Stodgy, Soggy, Stevenage (L2)

A comparatively local one for me, this. About an hour from where I work. Which is relevant because one of the chaps who owns the company (let's call him George for the purposes of this article) decided that he'd like to come along. Which is fine, since I'm always happy to introduce someone to the 'joys' of following the mighty yellows. On the other hand, I think he'd only been to one football match before ever and that was at Arsenal - on the evidence of previous Stevenage/Oxford clashes I doubted if there would be much similarity!

So we set off from work in our seperate cars, aiming to have a quick meal in Stevenage Old Town before the match. Now, my recent knowledge of Stevenage's geography doesn't really extend much wider than the football ground and George's assurance that 'you can't miss the Old Town' didn't fill me with confidence, especially when followed by a list of roundabouts and lefts, rights and straight-ons. This could be a long night.

My route took me down the A1(M) which is obviously in competition with the M1 to see which can have the most roadworks and speed limits. At rush hour. Hmm. Not the best idea ever. It was fairly busy. Of course George (who has family in one of the villages around Stevenage and so knows all the short cuts) got to the Old Town first and kept ringing me to tell me so. Now I'm a bit of a stickler for not using my phone when I'm driving (nothing is so important that it can't wait), so I let it ring. Amazingly enough, ten minutes later I had found Stevenage Old Town and George. We'd both parked outside the same restaurant! So in we went and had a quick Indian meal. Some poddadums followed by Tandoori Prawns, washed down with a half of what was optimistically described as beer, for me. Yum. Pretty nice, and a step up from my normal match night food. Even better - George paid! 30 minutes until kick off. Easy.

Except that George's car then seemed to give out. It claimed that his parking brake was knackered and that he should get it fixed immediately. To make sure he did so, the car made sure the brake stayed on. I was supposed to be following him to the stadium, but leaving him with his reluctant motor, I headed off. Once we realised he wasn't going to make it, he had given me 'directions'. This time I ended up in some sort of housing estate, with many dead ends, one exit and no signposts.

It was a good job that I had remembered to put my SatNav in my pocket, along with a scrap of paper with the postcode of Stevenage's ground scribbled on it. So I pulled up in one of the dead ends, fired up the SatNav and waited for it to find a satellite. When it did, it decided that I wasn't in a housing estate, but in a field. That kind of thing happens when you're too mean to pay for the updates. So it was driving at random instead. Eventually I found the way out (more by luck than judgement)and the satnav picked up the road. 10 minutes until kickoff. Cutting it a bit fine. But I managed to park in the boggy field that Stevenage FC call a car park, took my life in my hands dashing over the dual carriageway and got into the away stand just before the teams ran out. Phew.

The pitch looked better than the last time I was there at the end of last season, when it was basically mud and sand, with a layer of standing water on it. This time it was green and bobbly, but still very wet. It always rains when we are playing in Stevenage. Do you know why? It's because every time God looks down over the place, he weeps.

The teams ran out to a good reception. There were about 700-800 yellows there which meant that the Stevenage faithful numbered a pretty pathetic 1800 or so. It's their first season ever in the League - you'd have thought they could have done better, especially since their recent cup run must have got a few fairweather fans coming in. You can take the club out of non-league, but you can't take the non-league out of the club. We wore our blue away kit. Still don't like it. The lineup was changed. Clarke and the back four remained the same, but the midfield was Payne, McLaren, Clist. Forwards were Hackney, Craddock, Constable. Or perhaps it was 4-4-2 with Hackney in midfield. Or a 4-5-1 with Constable and Craddock taking turns at being the loan striker. Whatever it was, it was a surprise to see MacLean not starting. As well as being a striker in his own right, he is the link between the midfield and the attack. I wondered if we would miss that part of his play.

We kicked off with Clarke down in front of the U's supporters. Within the first minute we almost went one down. A Stevenage player hit a lovely shot from quite a way out. It looked as if it was going a good distance over the bar, but dipped late and smacked into the woodwork, with Clarke well beaten. Within a couple of minutes we went up the other end of the pitch and after a decent move Craddock smacked the ball against the inside of the Stevenage far post. It bounced out to safety. I turned to the bloke next to me and said "Well, one things for certain. This won't end nil-nil". Will I ever, ever learn?!

The pitch was looking tricky, with the ball not running true, and where it was wetter hardly running at all. Stevenage had obviously done their homework, trying to put in cross after cross. They did this uncomfortably easily by putting two players on Tonkin. Hackney doesn't look like the best tracker back, so it was simple for the opposition to work an opening down that side. But Worley and Wright were looking good in the center of defence. After a quarter of an hour or so, Payne crossed the ball for Beano who was all alone at the far post. His first time volley went horribly wrong however, missing by quite a distance. Our passing was starting to look ragged, and the clearances were getting wilder. The ball kept coming back at our defence, but for all their possession, Stevenage were very ineffective in attack.

The least surprising incident of the night happened after half an hour, when right on cue a Stevenage player went down with a fictional injury which required treatment. They do this every game, so their players can have a drink and get a bit of tactical advice. It might be more convincing if the Stevenage coaching staff hadn't been ready with the drinks etc at the side of the pitch just before it happened!! Amazingly enough, after hobbling to the touchine as if he could hardly walk, he managed to run straight back on the pitch ten seconds later. Gamesmanship, or cheating? Whichever, the instructions they had been given by the odious Westley were obviously to put themselves about a bit. Preferably on Jake Wright. Firstly ex-yellow Ashton dumped him to the floor in the penalty area without any punishment, then Ben May slid in on him with studs up. It should have been a red card (dangerous and premeditated) but it only got a yellow from the rather weak referee. The undue leniency of the punishment lead to players on both sides deciding that tackling in that fashion was now allowable and it got a bit fractious. The ref called together the two captains to try and calm it down, a pity that he himself had caused the situation! He then booked McLaren for a tackle that was no where near as bad as most of those that had just been allowed to go. Very poor. Craddock hit the outside of the post with a neat shot after a clever run, and the half ended. As the players trooped off, a couple of the Stevenage players decided that if they couldn't thump an Oxford player then they'd have a go at each other over a throw in (!!). Pathetic - just shows what passes for team spirit at the Lamex. Isn't that some kind of stretchy, spangly material by the way?

On the way to have a quick half-time wee, who should I see in the queue but George! He'd somehow managed to persuade his car that parking on a slight slope didn't mean that his brakes were knackered and had made it! He sheepishly admitted that he had initially gone into one of the Stevenage home stands (I told you he was a football novice!), had realised his mistake and asked one of the ("very sweet") stewards if they could move him. Which they did. He also said that when he was talking to the stewards, it was when the teams were coming out at the start of the match (I guess he'd avoided my trip into the housing estate so had managed to catch me up!) - and they were very complementary about the number of Oxford fans and the welcome we gave our team as they came out, saying they wished the Stevenage fans were anything like as good. Makes you proud.

If our passes were going astray in the first half, in the second it got far worse. I can't honestly remember any passage of play where we put more than two or three passes together. Stevenage were living up to their reputation as a physical team, hassling our rather lightweight midfield at every opportunity. Our distribution from the back was appalling, with the ball going either straight out of play or straight to a Stevenage player. In an attempt to tighten this up, Hall came on for Payne and MacLean for Hackney - who hadn't really looked as good as in previous matches, but then nobody had really - with the possible exeptions of Wright and Worley. It didn't really make much difference. We still gave the ball away far too easily, putting our defence under increasing pressure. Our football pundit of the night George, couldn't really believe what he was seeing, but thought that Hackney had been our best player. Stevenage had a decent chance that went high over the bar, we didn't really create anything. Midson came on for the seemingly out-of-sorts Constable, and made a point of harrying the Stevenage defence. It bore fruit a couple of times and pegged them back a little, but he never really looked like being a serious goal threat. Towards the end of the match, it looked to me as if we had settled for a point, and Stevenage didn't exactly throw all their players forward either - probably wary of conceding a late sucker-punch goal on the breakaway. George kept looking at his watch, I don't think he was enjoying the football very much. He made his excuses and left with five minutes or so to go. I stayed to the bitter end as usual, and was relieved when the ref blew for time.

For two reasons. Firstly our football hadn't really been up to the required standard and it had been an awful game, with Stevenage not able to make many meaningful attacks.
Secondly, it was actually a decent point away from home. Stevenage have a very good home record.

Out of the stadium, another game of 'chicken' on the dual-carriageway and reasonably quickly out of the car park. Home in decent time.

Points from the match:

The change in starting personnel (and formation?) didn't really work. Which is a worry if we pick up an injury or two.
We really do struggle against teams that are prepared to bully us rather than to try to out-football us.
We'd probably have lost that game if it had been played on the originally scheduled Boxing Day.
Wright and Worley were the bright spot in an otherwise lacklustre performance.
On getting home, I found out that we are now just one point off the playoffs. So maybe at the end of the season it will prove to be a point won rather than two missed out on.

Next match away at Morecambe. Apparently one of the towns in the country with the highest proportion of empty shops. How about "we've got more shops than you, we've got more shops than you"!.

I'm not going, so good luck to all those who are. If anyone wants to write an eyewitness match report I'd be happy to put it up on here. See you all at the Hereford match.