers. Dickie ‘took to Instagram’ to hand in his latest essay after a dramatic 3-3 draw with Reading. In a thoughtful, well researched, study, Dickie received a C+ from his tutor after he said “Great character!! Still unbeaten, travelling fans were amazing.”
Talking of fanciful music careers, divorced-dad at a PTA fundraiser, Gareth Ainsworth was full of praise for Wycombe fans after his side escaped Kassam with a 0-0 draw. “To hear them sing was great and we’ve got a great following.” he said as a painful segue to remind everyone that he’s a singer, in a rock band, with guitars and everything, before launching into a journalist scattering rendition of Mustang Sally.
Bread-based QPR manager Mark Warburton has clearly been reading too much GLS, “[Dickie will] keep on improving. He’s taken those lessons on board. This season for Rob is a really big one – to keep on that education and keep on learning.” Alright, you brioche bonced boss, we’ll do the school-based Rob Dickie jokes around here, thanks.
Tariqe Tofu
Oxford United Gastronomes were in raptures when the club announced that it had wrestled control of the snack bars from creepy Uncle Firoz. The Taliban-like advance, means the club has strategic control over the homity pies. Officials are now setting out to refresh the offering to fans. Future dishes include the healthy Houmousinho, Spotted Dickie and Dunkley’s Donuts and, for the traditionalists, a quarter-pounder cheese Burgess.
It’s Lincoln on Saturday and Mr Big Guns, MApp, has got a lot on his plate; and we’re not just talking protein shakes and raw eggs. “The best way I can describe it is that we have 13 senior outfield players to choose from, not many at all”. It’s a familiar feeling for MApp who remembers last season’s visit when his team was “full of Covid and injuries as well.” Nice, we’ll just slather on another layer of hand sanitiser if you don’t mind.
In what is turning into what we call in GLS world, an ‘I wonder what Samir Carruthers is doing’ week, Birmingham Live have been wondering what Samir Carruthers is doing. The self-styled ‘idiot who urinated in a pint glass’ is now at Hemel Hempstead.
James Constable has been talking about the difficult switch from football to being a regular Joe. Constable left Banbury last year to focus on his new job. ‘My boss has to keep reminding me I can take days off.’ he said. He’s also been told that he doesn’t need to track back to cover Carl from finance when he gets a coffee and that Janet in HR doesn’t like it when he shouts ‘OUR BALL, LINO’ when she picks up his photocopying.
The end of season’s best hackers table has been released and it turns out that Oxford are the third dirtiest team in the division. So proud. The club have kicked their way to seventy yellow and three red cards this season, which has only been bettered by Northampton Town and Charlton Athletic. Bookie monster, Alex Gorrin was seventh.
Thursday 20 May 2021
Courtney ‘shit shit shit’ Pitt has been talking about his “football career”. Now coaching players to loiter disinterestedly on the wing at Burton Albion, Pitt claims he was once pursued by both Barcelona and Monaco. Having seen him at the Kassam on loan in 2002, we assume he’d dropped something on a stadium tour and they wanted to give it back to him.
Friday 21 May 2021
They said it wasn’t possible, but he did it. KRob hatched a fiendish plan to score three goals against Blackpool in Friday’s second leg. Unfortunately he left it on the photocopier at Bloomfield Road, so Blackpool used it as well. The 3-3 draw saw Blackpool ease through to the play-off final 6-3.
KRob has given a proper ‘Who? Little old me?’ to the speculation linking him to the vacant job at West Brom. “It’s probably because me and Sam [Allardyce] worked together for two years.” he said possibly referring to Big Sam’s grandson who briefly signed for the club a few years ago “I don’t really have the energy to talk about any other job.” he said, talking about another job. Could we be in Denis Smith’s ‘They were talking about me being the England manager’ territory?
KRob has paid tribute to Instagram influencer, Nico Jones, as he leaves the club. ”It’s not the end of the road for him in his career. I think he feels going out playing men’s football and being released is better for him and we felt it was as well.” There’s nothing like a bit of redundancy to make you a man. No doubt, he’ll soon be gracing the greatest theatres of football that the Conference South has to offer.
“Una paloma blancaaaaa” KRob is thinking of his summer holibobs with the lads. Pre-season is up in the air because of the pandemic, but he’s hoping to line up a ‘foreign giant’ to play during the summer, which we can only assume is Gérard Depardieu. “We want to be creative with the pre-season, we want to be better than ever before.” he said, better even than our previous best start of two wins in eight.
Tuesday 1 June 2021
The Sunderland Echo have been trying to come up with ways to show that Permier League Sunderland probably won the division after all. They’ve compared how the League 1 table finished to how it was predicted to finish, Oxford were predicted to finish 5th, but finished 6th.
Wednesday 2 June 2021
With the Euros just around the corner, TV companies are lining up their expert pundits to give seeing insights into the play of some of the world’s greatest players. South African broadcaster Supersports have announced that former Oxford goalkeeper Andre Arendse will provide key insights into dropping crosses and slicing goal kicks into the stands. Arendse is such a household name around the world, the Illnois News call him Andrew Allense.
Thursday 3 June 2021
Rob Atkinson has been named in the PFA League 1 Team of the Year. The team is a veritable who’s that? of players you’ve only vaguely heard about. Atkinson is understandably chuffed; “It’s nice to win awards, quite humbling, and I am very proud to accept it but the goal for all of us was promotion and we will come back looking to go one better and hopefully achieve that next time around.” said the club’s communications team playing with their new Quote-o-matic app.
Friday 4 June 2021
More Rob Atkinson news as there might be a stumbling block in Bristol City’s bid to sign the defender. KRob has slapped an, entirely realistic and not in any way to be scoffed at, £2m price tag on his head. Atkinson has two-years left on his contract, so expect the club to play hardball in these negotiations. We say £2m, they say £200,000, we say £1.5m, they say £400,000, we say; OK, if we can have additional bonuses for when Atkinson captains the Republic of Congo to the World Cup.
It’s like Countdown around here, after the 3-1 win Plymouth on Saturday. The win propelled Oxford into the fifth. Teams around us have games in hand, but with plenty of opportunities to drop points, two wins from the last two games could still see Oxford make the top six. A consonant, please Rachel.
As the season draws to the end, again, the rumour mill starts to turn, again, this time, it’s news that a Championship team are in the hunt, again, for Cameron Brannagain, again. This time it’s Preston North End who are interested in the midfielder. Brannagain would join Ryan Ledson at Deepdale; so expect a surge in sales of double-strength shin pads to the Championship next season.
The comb-over Sam Long, Dave Langan has been reflecting on mixing it with the hoi polloi during his time at Oxford United in the 1980s. As well as negotiating contracts with Robert Maxwell, he also spent time with Oxford director and alleged child sex trafficker, Maxwell’s daughter, Ghislane. “She seemed really down to earth. She was just like a normal person.” he said, unlike any of the sex trafficking, friend of a billionaire paedophiles he’d met before.
Sheffield United’s transformation into the t’Oxford is nearly complete as they seek a big gun to replace Chris Wilder. After Wilder, Jake Wright, John Lundstram and George Baldock; rumours are that Mr Big Guns himself, MApp, is the next Oxford alumni to join the club as manager. PClot’s Malmo 2010 WhatsApp group was buzzing at the prospect of getting the gang back together at Bramall Lane in a couple of years. Ago Mehmeti said he’ll make a big chilli for the reunion.
McGuane in Spain was quickly on the plane, but he’s delighted to be taking the step up from playing for Barcelona, Arsenal and Nottingham Forest after signing a three year contract at Oxford.
Jose’s son John Mousinho is a real box-to-box-file player. He’s been elected as chair of the new PFA players’ board. This is not to be confused with the Playaz Board, which organises custom sports cars, expensive jewelry and spit roasting sessions for aspiring Premier League teenagers.
Charlton manager Lee Bowyer had to phone striker Ronnie Schwarz after his penalty miss on Saturday. Schwarz is in a tricky situation with his pregnant partner stuck back home in Denmark. In that situation, we can think of nothing we’d want more than having Lee Bowyer phoning you on your day off disturbing another interview with Olly Murs on Sunday Brunch. “I would have rather he scored – but he didn’t.” said the Charlton boss, which is pretty deep for Bowyer.
Monday 8 March 2021
It’s derby day tomorrow and sWInDon TwOn have held a press conference. At least we think so, it was conducted all in grunts and whistles. We can’t work out whether manager John Sheridan is in a hostage situation or been replaced by a smart speaker. “Once the players go over the white line, it’s about who wants it more.” he said while playing Candy Crush on his phone “There’s no point predicting who we will beat either. We just have to take it one game at a time.” Thanks Alexa, what will the weather be like tomorrow?
Tuesday 9 March 2021
Earth is healing; having saved the world with a vaccine, Oxford condemned the devil with a 2-1 win at The County Ground on Tuesday. The Super Yellows scored twice from Brandon Barker and Dan Agyei either side of another penalty save from Jack Stevens. In the last minute oNIonS dROWn got a consolation from Taylor Curran, who plays because his dad pays the wages at the County Ground. We’re pretty sure we saw this on an episode of Jim’ll Fix It in the 80s.