Its all over

Well thats it for another year. Oxford United can now call themselves an established non-league team and it hurts. I have deliberately gone quiet on the subject of Oxford and our play-off campaign as I have tried to remain low key, tried to not get carried away with the belief that just for once we might acheive something. It hasn't softened the blow.
On Tuesday 8th May we were beaten at home by Exeter on penalties in front of 10500 people live on Sky in the play-off second leg. If the truth is told (and believe me it has) then we were damned rubbish and barely deserved to get as far as penalties. I cannot muster up the passion or enthusiasm to go into a rant, I'd rather just draw a line under it. This season has been for the most part fun, despite the football being dreadful and us having precious little success after Christmas. I would go as far as to say this season and its trips to 'real' football grounds up and down the country has given football back to many of our fans after 5 years in the sterile 4th division. Say what you like about the Conference but it is a far more interesting place to be than than League 2/Div 3/Div 4 or whatever it will be in the future but Oxford Utd simply cannot afford to be in the Conference in the Conference without some serious cost cutting. When we reclaim our place in the Football League it will be a great day but it will also be a shame to leave a league where fans are treated as fans - not expendable commodities.

It must also be noted that after yet another heart breaking end to a season I have realised I am not cut out to keep a record of the highs and lows of being a football fan. I continue to go to games on a regular basis (sometimes 3 in 8 days) but I am slowly losing the passion. I didn't go to the Oxon Senior cup final this year even though it had previously been one of my seasons highlights, I stopped going to Banbury in January and haven't felt the pull to go back (I more than get my fare share of non-league grounds with Oxford these days) and most importantly of all I no longer wish to write about my experiences.
Next year all will change for me, I won't be living in Bicester for much of the year and probably will not be going to much football, least of all Oxford. I will continue my part-time interest in Bordeaux but to be honest without living near to the club its difficult to write about anything other than re-hashed news. Basically this is my last post. I may try to do something else next year but as far as this blog is concerned, well...

Il est mort.

Bordeaux - Un vrai courage à leurs coeurs

Last Sunday a sell out crowd at Parc Lescure witnessed perhaps the turning point when a team thought to be punching above it's weight makes the next step and becomes one of genuine quality. A home game against Lens is alway one of the hardest of the season, in fact last years fixture was won with the only shot on target - and that was from the penalty spot!! The Lensoise are not only a good footballing side, they are backed by some of the loudest fans and most loyal fans in the country with 700 fans made the very long trip south west and making themselves heard all evening.
Any fears that the quality of Lens would mean Bordeaux adopting their game killing tactics were quickly put to when when right from kick off they took the game to the visitors forcing corners, firing in crosses and shots and then in the 11th minute taking the lead thanks to ex Lens striker Jussie. Les Girondins continued to dominate the first half playing with exactly the spirit that was lacking during the early season, indeed it appeared to be only a matter of time before the lead was doubled, would it really be this easy?? Well no...
In the 38th minute David Jemalli got himself sent off for one of those tackles that can only be described as 'Leg-breakers', the sort of tackle that anyone who has a tibia can only watch behind a cushion. Any other team may have gone to pieces but if there is one team in the world that can sit on a one goal lead for nearly an hour then it surely is Bordeaux. Sure enough Ricardo made the changes and Bordeaux went into the withdrawn defensive mode that earlier in the season would bring wistles of discontent from Virage Sud, no heckles this time though as Les Girondins put in a solid display of bravery and maturity to hold on an record a victory that not only put them into pole position in the race for second, but a victory that will be long, long remembered by the 32377 people in attendance.

Parc Life

It seems like the race for the Champions League is back on. Two saturday's ago Bordeaux played out a tedious 0-0 draw with old enemy PSG and were given an absolute hammering by the French press and football community in general. An article on www.football365.fr claimed that Bordeaux are at the main culprits of a number of teams killing French football and ruining the good reputation of their domestic game. Slightly mis-guided as Ligue 1 has never been exactly admired outside of France itself, but despite being a supporter of Les Girondins I would generally agree with the accusations.

It is not only the press and opposition fans who have grumbled, top scorer JC Darcheville broke ranks to go the press saying he is frustrated by the restrictive tactics employed by Ricardo. Darche has received some pretty harsh criticism over the last two seasons but as he pointed out - how is he supposed to score goals when the team is content to pass the ball around in their own half for 90 minutes rather than take a risk? The whole PSG game was a bit of an embarrassment for Bordeaux as a club and despite attempts to justify the tactics, it became clear that the criticism had been noted and that there would be a much more positve line up for wednesday's game in hand against AS Nancy.

Having glamorously jetted in a few hours before the game and booked in at the quaint, English speaking but essentially dangerous Hotel Studio (not sure what French for 'squalor' is...) I made my way to the grandiose old stadium and spent the best €9 I've ever spent. Promises of a more attacking attitude were confirmed when Ricardo sent out a traditional 4-4-2 with Chamakh and Cavenaghi prefered to last weeks forward line or Darcheville and err... no one. In truth Bordeaux destroyed Nancy in a way that I've not seen them do before and although they still lack a certain 'class' they are finally starting to look much better than their opponents. 3-0 did not flatter. The atmosphere in Virage Sud was the best I have experienced in my four visits with the last half hour or so filled by singing, bouncing, dancing and even some Mexican waving!! I'm not really a fan of the old Mexican wave but the Virage Sud was infectious last wednesday and the whole thing really got the whole ground pumping. The atmosphere was even mentioned in the first paragraph of L'equipe's report the next day as being particularly celebratory.

Having beaten Nancy and dragged themselves back in touch with the Champions League Les Girondins were then thrown an unexpected life line the following Saturday. With Toulouse losing a little unexpectedly in Rennes Bordeaux were given the opportunity to not only draw level on point with TFC but to go ahead into 3rd on goal difference. All they would have to do was win away at UEFA cup chasing St Etienne. The frienship between the Ultramarines and the Magic Fans is well known but few were expecting any favours at this point in the season but a solid professional performance saw Bordeaux run out 2-0 winners and only 1 point behind 2nd places RC Lens.

Next game at Parc Lescure...?? Yes you've guessed it... LENS!!

ALLEZ BORDEAUX ALLEZ!!

I have created a blog of my visit to Lescure for the Nancy game which you can find at the following link:

http://girondinant.skyrock.com/

Play-offs it is then

"O Football, Football! wherefore art thou Football?
Deny thy promotion and refuse thee the Daggers;
Or, if thou wilt not, but let us back in the league,
And I'll no longer be an Oxford fan."

William Shakespeare's now famous reaction to Dagenham finally clinching the Conference title on Easter Saturday pretty much summed it up for us all. How on earth had a self proclaimed 'Pub team from Essex' not only overturned an 8 point deficit but won the league so easily? At 5pm on Saturday thank to us losing at Northwich Victoria (Yes thats Oxford United losing to NORTHWICH) the title winning margin was a whopping 16 points, a much bigger gap than we had ever hoped to win the league by. I ought to mention at this point that I was at Victoria Road to see the title clinched although I did obviously stand with the ever vocal Aldershot fans rather than the 3000 or so brand new Dagenham supportrers that turned for the first time. Pictures should be available tby Monday 23rd. In what seemed like a deliberate attempt to completely rub our noses in the dagger have finally hit a losing streak going down 3-2 at Cambridge on Easter Monday and then losing their game in hand away at... wait for it... yes Northwich. I would say justice was served but err well despite us hammering Weymouth 4-1 the gap is still 13 points and we still look a bit silly. Never mind.
The reason why I haven't written about the (mis)fortunes of Oxford for a while is that basically haven't had the interest to. Despite some cracking games including a 3-0 win away at Altrincham and a pulsating 2-2 draw at home to those dastardly Daggers it all seemed a little bit pointless when a) catching Dagenham was about as likely Jade Goody becoming a race relations officer and b) it would take an absolute disaster to not make the play-offs. How many times can you write "we won/lost/drew but it doesn't really matter"? Anyway tomorrow we are all off the Clarence Park to watch Oxford play at pretty much the smallest club in the Conference (and thats saying something) St Albans. If we win and Gravesend or Exeter don't then we will have clinched that play-off spot we need and although I've said we will get there anyway, it would be nice to secure it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Bordeaux win the Cup but who loses - Lyon or Football?

My Saturday evening was spent in my sisters room listening to live Internet commentary of the Coupe de la ligue final. To be frank it was light relief after spending the afternoon watching the worst game in the history of football. Oxford's 0-0 draw with Burton was just about the most uninspiring performance I've ever seen in my life, two sides who clearly had no interest in breaking into a sweat and strolling around like it was a pre-season friendly, I could go on... but I won't. The cup final was also a pretty pedestrian affair and with 5 minutes to go seemed certain to go into extra time at 0-0. Unlike Jerome and Co the French commentators do a great job making it at least sound interesting and even though my understanding is limited to names and words like 'corner' it was easy to get really into the whole occasion. The noise was fantastic as you'd expect from the continent, in fact as the players came out of the tunnel I thought the Stadium was going to blow up. Unfortunately for the neutrals (of which there are not many when OL are concerned) the game was not the classic it promised. The media had over-hyped the game as a clash of the two best teams in the country and everyone was hoping for one of those 'feasts of football' that are so often promised. What everyone forgot is that Les Girondins have not built their success on free flowing attacking football but instead on stifling opponents, ruining matches and scoring one goal. This tactic was employed so cynically by Ricardo on Saturday that rather than spend time doing a detailed write up I'll just repeat the sentence: Bordeaux stifled Lyon, ruined the match and scored one goal with their only shot on target. As a football purist (sort of) I can't help agreeing with Gerard Houllier when he says Lyon were robbed and that Bordeaux didn't deserve the win because they were and they didn't but the Oxford fan in me, having been starved of any success ever, say's sod it. At the end of the day the club that walks away with the trophy deserves it simple because they won the match. You can argue about 'un-sporting' tactics forever but on Monday the coupe de la Ligue was paraded around Bordeaux - not Lyon and Houllier should closer to home for the reasons why. Ricardo explained the tactics by saying that there is a reason why Lyon are 21 points ahead of them - which roughly translates as "had we tried to play football they would have battered us" and you can't really argue, Lyon could and should have won this at a canter.
The banner dominating the middle tier of the Bordeaux end carried the slogan "Girondins tonight you are not 11 but 30,000" and they meant it. The noise from the Bordeaux end was constant and got me thinking about the play-off final should Oxford get there. Will the hordes of U's fans and hangers on actually get behind the team and make it a real spectacle? Will they complain if we bring flags and streamers? Will they insist on sitting down? Something about Oxford at Wembley frightens me and I really hope our big day out isn't spoiled by the huge number of very very boring fans we attract.

Crowd Control

In the wake of a recent increase of crowd disturbances in French football stadia the LFP has introduce a number of new measures intended to help route out the idiots. To be honest I'm not sure what they are so worried about as crowd trouble as we know it in England, Holland and Italy is for the most part non existent unless PSG or Marseille come to town. There have of course been other high profile incidents this season that may have forced the FFF and LFP officials into being seen to take some action, namely the missile throwing by Lille fans in the Champions League debacle against Man Utd, but it seems particular attention has been given to the lighting of flares within grounds. Pyrotechnics at French football is so commonplace that to the outsider it could seem that they are perfectly legal but in reality it is an offence which can land the perpetrater a prison sentence of up to two years. Like most things in continental football this rule is so under policed that a scarf around the face is usually enough to save the offender any risk of prosecution and despite warnings on tickets and over the PA before a game it seems that quietly the clubs actually like them. Whilst no one can deny that they contribute to the atmosphere, as seen by the above photo of Beşiktaş fans during a UEFA Cup tie at Bayer Leverkusen, two incidents in particular have led to a general rethink of policy. Earlier this season a young policeman had two fingers blown of by a flare thrown at him by a Marseille fan during the derby with Nice and then just a couple of weeks ago the St Etienne-Lyon derby was held up for half an hour as a lit flare was thrownfirst into the away fans and then sent hurtling back to where it came from. Sactions were promised after both incidents but whilst Marsielle were forced to play a game behind closed doors (hardly a long-term cure) St Etienne and Lyon seem to have been left alone.
Clearly then these things need to be eradicated from the stands (no matter how much I like them) as any object than can be used as a real weapon has no place in a football ground. Throwing an empty plastic bottle is one thing, throwing a lighted flare into a densly populated stand is a whole different matter. On top of the obvious dangers of blinding and burning on impact, a flare landing in the crowd could cause widespread panic and as we saw in the Lille-Man Utd game, many grounds still have riot fencing intact. The combination of fireworks, mass panic, riot fencing and over zealous policing is pretty much as big a nightmare as can be imagined and could well lead to a French Hillsborough.
So here then is the new legislation set up by the LFP for the policing of pyrotechnics in football stadia:

"Smoke-producing and projectiles.
To definitively eradicate the introduction of dangerous objects into the stands, it was decided to reinforce safety measures upon entrance and evacuation of the stadium. For this purpose, an operation will be carried out jointly with the Directorate-General of the National police force (DGPN) and the LFP for:
To train the stadium security authorities effectively
Audit the quality of controls to the entry of the stand
To systematize the evacuation of the stands and the whole of the buildings by the police force before the matches under conditions allowing the full effectiveness of this control.
The Commission of Discipline of the LFP received the directives to apply all the range of the sanctions concerned with its competence in the event of nonrespect of these provisions."

Basically that means that for the first time ever, authorities will conduct full searches on ALL fans entering the stadium - including the so called 'Ultra groups' who are responsible for bringing these things in. It is genuinely surprising that to conduct stringent searches on supporters and to practice evacution procedures in case of crowd trouble is NEW legislation. Surely you would have thought this to be a basic rquirement? Recent events in have Italy no doubt frightened the LFP into action, but one hopes French crowds will not be diluted into the boring 'sit-down shut-up' stadiums that we in England have to endure at extortionate prices.

Picture once again from the King of all ground hopping sites www.groundhopping.de

Bravo Bordeaux!!

Whilst Oxford flounder in a stormy sea of inconsistancy, Bordeaux ride the waves with a renewed vigour like a beautiful antique clipper with the wind billowing in their sails. "Champions League - ho!!! Cries First Mate Darcheville to Lieutenant Micoud, as out of nowhere 3rd place in Le Championnat becomes an surprise possibility. Having in the last four battles confidently disposed of the men from Montbelliard and Valenciennes and fought respectable stalemates at Sedan and Monaco more than matching the Monaguesque Kings finest troops at Stade Louis II, Les Girondins almost by accident sit 3rd in the table. Not that I'm for a moment questioning the ability of Admiral Ricardo's management, its just that even he couldn't really have envisaged that considering the woeful start to the season the soldiers of the Scapulaire would still have an outside shot at the big time with nine games to go. With Ligue 1 as tight as ever (only 4 ponts seperate Bordeaux from 11th Placed Rennes) and given the quality of the chasing pack (Lille, Marseille, St Etienne) finishing third would be quite some achievement, perhaps UEFA Cup football via either 4th place, the Intertoto cups or even winning next weeks Coupe de la Ligue will be the more likely outcome.













Top picture is from the official website www.girondins.com, the other is my own.

Forget it then.

Oxford 0-1 Kidderminster. They deserved it, we were rubbish. Daggers won at St Albans to go 11 points clear with a game in hand and basically clinched the title. Well done to them.
Tomorrow we go to Altrincham to begin the new objective of making sure we stay in the playoffs.

St Etienne vs Lyon = More fun than Oxford

Last week Lyon strolled to a 3-1 away at fierce local rivals St Etienne. This derby is possibly the most passionate in France - arguably eclipsing the PSG/Marseille rivalry. The game was held up for about half an hour after a flare was thrown into the Lyon fans!!






















St Etienne's ground in known as the Cauldren for reasons which I'm told speak for themselves if you see a game there. The supporters group 'Magic Fans 91' are some of the best in Europe and have a long standing friendship with the Ultramarines 86 of Bordeaux.

The pictures are taken from www.groundhopping.de which is simply the best football ground website on the internet.

Oxford United 0-2 Forest Green

Did that really happen?? Yes it did. We were beaten two nil at home by a part time team from a village. Daggers are still 8 points clear but now have a game in hand. We play Kiddy at home tomorrow and Dagenham play... actually sod it it doesn't matter, I don't want to talk about it...

Une saison contradictoire

What is going on at Bordeaux? For a start my 'easy money' 11/1 bet on them to win the league now looks like £5 down the Paddypower drain as they are currently in 6th place and a whopping 21 points behind runaway (again) leaders Lyon. Despite some impressive victories over the likes of Marseille at home and PSG at the Parc de Princes not to mention being the only club to win at Gerland the home of the mighty OL, they have struggled to find any real consitancy and have suffered some woeful results both home and away. The objective every season has got to be to play in a European tournament and since Les Girondins are hanging around the Inter-toto spot and still well in touch with the UEFA spots you can't be too harsh. Frustratingly whilst last year they were drawing games that they should have won, this season they are being beaten regularly in games where a draw would have been acceptable. Hopefully they will sort themselves out and put a winning run together to consolidate their place in the top half as the league is once again so tight that a run of three defeats could see you fighting the drop whereas three wins will probably put you second!
Unfortunately the European dream is well and truely over this year after being dumped out of the UEFA Cup by a 120th minute Osasuna goal. In truth Bordeaux never really looked like getting much out of this Basque 'derby' of sorts and the pitifully low attendance at the Parc Lescure leg summed up the genral feeling around the club. Now that the European distractions are out of the way perhaps they can concentrate on sorting out the faltering domestic season and ensure another crack at Europe next September.
At the end of the month it is the eagerly awaited Coupe de la Ligue final at the Stade de France against Lyon. I had come very close to getting tickets for this from www.francebillet.net but by the time I had ran a hotel and Eurostar search they had gone off general sale!! As Wayne and Garth would say "Denied!!!" Before the big final though there are three league games to contend with starting with Sochaux at home this coming saturday in a repeat of the fixture I managed to get to last year. Although Sochaux are much improved this year a win is both expected and imperitive.

The times they are a changin'

Having gone for what seemed like about 30 years without a win we have now won four in a row, going to show how quickly things can change in football. Unfortunately Dagenham have been on a similar run but we have now managed to reduce the 10 point gap to a more respectable 8.We've been to some dodgy places this season but as far as names go 'The Lamb Ground' in Tamworth is just weird. A small, tidy but unremarkable ground, the Lamb would not be out of place in Conference South and indeed probably will be next year as they sit firmly rooted to the bottom. I hope this doesn't seem like I am running Tamworth down as I'm not, I have a mutual respect for any football club from grass roots through to the Man Utd's and Madrid's of this world but the town, ground and crowd are nothing really to write home about. Not for the first time this season we packed out the away end selling our allocation of 850 a few days before the game and gave the team good vocal support from start to finish.
To walk a way with a 3-1 victory was satisfying as despite still not being right ourselves, Tamworth were awful and it is about time we started putting away teams at the bottom more convincingly. A good trip all round was made even better by a superb pre-match burger in a pub before and then taking only an hour and a half to get home. A fully successful day out!!A week later we played hosts to Stevenage Borough who are one of the strongest teams in this league and on a good run of form. It was generally accepted that this would be one of our most difficult game to date but for some reason Stevenage just didn't seem to turn up. Having ran us ragged with only nine men back at their place I was worried that they could pull off a result at Minchery but on the day they were uncharacteristically rubbish and we were uncharacteristically superb!! Although 2-0 doesn't exactly look like a thrashing we totally dominated the game and won at a canter.
For 44 minutes it seemed that despite battering Stevenage it was going to be another frustrating afternoon but when Matt Day headed home on the stroke of half time I and probably everyone else in the ground couldn't help thinking that was game over. The excellent Eddie Anaclet sealed the game with a deflected shot in the second half to wrap a thoroughly deserved victory, our third on the trot.As if to make a mockery of our woeful 11 game winless streak the boys in yellow and blue (yes I've decided I like them again) made the long mid-week trip to Merseyside to record an incredible 1-0 away win at Anfield. Having stunning the five times European Cup winners with a glorious strike from Danny Rose the travelling fans completely outsung the Kop for 90 minutes... Ok only joking it was Southport, but it was a great win and it was made even sweeter by Dagenham conceding a late equaliser at home to Stafford Rangers. Going 11 games without a win probably has killed off our season despite this revival but the fact is that watching Oxford is now exciting again. The fact that there is just a small chance that we can still do this has changed everyone’s outlook on the season and with Daggers still having to come to Minchery... Who knows...

Gravesend and Cleansheet

For the first time since November 25th Oxford won a league game (well non-league but you know what I mean...) keeping our first clean sheet since since the Lewes 'game' back on January 9th. We've had a bizarre run of mostly draws and have just about kept our head above water but Saturday was truely the most important game of the season so far. Had we lost we would have gone below Gravesend and York to 4th and with the mid-week games in hand could have dropped even further to 8th! As it was we put in a solid if unspectacular performance to beat a very good Gravesend side who were the team that had originally put an ends to our 18 match unbeaten run - you like to think this could represent some sort of closure on being shit!! Of course Dagenham went and won away at Burton somewhat disappointingly keeping the gap at 7 points, but week after week they continue to prove that they are a quality side and if they win this league they will more than deserve it. For us however, 3 points are finally in the bag and despite not really playing that well we held on (against 10 men...) to spark of scenes of relief and celebration akin to a last day of the season relegation escape!! Daggers must play their game in hand on Tuesday up at Kiddy and if they can pull of a win there then perhaps it is still all over, but anything else and we are right back in it.

If ever there was a case for Terracing...

The next person that tells me terracing has no place in the modern game needs to get themselves down to Aldershot for a game as quickly as possible. Saturday was incredible, ok the game finished 1-1 again with us conceding an 86th minute equaliser, but this game was always going to be about the atmosphere in the stands rather than the football. There is something about a covered terrace behind the goal that brings out best (some may say worse) in the British football fan, tradtionally it was here that most vociferous fans would gather and shout, scream and generally behave disgracefully. Every club had their own 'Home end', famous old terraces that would be the heartbeat behind the matchday atmosphere for example Man Utd's Stretford end, Chelsea's Shed End, the world famous Kop and of course our own London Road. Unfortunately during the late 70's and 80's boisterous behaviour and the occasional punch up had evolved into regular serious violence. Frequent mass riots, incompetent policing and grounds resembling death traps had basically made English football a place where personal safety could not be garunteed, something had to give. In 1989 at Hillsborough it did and the fallout would change football for ever.
I have no intention of going into the details of the Hillsborough tragedy but its clear that the blame was placed almost exclusively on terracing. It has become obvious in subsequent years that there were many more factors that led to deaths of 96 Liverpool fans such as horrendous over crowding, riot fencing and a general slow reaction to the situation. Whilst a crush like this simply wouldn't happen in a seated stand it does not mean that it was the terrace that caused it. A modern terrace with properly errected crush barriers, no standing areas and a strict cappacity is a safe place to watch football. In the german Bundesliga every weekend thousands of football fans stand on huge terraces up and down the country whilst in England we are forced to sit and watch football like some kind of trip to the cinema. To say the atmosphere suffers as a result is a huge understatement.
At Aldershot it was like meeting up with an old friend. The home fans are magnificent and made much more noise than us which is how it should be (new stadia usually over police home fans letting away fans do as they wish and make all the noise) and for myself and many others it felt like football used to. For the sake of English football I hope the authorities realise that terracing was not the cause of all ill in the 80's and that they see fit to allow standing areas back into league football as soon as possible.