A look back at March
I’ll start off by saying sorry again. I’ve not posted on here all month due to other things that have been going off for me! I’ve not had that much spare time on my hands this month but it’ll be back to its best for April.
March was a bad month for us as our play off chances slowly faded away as the month went on. Despite losing just once in March we only picked up 10 points from 21 which has seen us slide down the table to 8th, 10 points behind York in 5th place.
The stand out result of March was against Histon. Last season we went to Histon and lost 3-0, so I decided to give it a miss this year. Bad mistake by me. This time round we thrashed them 5-0, Burgess scoring the pick of the goals. By that time though we all knew our time was up and that were facing another season in the Blue Square Premier. Two points from the remaining two games in March sealed our fate and the play offs were now out of sight for us. Holdsworth maintains whilst it is still mathematically possible for us to reach the play offs he will not give up trying to achieve this. It’ll take some results in our favour and a great run from us to do this though!
In my last blog I wrote ‘Should we fail to finish in the play offs come the end of the season, then the majority of fans will want a change and it would be pretty hard not to agree with them’. Surprisingly I am wrong. Apart from the odd moan here and there on the messageboard the majority of fans still seem to believe Holdsworth can produce the goods for us next season.
I think this is partly down to the change in style of play that we have seen in our last 3 games. Holdsworth dropped Duffy from the starting 11 and replaced him with Blair Sturrock. We now play much more football on the floor rather than lumping it forward towards Duffys head. Duffy gets a lot of stick from the fans at Field Mill but I like him. He wins the majority of the headers but nobody runs beyond him so his flick ons are wasted. With Sturrock we play it into his feet and he creates chances for us. Holdsworth named him ‘the architect’ and despite being here all season Sturrock is just getting his first real chance to show us what he can do. He is a very, very clever player. Somebody who could easily play at a higher level.
Another striker who has done well this month is Jake Speight. He is slowly coming back from injury but has still impressed many fans. The Non League Paper reported on Sunday that Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County, Colchester United and Carlisle have all been watching him. He would be a huge miss for us if he left, but we would be able to get a fee for him because he is under contract until the end of the 2010-2011 season. He brings us different dimension upfront. Andy Burgess said that Speight was capable of scoring 25-30 goals a season for us if he manages to stay fit and I find it hard to disagree with him. I hope he manages to recover and fire us back into the Football League!
Off the pitch this month a group of people have formed The 12th Stag. “The fund, named ‘The 12th Stag,’ will produce extra cash for David Holdsworth’s transfer kitty, with all donations exclusively heading towards transfer fees or player salaries”. Basically, if you want to help the club fund new players you can donate by visiting there website and any amount you donate will only be used towards transfer fees or player salaries. It’s an initiative that has been quite successful at Oxford this season, hopefully people dig deep and help the club bring quality players to Field Mill!
Also in March the club released details on next seasons kits. We are having a new home and away kit because we have changed manufacturer as Canterbury went bust! We are releasing 3 kits, a home and an away kit and a leisure one. They are priced at £39.99 for an adult. The home kit is ok, something a little different buy I do not like they away kit at all. It looks a bit tacky but I suppose you can’t impress everybody! Pictures can be seen at the bottom. You can purchase them by clicking here.
Finally, today the club released details on next seasons, season tickets. The cheapest for an Adult is £230 in the Quarry Lane End, the most expensive for an adult is £260 in the West Stand Upper. Not bad prices really but if you miss the ‘early bird’ offers you can stick £20 on top of those figures. We will get nowhere near the 2700 that we sold last season, to be honest I can’t see us selling a over 1200 but I hope I’m proven wrong.
