Men Against Boys (vs Plymouth L2)

Hello all -

After a couple of away matches, tonight was the first of two consecutive home matches - which will in turn be followed by a couple of consecutive away (League) matches. Call me old fashioned, but it would be good if the fixtures computer (or bloke with a stubby pencil or whatever) could manage a home - away - home - away pattern.

On paper, tonight's match looked to be the easiest of the season - at home against Plymouth, the team rock bottom of the league. Not only that but Plymouth's financial problems have meant that their players haven't been paid some (or any) of their wages for months, so the team was full of very young players. Probably ones who don't have families or mortgages. It's hard not to sympathise with Plymouth. A team falling down the leagues with financial problems and a good hardcore support. Sound familiar?

Night games are my favourite, and one against a poorly performing team (especially after such a generally good game against Gillingham) was one I was expecting us to get someting out of. A quick dash from work and into the East Stand car park. The weather was on-off raining, but Ok for football, with the rain perhaps adding some zip to the surface.

The Oxford starting XI was announced as unchanged from Gillingham, except that Constable took Smalley's place. Sounds good to me. Smalley was on the bench, along with Payne, Philliskirk, Whing and Asa Hall. I can't say that I recognised any of the Plymouth team apart from Jake Cole, who was in goal for us a while ago. As far as I remember, he came in as cover for an injured Turley and was OK. Since then he's moved on to Barnet and now Plymouth. A sucker for punishment!

Before kickoff there was a touching tribute to a recently deceased young Oxford fan, with flowers being put behind the East Stand goal. Lots of applause (including from the Plymouth fans - thanks) made it a moving few minutes. Let's hope the team could give him a good send off.

We started in our preferred way for the first half, kicking towards the fence end. It looked as if Plymouth had won the toss and chosen.

The match started as many thought it might. For the first ten minutes, we had complete control. Plymouth didn't get the ball and hardly got out of their half. Constable brought a save out of Jake Cole, and then Plymouth got back into it a little and had a shot that Clarke saved. Remember that - it's not going to happen much in this report!

Then Davis drove in from the left and let fly with a shot that was deflected wide of the Pilgrim's goal. From the corner, Jake Cole produced a reflex save from Alfie Potter, but Robbie Hall isn't one to turn a chance down and hit the ball home to put us one up. About a quarter of an hour in. To their credit, Plymouth looked to get back into it fairly quickly and a bit of defensive shenanigans at the back gave them a chance, but Duberry was there to clear it off the line. Oddly enough, that seemed to deflate the Pilgrims more than our goal and truth be told that was their last even semi-effective attack from open play of the evening with only 20 minutes gone. Potter narrowly missed the next chance, then Hall ran past two Plymouth defenders on the left as if they weren't there and fired just wide. Potter and Heslop had two more efforts saved by Cole before halftime (Heslop's was saved with an outstretched leg), but the half finished with us just one goal to the good. Plymouth had looked more and more ragged during the half, with some of the mistimed tackling causing winces in the stands. A couple of them had been booked early, and the ref had shown considerable restraint with one of them, who could quite easily have has a second yellow for a tackle similar to his first offence.

No dancing girls at half time, so I went to point percy at the porcelain (stanley at the stainless steel?). In the loos were a Community police officer, a steward and the smell of fags (although I couldn't see anyone smoking while I was down there). Back on the pitch some kids were kicking the ball at the goal. The mood in the stands was good. In truth, Plymouth hadn't been much of a threat and we would have been more than one up except for Jake Cole.

So the second half. Kicking towards the east stand, those of us sitting/standing there were looking forward to some goalmouth action! There was a bit of a lack of urgency from the men in yellow though. There is 'retaining possession' and there is 'arsing about with it'. CW calls it 'overplaying it', but 'arsing about' more accurate. We needed some more urgency in the play. Not hoofing it, but a bit more snap, more speed, more movement off the ball. What could give us the boot up the bum we needed?

A Plymouth equaliser. A bit of arsing about led to us losing the ball and giving away a free kick inside our own half to the right hand side. The ball was delivered into box, and bounced up between a Plymouth player and Michael Duberry. Doobs decided to try to kick the ball away, but his boot was far far too high and he caught the Plymouth player. The ref blew for a penalty and booked Doobs. Fair enough. It was a dangerous challenge, but not a malicious one. The Plymouth player duly converted the spot kick to level the scores.

Rats. How on earth had we managed to squander that lead? But - as I hinted above - the players in yellow needed a spur, and that was it. The home crowd got behind the team and within ten minutes or so the lead had been restored. The ball was delivered across the box, where Potter was waiting. Unforunately he was slow to react, or forgot where his feet were or something. It went straight past him out to the other side of the box (the Oxford right) where Batt latched onto it and put it back in. Robbie Hall, with a display of wonderful technique, volleyed the thigh-high ball straight past Cole. I hope Potter was taking notes! Lovely.

With 25 minutes to go, that was it. Plymouth now looked dispirited and disorganised. There was no way they were coming back. That was confirmed a couple of minutes later when a simple long ball from the again-excellent Davis found both Potter and Constable onside with the goal at their mercy. Potter unselfishly nodded the ball on for Constable who made no mistake and made it three. Some of the football we were now playing would have graced any pitch in any league. One of the classiest players on the Oxford side, Peter Leven had been quietly pulling the strings all evening. A lovely move ended up with Leven out on the Oxford left, Cole came out to narrow the angle (having been let down by his defence again) and Leven gloriously lobbed him. A lovely touch. That was four.

McLaren, Hall and Duberry were now replaced by Payne, Philliskirk and Whing.

Alfie Potter had been good all evening, but he is finding it impossible to score. With a few minutes left he had a golden opportunity to put that right. He was put through one-on-one against the keeper, but as we all watched and waited and waited and waited for him to put the ball over or past Cole, he tamely ran it straight into the keeper's arms. Alfie!

Having had a bit of a 'finishing from a cross' lesson from Hall, Potter now had a 'finishing from a through ball' lesson from Constable. Leven put another slide rule pass though to Beano, who slipped in under the keeper the make it 5-1. Cole and his defender then squared up to each other, not the sign of a united squad, and there was still remonstration between various men in green as the restart was taken. But time was up.

An excellent win, albeit against a very poor team. A decent crowd had seen a good performance with five goals - maybe some of them will be back for Saturday's match against Port Vale. One peron who won't be is Damien Batt, whose yellow for dissent (I think) will rule him out. Silly boy.

Home to bed. Mrs ZeroTheHero 'Did you win?'. Me 'Yes, five-one'. Mrs Z 'Is that good?'. I give up!

Thoughts from the match:

Well done the Plymouth support. Travelled in numbers and judging by all the arm waving etc made a decent noise. I say that, because as we all know it is virtually impossible to hear any noise from the away support in the east stand and vice versa!

But they are going to be supporting a conference team next year unless the team is improved very markedly, very quickly.

Once we move the ball just 10% quicker, we look 50% better.

Beano proved his worth again. Even before he scored he was effective.

See you all at the Port Vale game - let's hope rumours of trouble from Burslem prove false.

Come On You Yellows!