Match Three: Choosing Oxford over Wycombe

Catholic Guilt

It must be my Catholic upbringing but I can't help feeling guilty about stuff that is hardly worth thinking about. If one allows the barbarism of what Russia has been doing in Ukraine for the last 250 days to enter one's mind, of course, we should all be feeling very guilty, and now that thought has entered my head again... I do feel very guilty indeed about my silly self-indulgent football tour.

But enough of all that serious stuff. Let's get back to trivia. Choosing to go to Oxford United v Fleetwood Town rather than Wycombe Wanderers v Port Vale really got to me.

See, before we left for Australia, at the end of 2002, we lived in High Wycombe and had done so for about 16 years. I used to be a big Wycombe fan. I went to most home and away games for years under Martin O'Neill and a few years after. And, being a Wycombe fan, you have to hate Oxford United. No choice.

There were three key factors that made me make the decision to turn my back on them and go and watch the horrible yellows instead.

Firstly, it was this "ground" thing. I've kind of made it a target for the English part of the holiday to try to regain as many of the grounds I "lost" since I reached the 92 back in 1999. As with Wimbledon and Arsenal, I've been to Oxford's old ground, the Manor Ground, before a few times, but I've never been to their their new one, the Kassam Stadium. Meanwhile, I'd been to Adams Park many times and it's not really changed much since then. So, 1-0 to Oxford.

Secondly, there is the "pub" thing. Oxford has so many great pubs and I rarely get the chance to spend a couple of nights there. When we lived in Wycombe we used to drive through Oxford very frequently on the way to Stroud, and we'd often stop for an hour or two, but I've never stayed two nights before. This was a chance to do a proper pub crawl. Wycombe's pubs were always dire and I have no reason to think that had changed. 2-0 to Oxford.

 Thirdly, there is the "aquatic ape" thing. Oxford not only has far more in the way of lovely tourist attractions, generally, it also happens to be the intellectual home of several of my scientific heroes. So by choosing Oxford I would have the chance to see some museums and trace the footsteps of the great and the good. High Wycombe... not. 3-0.

So, there's the justification. Once I'd hatched the plan after leaving London, I decided to pop into Wycombe anyway to do a couple of nostalgic visits to the three houses we used to live in and then check out Adams Park.

Previous Match #2: Arsenal 5 Nottingham Forest 0

Adams Park Revisited on Sunday, 30th October

It hadn't changed much, it has to be said, except that the club seemed to have enhanced the fan's shop and made the reception area into a mini-museum with a cute model of their old ground, Loakes Park, and some posters of the glory years.

I met the club CEO and he kindly offered to get one of his staff to show me the ground. It all looked very nice. The away end was now all seater and the advertising boards were all electronic and very flash.

I was pleased to hear that two massive Wycombe personalities back in the day were not only still around but continue to attend matches both home and away. Derek Vere, owner of the furniture company Verco, that used to sponsor Wycombe Wanderers and Alan Parry the rather good ITV commentator are still going strong, I heard. Alan is the only other guy I know who has all of the Rothman's Football Yearbooks from it's first edition in 1970-71.

 

Talking of books, I also found out that Martin O'Neill, who still lives in the area, sometimes comes along too and has a new autobiography coming out in a couple of weeks or so.

The thought that these three personalities might be at Adams Park on Tuesday night didn't exactly help my guilt though, I must admit.

So, time to shoot off to Oxford and have some fish and chips and beer.

Oxford Revisited

I checked into my half-decent accommodation at the Old Black Horse and realised that a nice fish restaurant I'd been to years ago was just opposite and had good reviews on Google. So that was a no-brainer. Unfortunately the fish was really poor. Kind of like one of those Birds Eye frozen ones we used to get, but over fried so that the batter was like a dak brown crab shell. The waitress didn't ask me "how was everything?", so I didn't say anything. I did leave an honest review on Google though.

Ah well. So, onto the pub crawl. First was the Angel and Greyhound just a couple of doors down the road. Very nice too, comfortable with a nice set of beers. It also had a very friendly barman who happened to be an Arsenal fan. After the inevitable gentle ribbing about yesterday's 5-0, he advised me where to go next.

It started raining as I trundled up to the famous Turf Tavern, which was full of students. 

Then it was onto the Kings Arms, one of my favourite pubs in Oxford, with lots of little snugs where you can actually hear yourself talk, if you had company, which I did not.

Then, it was on to the White Horse next to my favorite bookshop in the world, Blackwells. The barman was friendly and I really liked the music play list.

Next, it was onto the Lamb and Flag which was packed with students. 

I should say, in case you were getting worried for me, that in each of these pubs I was only ordering a half of the weakest beer they had, although that in itself is getting more difficult as craft beers seem to get stronger every year. The range of beers I had was 2.8% to 4.0% ABV.

On the way to the next pub, the Wig and Pen, I couldn't resist popping in for a quick burger at Wendy's. I thought they'd gone extinct so it was nice to see the same quality burger, with soft buns and nicely wrapped in foil as they used to do in the good old days. Odd that their burgers are now called "Dave's" (not "Wendy's") though.

The Wig & Pen was showing Plymouth v Exeter so I even caught some football. I never cease to be impressed with the quality on display at this level of the game - the third tier, remember.

Then it was onto a strange little pub called the Three Goats Head, a Samuel Smiths tied house - again a thing I thought would have gone out of existence these days. 

Then it was on to the Royal Blenheim, with its impressive array of ales, as the rain poured down.

Three more to go, and the first of those was St Aldates Tavern where it was quiz night.

Then, onto the oldest pub in Oxford, the Bear, which is famous for its bizarre habit of cutting off the ends of ties of its guests and exchanging them for a pint. They then frame them and put them on display  on their walls.

The last stop was another old pub, Chequers.

So, a very good night was had by me and I only really got a bit tipsy as I was drinking slowly. At the end of the night I didn't even reach my 100g "skinful" limit.

Mood score for Sunday, 30th October: 18-0!

Exploring Oxford on Monday, 31st October

The next morning I walked back into town and had a full English breakfast before doing a bit of traipsing around. I wanted to go to a couple of museums and then see if I could follow in the footsteps of two of my heroes, Elaine Morgan, who was a student here in the war years, and Alister Hardy who was a student around the time of the First World War and then was professor of Zoology here until the late 1960s.

Elaine Morgan & Alister Hardy

I think I'd been to the Ashmolean before but it all seemed new. I always feel overwhelmed by all the art and pottery and sculptures. Are all of these really just stolen from countries that Britain had conquered in their imperial days? It all seems immoral to me, but impressive none the less.

Much more impressive for me was the Oxford museum of Natural History. It's not as big or grand as the one in London but it's very well done and I love the way that single topics are presented in a beautifully clear and concise way. It was great too, to see so many mammalian skeletons next to each other so you could make comparisons.

And yes, I do love butterflies. The first book I bought, at the age of five, was the Observers book of Butterflies. I still have in front of me on my shelf.

I trundled off to Lady Margaret Hall next, all the time wondering if this was the route Elaine Morgan took the first time she went there. The story is that when she asked a passer-by the way in her lovely Welsh accent, the local told her and then started chatting. When Elaine told her she was going for an interview, the local assumed she was applying for a job as a cleaner and not a potential new student. 

The college had pretty strict security so I couldn't actually go in, not that I was looking for anything in particular anyway. Elaine's not even on their alumni list, unlike Nigella Lawson and Benazir Bhutto.

Next it was Merton Hall, where Hardy taught for many years and where others such as William of Occam are also old fellows. Unfortunately, I couldn't get in there either. Never mind, just walking along the same streets that these two, and so many other greats did, was inspiring to me.

Kassam Chaos

After the tantalizing prospect of intellectual inspiration it was time to get my feet back on the ground and go and watch some football. Before anyone starts to roll their eyes at me being such a pleb here's a very convenient segue. 

Question: Who is another intellectual hero of mine, who also went to Oxford? 

Clue: He was a student under Alister Hardy, got his "more aquatic" from him and published a best seller that would inspire Elaine Morgan to promote the "aquatic ape" idea for over forty years.

Answer: Of course, Desmond Morris.

Now, not only was Desmond Morris a very well respected animal behavioralist and anthropologist, but he was also a football fan and was even on the board of directors at Oxford United during their glory years at the dubious time of Robert Maxwell.

He wrote the book "The Soccer Tribes" which gave me my first inkling that I might too be interested in anthropology. I did a previous blog post all about this a few years ago.

So, anyway, now following in Desmond Morris' unlikely footsteps, it was time to make my way to Oxford United's new ground for the first time. 

The ground is six miles from the city center so I had planned to go by bus. Oxford is, after all, a pleasant city of 150,000 people. United are in the third tier with an average of 6-8 thousand. Google maps offered three different bus routes. This was going to be easy. What could possibly go wrong?

I opted for the route with the least walking distance: Service 3A. 

This was the route suggested...

The next bus was due in six minutes and I left my room in good time to get to the stop. A bus (Number 3) came at the scheduled time so I got on. I was relieved that it accepted payment by debit card just like London transport did. I expected it would follow a strange and convoluted route as Google had told me it would, but what I didn't expect was that at one stop everyone got off leaving me waiting on my own. I asked the driver if she was going on to the stadium to which she replied "No. That is the 3A. This is just 3." 

Oops. Silly me. 3A, not 3. 

She said she'd take me back to the main road and then show me where to catch the next 3A bus, but she didn't know when the next one was. (It turned out to be an hourly service.) So thanks to these brilliant gadgets in our pockets I was able to order an Uber, which automatically linked through to a local cab company and after a bit of confusion about where to drop me off, requiring an extended circuitous route a one way system near the ground, it all went quite well and I eventually arrived at the ground only about ten minutes late. Late enough though, to have missed Fleetwood's opener scored after just two minutes.

I knew the stadium would be very odd looking having seen many photos of it. It has no stand at all at one end of the ground. Close up though, it also looks a bit shoddy too. As aussies might say "it's blady shit house!"

The game itself was shoddy too, at least in the first half, and there were lots of unforced errors. Also, it was bloody freezing. I had stupidly not put on many layers so I was relieved when the half time whistle blew so I could go to the canteen area and get something to warm me up. Some chance. They only had tea as they'd run out of hot pies. The facilities were very second rate, again, nowhere near as good as Wimbledon. 

Exotic Oxford

To be fair, the quality of football improved in the second half. Oxford equalized and continued to threaten for the rest of the game. But so too did Fleetwood and either side could have won in the end.

I started to worry about missing the bus back... the 3A right. By now I knew exactly where the stop was. There was a crowd over 6,200 people there. Surely a hundred or so of them would be going back to the city center by bus. Google did offer me an alternative... a ten minute walk across a field to a neighborhood where another bus might be caught, but as it had been lashing down with rain I didn't fancy that. Let's stick with the sensible option.

A Fleetwood player (the one called Rooney, not the one who played for Barcelona once) got badly injured and had to be carried off on a stretcher. The boos for time wasting from the Oxford fans a few moments earlier had been predictable and so callous, but it was almost understandable as the temperature was dropping and everyone seemed to want to get this over with.

The announcement of "There will be a minimum of EIGHT minutes of injury time" was met with groans, not anticipation and I started heading towards the exits.

When the game was finally over (a 1-1 draw) I headed for the 3A bus stop and was soon relieved to find that there was indeed a small band of ten or so waiting for it too. At first, the traffic whizzed by really fast on this road that had to be crossed. And anyone wanting to cross to the bus stop had to time their sprint carefully to avoid being run over. It's incredible that Oxford United and/or the local council care so little about the safety of their supporters. Every hear of "traffic lights"? "pedestrian crossing"? "Speed bumps?" a bus station at the ground!?

Soon though, the traffic ground started to grind to a halt as more and more fans set off home from their parking spots dotted around the ground's grossly inadequate parking. As the cars slowed down, so, it seems, did time. The band of hopeful bus passengers waited and waited in the cold. The schedule arrival time of the bus (9:51 pm) came and went, but the bus didn't arrive One poor lad, clearly a frustrated Oxford fan, started complaining that this bus was always late. Then, twenty minutes later, he announced that according to a public transport app, it wasn't just coming. "My mum says it's just disappeared, and that I should get a taxi." It had happened before, he said, but at least that was an afternoon kick off. When I showed him the alternative route Google had suggested, walking over a field to another route, he said his mum had told him not to do that as it was a through a dodgy neighborhood!

So much for public transport. Great. Thanks, Oxford!

So, we all had to order cabs to leave the ground. Can you imagine it? a crowd of more than 6,200 and not one bus to take any of the fans to the city center.

Maybe I should have gone to Wycombe after all! Ah well. All part of life's rich tapestry. At least I have one more ground back on my list!

Mood score for Monday, 31st October: 8-2. Can guess the two against? One was for the bus debacle and the other for being very cold!

Next Match #4 : Cardiff City 1 Watford 2

Match Two: Punched in the guts by the Gunners at the Emirates

Return to Arsenal, First time to the Emirates

The Gillespie Road tube station, bought by the Arsenal Corporation
in a Milton Keynes Dons-like way, a bit like their move from Woolwich.

It's been almost 35 years since I last saw Forest play Arsenal. That was in the FA Cup 6th Round in 1988 and it was a very happy occasion indeed. A Nigel Clough and Stuart Pearce inspired Forest won 2-1.

Previously Match #1: AFC Wimbledon 3 Harrogate Town 2

Coincidentally, from the point of yesterday's blog post, playing across London at the same time that day was, you've guessed it, Wimbledon. They were also in the quarter finals and they also won 2-1, against Watford. Both of their semi-finals also ended 2-1 but that's where the similarities would end. Wimbledon would beat Luton, whereas Forest lost to Liverpool. 

This was, of course, the season Wimbledon's "crazy gang" beat Liverpool at Wembley for their only major domestic trophy.

Of course, Forest's win was at Highbury, Arsenal's ground for 93 years, and that had been my third visit there. I saw Forest win there 2-0 on Boxing Day just a few months earlier and my first visit was back in 1977 early in the season Forest won the league. That day Arsenal won 3-0, our worst defeat of the season.

So, with Forest arriving at their new Emirates stadium bottom of the league, and Arsenal starting the season so well (top for most of the season so far), a 3-0 defeat would have been perfectly acceptable.

Unfortunately...

Match Two: Arsenal 5 Nottingham Forest 0
(Emirates: 1; Arsenal Home: 4; Arsenal Seen: 15; Forest seen: 442)

Getting a seat for this match for a Forest fan was like seeking gold. All of Forest's away contingent was sold out at the start of the season and the only reason I had a chance here was because my uni mate's old mate from school is an Arsenal season ticket holder and he couldn't go.

I think I had one of the best seats in the ground. On the Upper tier, block 133 row 1. So allow me to publicly thank Steve for making my day - at least as far as half time!

Any hopes of a shock Forest win (and believe me, I had deluded myself about that) seemed to be gunned down after just 5 minutes when Martinelli headed past Henderson to put Arsenal 1-0 up.

1-0 to the Arsenal

Spurs fans will tell you that there isn't much noise at the Emirates but I have to say the roar sounded pretty loud to me. I guess 60,000 people chatting is going to be pretty noisy.

Still, it doesn't sound right when another group of fans sing "Come on you Reds!"

Like Forest, Arsenal call themselves the "reds" but, of course, *we* are the original reds. We borrowed them a set of red shirts early in their history and as they won the game they started playing with them ever since. See here for more on that.

Anyway, after a period when Arsenal seemed to be able to slice through our defence at will, largely with the threat coming from the right in the form of the elegant Bukayo Saka, Forest gradually seemed to settle and caused Arsenal a few scares of their own before half time. When Saka had to go off injured, I began to think this might be our day.

After last week's remarkable win against Liverpool and creditable draw at Brighton, it looked like Steve Cooper had tightened up the defence and as Forest showed some threat of their own towards the end of the half, maybe ... just maybe.

As the half time whistle blew, I went to grab a pint and a burger feeling pretty confident. 

A word about the food at the emirates: poor. Honestly, after the fare at Wimbledon, which seemed like gourmet cuisine in comparison, the food choice and quality was dire.

But if that was poor, Forest's second half capitulation was worse.

The start of the second half repeated the first with another quick goal but this time there was no time to settle and a third was soon added. So much for my theory.

The game ended as a competitive fixture after that and it was just a matter of how many Arsenal would score. My "par" of 3-0 was soon breached and then a fifth put the final nail in the coffin. Forest, it has to be said, showed little fighting spirit and seemed resigned to their fate far to easily.

Grim, then grimmer.

Never mind. 

At least we have now played both Manchester City and Arsenal away. It can't get harder than that.

After the game, I stayed back and waited for the stands to empty and then had a stroll around the stadium which, it has to be said, is magnificent.

So, congratulations Arsenal and thanks once more to Steve. 

Another ground reclaimed...

The mood score? Not as good as yesterday but still 9-1! (And yes, the "one" was a bit of depression about how easily Forest caved in.)

Next Match #3 : Oxford United 1 Fleetwood Town 1

Match One: We love you wombles, we do!

21-1 to the happy bloke

When I "wor a lad" you didn't talk about mental health issues. At university, I struggled with depression and turned to drink, not to any shrink. Going to see a psychiatrist was for pansies and, coming from a working class mining town like Kirkby-in-Ashfield, doing something like that was the last thing on my mind. 

Decades later, having got more experienced, maybe a little wiser, but certainly more data savy, I started coming up with my own techniques to cope with mood swings and the danger of spiraling into the emotional abyss. One key ritual I now do is a review of the day that has just passed by and audit the things that happened that made me happy and ones that triggered a shift towards a bad mood.

Things that made me happy are savored like goals scored, things that made me sad, analysed to think what went wrong and how I could have done better - like a defensive coach might look at a video of a goal conceded.

So, on trips like this, I get a daily score which is usually a pretty fair reflection on how good the day was.

Well, Saturday, 28th October 2022 was one of the best ever, a whopping 21-1 win to the happy bloke in me. Many thanks to my old mucker from university, Jake Holloway, for many of them.

Previous: Intro

Richmond Park is Wonderful

The day started with a good long (for me) walk in the huge, awesome natural phenomenon, fairly central in the vast London metropolis  which is Richmond Park.

Richmond Park, in relation to the London Metropolis

It was so refreshing to "clear out the cobwebs" and take in a bit of nature. Upon arrival we were confronted with the announcement that a deer culling was scheduled soon, an awkward reminder of the success of the park in provide a rich and safe habitat for both roe and red deer. 

As Sir David Attenborough, who perhaps not surprisingly, lives in Richmond, has repeatedly said, all we need to do is basically "let nature be" and the re-wilding process will take hold and restore any damage we have done.

It's always good chatting with Jakey, but doing so in such a magnificent setting, with so many of nature's gifts randomly joining us momentarily as we went, ticked lots of happy boxes. 

Match One - AFC Wimbledon 3 Harrogate Town 2

After returning back, a little out of breath and with feet hurting a bit, and refreshed with a lovely big flat white from one of Richmond's cool cafes, I caught an Uber to take me to my first match of the tour, Wimbledon v Harrogate.

When I realised Arsenal v Forest was a Sunday game, freeing me to watch another game on the Saturday, I first considered Brentford v Wolves, as I have a good mate who's a Bees fan and, of course, I'd never been to their news stadium. But Simon was working away and, let's face it, tickets for their compact ground would have been hard to come by, so the decision was made for me really to go to Wimbledon.

Now I had been to see Wimbledon before, at Plough Lane in 1985. Forest had drawn them in the FA Cup 4th round and the tie at the City Ground had ended 0-0. It wasn't a happy night for us travelling Forest fans though because instead of the long anticipated, but ultimately elusive FA Cup glory for Brian Clough, we were hoping for, "The Dons" had themselves a famous victory winning 1-0.

But *this* was not the Plough Lane Wimbledon play on today.

Indeed, this in not even the same AFC Wimbledon club that played there that day either.

The story of what happened to the club between then and now has to be one of the  most amazing in football history and it would take a book to describe properly.

 

In a nutshell, the previous owners, short of cash, had a crazy, immoral whim of refranchising the club to a new location where they thought they could attract more fans. Initially they wanted to move the club to Dublin, Ireland, a city of a million people with a lot of football fans who, the thinking went, would love to watch regular, live Premier League games. ("The Dons," amazingly, were a top flight club by then.) The move got rejected by the Football League, so the owners moved the club to Milton Keynes instead. (Talk about getting second best!) So, at a stroke, AFC Wimbledon became Milton Keynes Dons and all of their history and success got transferred to the bland town too. All their adoring fans who'd watched them for generations... well who cares about them? 

Incredibly, a consortium of local Wimbledon fans refused to give up and, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the club was reformed and set off on a remarkable journey up the vast English football pyramid until they regained league status once more, in 2011.

But don't take my word for it. Here's Dave, a Wimbledon fan of 55 years, who's lived through it all.

Their latest achievement was to redevelop an old speedway stadium, miraculously also on Plough Lane, and build it into a very neat and compact little football ground.

I arrived early so I could watch Manchester City win 1-0 at Leicester without goal monster Harland for once in the appropriately named Phoenix Club. A very nice bar with big screens and lots of excellent beer choices. The inside of the main stand doubles up as a kind of museum to their remarkable history and the outside is like a street food festival with an impressive variety of choices. 

In one of those "it's a small world" reminders, I bumped into a couple of Forest fans (I presume father and daughter) who had come down to unsuccessfully get a ticket for the Arsenal match.

So I spent an hour or so milling around chatting to a few long standing Wimbledon fans about their proud achievements. I took my pretty perfect seat, bought the night before on-line, near the players tunnel close to the half way line and got chatting to a few more Don regulars.

So, AFC Wimbledon v Harrogate Town. This was their first ever meeting as Harrogate were only in their second season in the football league and coming from Yorkshire they'd never met before in any other competition either.

I was pleasantly surprised that in the Wimbledon line up was a name I actually recognized, an ex-Forest player, Chris Gunter but the first half was a bit of a struggle. This is the fourth tier of English football, remember, and neither Wimbledon or Harrogate were flying high. Talk of avoiding relegation dominated the conversation of the regulars sat behind me. 

"This is a 'must win' for us". "If we lose this, I think we might go down." 

Somehow, Wimbledon managed to contrive a goal though and at half time they were just about deserving of a 1-0 lead.

After more chatting with more great fans at half time, it was back for a classic second half.

Within minutes Harrogate equalised and then, to the horror of the locals, went 2-1 up ten minutes later. Harrogate had brought a good 200 or so fans and made a lot of noise inside the very impressive 7,000+ attendance. 

The manager, John Jackson, had to do something and he made a few substitutions to try to change the course of the game. One of them literally stood out. Kyle Hudlin is 2.06m tall and posed problems from the moment he came on. But with six minutes left on the clock, Wimbledon were still trailing.

Then, it happened. It seemed like someone turned the intensity knob to max and Wimbledon started pounding the Harrogate goal. The equaliser came and, two minutes later, the winner.

The outpouring of joy from the Wimbledon faithful was a joy to behold and brought tears to my eyes. 

"We love you wombles, we do. We love you wombles, we do. We love you wombles, we do....

Oh, wombles, we love you."

So the 92-club worm has turned... I'm back up to 65 now.

Marching on together, we're going to see you win!

Still buzzing with so many "happiness" goals, I set of to Central London to meet Jakey and Dougie to watch the later Premier League games, Fulham v Everton and Liverpool v Leeds.

Upon arrival at Waterloo station, I had to have a quick pint at the brand new glitsy, Brewdog Pub along with its peculiar slide where Jakey had told me to meet him.

I sat right next the the exit of the slide and supped my pint as a very motley series of people were delived to my feet, one after another. Lots of little kids, followed by big adults. The mat at the end had words to the effect of "There is no need to Grow Up" and everyone was certainly emerging with a big childish grin.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, out popped Jake! Definitely a very happy moment!

We then scuttled across to a Canadian sports bar called the Maple Leaf to meet up with Jake's good mate Dougie and an evening of more beer and more football and more conversation.

Fulham v Everton was instantly forgettable but in the next game at Anfield, Leeds took an early lead after a terrible Liverpool back pass only for Mo Salah to get the predictable equaliser soon afterwards. 

The script was set for Liverpool to score two more in the second half to seal their win and their inevitable rise towards the top four. But it was a script that Leeds obviously hadn't read as they clung on and then scored the winner in the 89th minute.

Joy for everyone apart from the Liverpool fans and I was transformed back to being a 12 year old supporter of Don Revie's great sides of the 70s. So, more "happiness goals" for me.  

21-1 eh? So what was the goal "against"? It was a bizarre twist. After a few pints watching the football I needed a leak, obviously, but there had been an accident on the stairs leading to the downstairs toilets and so the whole bar was prevented from paying a visit. Let's just say that my frustration with the situation grew as my bladder became more distended but this was only a minor spot of shame on an amazing day.

All in all, great to be back in good 'ol blighty!

Next Match #2: Arsenal 5 Nottingham Forest 0