No news from the Kassam, well not from Oxford's side of things anyway, tonight the Cinema and Bowlplex was closed down because there was a power cut all across Greater Leys, these problems could have been resolved had the complex been fitted with a back up system incase of power failures, the business that they lost tonight will be enormous as it was the opening night of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at the Ozone, there were a lot of very un happy people leaving the place tonight, many up in arms after queuing for a long time and then the power going, OK it wasn't the fault of the Cinema or the bowling alley, but precautions could be put into place in case this happens again, that could even bring in more business as any power cuts in the future might bring people out of their houses to their if they knew that it was still open.
Any that did go tonight to the cinema, tickets will be valid for any other viewing times this week.


Friday 28th May 2004
No news for a few days and then it all comes along in its droves, firstly season ticket details have been announced, there is a slight increase in the price but then there is special offers for the Bowlplex, Ozone Cinema and the club shop included in the price when you buy a season ticket, so for that reason alone it is worth buying one, especially if you are a keen bowler or a cinema goer.
Full details are on the Official OUFC site.

Oxford today signed 24 year old  right back David Mackay from Scottish premier Dundee, he has signed a 2 year contract and becomes the 5th NEW signing since the end of the season.
We are still waiting for the big signing that Graham Rix was promising, I still think we should sign Teddy Sheringham as he would do a job for us and is currently without a club, judging by the way last season went and the fact that season ticket sales might be lower than last season, signing someone like him would boost the sales and get more through the gates, at the end of the day you have to make sacrifices to put bums on seats, his wages might be high but then if he started pulling the crowds in it could pay, it is ok signing all these unknown youngsters, but the fans need a little reassurance that these young players can do a job, with the help of a few well known experienced players they might.

Ex Oxford defender Sam Ricketts have left non league Telford United to join Swansea City and will be facing his old club next season, Sam is a great lad and I'm sure he will do a good job for his new club next season, we wish him the best of luck at his new club.



Tuesday 25th May 2004
Oxford yesterday signed their 2nd Goalkeeper of the close season, with Chris Tardiff joining the exodus from Portsmouth to Oxford on a 2 year contract, the 22 year old joined on the same day that defender Matt Robinson agreed to stay at the club by signing a 2 year contract, Robinson also took the Players player of the season award and the sports writers player of the year, that after missing the end of the season with an injury, we sure missed his presence in the run that saw Oxford blow promotion.


Sunday 23rd May 2004
Ex Oxford striker Steve Anthrobus has just lifted the FA Trophy after captaining Hednesford Town to a 3-2 win over FA Cup shockers Canvey Island at Villa Park, he has not changed one bit since his time at the Manor ground though, all his shots went well wide, but well done to him and Hednesford all the same.

Last night I had a message from United We Stand's sponsors to say that they had just bumped into Firoz Kassam, no shocks there, but then they were in the tunnel under the hotel in Monte Carlo home of the Monaco Grand Prix, Neither of them knew who was shocked the most too see each other there, now if only I was there with my camera........

Sadly Millwall didn't beat the Manx's yesterday but they did not disgrace themselves or the football league, but then the only team to beat them in a cup competition before yesterday's final was Oxford in the league cup, So now that is our season highlight over James Hunt has left to join up with his old bosom buddy Ian Atkins at Bristol Rovers, that coming the day that they get Barry Quinn in as his possible replacement.



Saturday 22nd May 2004
Oxford yesterday signed Midfielder Barry Quinn from Coventry on a 2 year contract, Quinn had shown good touches when here on loan towards the end of the season and was the only Pro to feature in the Oxon senior cup final defeat at the Kastad vs Banbury.





Friday 21st May 2004
Mansfield made it through to play Huddersfield in the 3rd Division play off final on bank holiday Monday(31st May), they made it through on penalties after the cobblers pulled the 2-0 defecite from the 1st leg back and led 3-0 on the night(2-3) before the Stags drew level on agg, but the stags won 5-4 on pens.

Brighton will take on Bristol City in the 2nd Division play off as they beat the scum on pens, sorry for repeating it, but its awesome news don't you think.???????


Thursday 20th May 2004
Tonight I nearly pissed myself with laughter watching the penalties in the 2nd Division play off match between Brighton and the Scum, Mooney and Gurney both hitting the woodwork to send Brighton to the millennium stadium in  Cardiff and send all Oxford United fans into delirium, leaping around the room I woke up the family, so all I need now to complete my week is for Millwall to beat the Mancs and I will end the week a very happy person.

Below is my dream team entry for the Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal.

Wednesday 19th May 2004
Yesterday as well as signing 2 familiar faces in Simon Cox and Adam Garner Oxford signed 3 new faces in Right back Terry Parker from Portsmouth, Midfielder Mark E'beyer from Wimbledon and Striker Danny Morgan also from the Dons.

Tuesday 18th May 2004
Congratulations (Jammy gits) to the Last Minute Decisions who won the Ox Vox Quiz night last night, As you might recognise Chris Williams on the right is from OUFC and Julian Hitchman on the left helps Chris doing match reports on matchdays.
United We Stand didn't come last this year, hooray.......We beat the stadium managers team and we came 3rd from last.

Cheering their win

Last minutes decisions doing what they do best-Posing.........lol

Monday 17th May 2004
Oxford's team from last season is slowly disappearing, Keeper Andy Woodman has signed for Stevenage Borough and will be playing behind another Ex united player in Robert Quinn and Skipper Andy Crosby has signed for Scunthorpe United.

I went to the Britannia Stadium at Stoke yesterday to watch the Conference playoff Final between Aldershot and Shrewsbury, it was a great atmosphere and after 90 minutes it was 1-1, then we had to sit through 30 minutes of silver goal extra time too which neither team wanted to score and the result of that was penalties, Shrewsbury missed their first, but then Aldershot had all their first 3, Shrewsbury were 3-0 victors on penalties and return to the football league after just a 1 year spell in obscurity.
Congratulations to Shrewsbury, commiserations to Aldershot.

Friday 14th May 2004
Oxford today finally announced publicly that the new away shirt for the next 2 season will be Black with yellow strips down the arm just like the blue one did.
It has been a long time being announced and was a little present from Ian Atkins as he was the one that chose the kit, it looks very nice and will hopefully bring us the same luck that the blue one did for a while, with Black shorts and socks too all the referees will have to watch out, maybe they will have to wear green when we wear it.

Oxford yesterday announced their friendlies for next seasons preparations, we will visit Oxford City on the 10th July, Aylesbury Utd on 17th July, Havant & Waterlooville on 24th July and then will be at Home to Watford on 28th July and Bournemouth 31st July.
More will probably be announced so watch this space.


Andrew"Nappy"Knapton memorial trophy before the Rochdale game last weekend

Gill and Grand children in the away dugout

Gill and Grand children with cup on pitch

Deano is presented his player of the year award.

A Proud Dean Whitehead with his trophy.



Thursday 13th May 2004
One of Oxford's friendlies of the new pre-season will be against the mighty ducks, we will travel to Aylesbury on July 17th 2004.

More pics from Saturday will appear here later, when I can get into my laptop to retrieve them.

Ox Vox will be holding a Quiz night in the Priory pub next to the Kassam Stadium on Monday night, all are welcome and teams of 4 will be competing for prizes and alot of fun, last year was a great laugh, it will be £1 to enter for Ox Vox members and £2 for non members, plus you can apply for a discounted membership at the the low price of £3 for the next 6 months, Call 01865 437995 for more details, the evening starts at 7.30pm.
 

Tuesday 11th may 2004
Lee Steele has tonight signed a 2 year contract with division 3 Rivals Leyton Orient and will team up with another Ex United striker Andy Scott.

Oxford have this afternoon announced that they will NOT be offering new contracts to Courtney Pitt, Matt Bound, Manny Omoyinmi, Richard Walker, Andy Woodman or Lee Steele.
Options on contracts have been taken up by Simon Cox and Danny Brown for 1 year, all other players have been made offers but Paul McCarthy has declined his offer.
More news on who else has agreed deals as and when they happen.

Saturday night after the game myself, Russ, Graham and Sam went to the bowling alley for an end of season bowling session, when we got there we put our names down and were told that the wait for an alley was approx 2hours, so we went to the stadium bar area and watched the Liverpool match on sky, that only killed a certain amount of time so decided to get something to eat, only for that to take around 20 minutes to arrive to us,  then as we were finishing our food our names were called to bowl, arriving on the lane at approx 8.20pm after our long wait we proceeded to bowl until disaster struck on 8.45pm, the Bowlplex fire alarm system was activated by the smoke machines in the building and everyone was evacuated from the bowlplex and into the car park area, all of us bowling going out in the shoes were wearing, but one lonely idiot decided to take the ball out with them.......hehehe.
after an approx 20 minute delay we finally got back in to finish off our game, much to the embarrassment to all that worked in bowlplex, so if you are going to the alley to play at weekends don't go at 6pm on a Saturday night or you COULD be in for anything upto a 3 hour wait.....

Outside Bowlplex after we had to evacuate because  the fire alarms activated

Monday 10th May 2004

Sunday 9th May 2004
And then the season was over, little too late came the first win under Graham Rix at the Kassam Stadium, but it was finally brilliant to see the result, playing Steve Basham and Julian Alsop for the first time together since February Oxford got the result that had been avoiding them since the same time and it was the towering Alsop that had a hand in both goals with his aerial prowess and stature on the ball, before the game the press box was buzzing when I went up with the team sheet and the look on all their faces showed we were going to win this game, no disrespect to Rochdale though or their 435 fans that travelled down for the game, but they were never going to win this game and were even lucky to be 2nd best, Oxford dominated the game from start to finish and should have scored more, Tom Winters, next Season's big prospect came on in the 2nd half to replace Steve Basham on 64 minutes and Winters nearly made his debut even more special when he unleashed a rocket of a shot from all of 25 yards that the Rochdale keeper somehow managed to keep out, but he failed to keep out returning Basham in the 1st half(33) and supporters player of the Season Dean Whitehead(39), both goals were superb and were worthy winners, but Steve Basham's goal at the open end of the ground meant that he failed to score in front of the Oxford Mail Stand all season!!!!!!
There were a few players with held heads when the final whistle went at what has been a long and heart rendering season, many wondering why they had not played like that for the last 17 games, but to wonder that now is too late and if those are here next season they will have to forget about the way they faltered and start again afresh and really give the long suffering United supporters something to cheer about.
Don't get me wrong this season has not been a total disaster, Simon Cox has got his chance, Tom Winters has shown us the future, We beat the FA CUP FINALISTS in the league cup on their own patch, but the one thing that we can saver is the fact that we won't be going to Studley or Moor Green for pre-season friendlies in July........end of the Atkins era and all.....pity as Laurence and Womble loved going to those grounds.........NOT!!!

Friday 7th May 2004
Oxford go into their last game of the season with the prospects of the clubs future players on show, Tom Winters has already been added to the squad to face Rochdale at the Kassam Stadium tomorrow, more of the clubs youngster could get a call up and will give their all for the team and a chance of proving to Graham Rix that they have a future at the club.
Oxford could also welcome back Steve Basham and Paul Wanless tomorrow, Barry Quinn could also feature, but Andy Crosby will return wearing the Armband as captain, could this be the last time...?

With tomorrow being the last game of the season it means that the magnificent Andrew Knapton memorial trophy will be presented to the supporters player of the year, Nappy's sister Gill will again present the trophy and his family will be in attendance again, Jamie Brooks won the first award with Dave Savage winning the 2nd award last season, So whoever wins it will be a worthy winner, even though the season has not gone as planned they will have deserved it all the same, tomorrow is also Gill's birthday so I hope that we capped the day with a win, not just for her but for Nappy and all of the loyal fans that have followed the U's all season  at the kassam stadium and up and down the country for the past 9 months.

Oxford could have a very famous visitor to the stadium tomorrow, Gianluca Vialli could be a guest of the Oxford manager tomorrow, Graham Rix said at the fans open meeting that he was trying to get his old mate to come to a game here and he promised that he will be at the Rochdale game, so be prepared as there might be a picture of me and him up here in the next 24 hours if I am lucky enough.
Mascots above before the Cambridge game at the Kassam Stadium

Thursday 6th May 2004
Last night the late show on Radio 5 was broadcast from the Kassam Stadium for approximately 2 hours, they interviewed Firoz Kassam and spoke to him about his time as Oxford chairman from taking over until the present day, it was a great interview and if anyone would like to hear it email me and I will see what I can do, they also spoke on the show about Oxford as  a whole, IE:- the 4 minute mile, University's and what there is to do around Oxford, awsell as taking the mickey out of our 3 sided ground, if you heard it give me your views, if you missed it it was quite funny.

Monday 3rd May 2004
Not much to report on, So just a lot of Pictures for you loyal fans that are feeling down in the dumps at the moment, these pictures are from Macclesfield and the Open Meeting on Friday.


U's fans at Macclesfield who were again worthy of Promotion.

Louis takes it Kneesy

Louis has a Payne in the back

Louis also has a Payne in the neck.....

Manny gets his shirt tugged whilst waiting for a cross

McNiven gets to the ball first

Oxford fans in the seats show off their goal keeping skills

Surely this was was worthy of a Penalty.............

Scott McNiven whips in a cross

Mark Rawle rises higher than the keeper but loses out

Graham Rix at Fans Meeting at the Kassam Stadium.

Firoz Kassam and Graham Rix at the Meeting

Rix again at the meeting

Mick Brown (Secretary) Firoz Kassam (Chairman) and Graham Rix (Manager) at the Meeting

Sunday 2nd May 2004
Another season over, another season of what should have been good fortune reduced to misery, another away trip for the loyal band of U's fans who were superb again at Macclesfield but left the North West with great disappointment and angered by the way the team has fallen apart, from top of the league at the turn of the year the season is over with yet one game to go, I wonder just how many are going to go to that match at the Kassam Stadium next Saturday when Rochdale are the visitors to Oxford, hopefully Oxford will get 3 goals against them too, but all for Oxford and not 2 for them and 1 for us.
I think we have seen the last of a few players, no names, but there might be wholesale changes for the last game, those that won't be staying probably won't feature.
More Pictures will appear later after I have taken my son to Football , hope that is a better game.