Adams Park, home of Wycombe Wanderers, is not your typical football ground. A woodland backdrop overlooks the stadium, rather than a run-down rowdy pub. Indeed, there is no pub in sight; the nearest one is a fifteen minute brisk walk from the ground.
As such, it took longer than usual to fill the away end with yellow shirts. With five minutes till kick off, though, we were in full force and bellowing out the chants. Our desperation to get out of the wretched Conference, and the journey that had taken us to the play-offs and then Wembley had made our fans even more of a collective unit. We had suffered the worst together. Yet now we were back in the Football League, and very happy to be. We thus demonstrated our togetherness and pride by roaring Oxford songs at the muted Wycombe supporters.
The first half was a classic English lower league clash. It was gritty, dogged and passionate, yet lacked that cutting edge. The half belonged to the centre-halves of each side, and also to Wycombe’s well-balanced, elegant central midfielder Lewis Montrose who stroked the ball around with apparent ease. Oxford struggled to assert themselves on proceedings, not helped by losing energetic right-back Damian Batt to injury early on. The best chance of the half fell to Wycombe. An over hit, fizzed cross from the left alluded the Oxford defence and was met by Matt Phillips steaming in at the back post, who scuffed the ball wide.
Wycombe may have shaded the first half, yet Oxford steamrolled them after the break. Straight off the kick off, speedy forward Matt Green was released and crashed the ball against the bar, via a spectacular fingertip stop by keeper Nikki Bull. The crowd sensed Oxford’s growing confidence and the noise levels rose, reverberating round all corners of Adams Park. Five minutes later, it was James Constable who should have put Oxford ahead. A mix-up in the Wycombe penalty area saw the ball drop at Constable’s feet who swivelled and instinctively swung his right foot at it, only to find Bull in the way once more. A goal felt inevitable.
However, as Oxford had found to their peril against Bury the previous week, teams in League 2 are more able to launch a successful counter-attack than those in the Conference, and that is just what happened. Anthony Tonkin, whose distribution had been sloppy throughout, was robbed of the ball on the half-way line by Wycombe’s nippy forward, Kevin Betsy, who sprinted towards the goal and only had Ryan Clarke to beat. Thankfully, Betsy thought he was more Thierry Henry than Dean Windass and his attempted chip sailed harmlessly over the bar. It was a let off.
Still Oxford pushed though, and Green was sent one-on-one with Bull again, but his shot was scrambled out for a corner. Then, a moment of magic from captain Constable. A rare mistake from Bull saw his throw intercepted by Constable who, Torres-like cut in on his right foot and slammed against the upright, via another brilliant fingertip stop from Bull. The final minutes saw both sides go all out for the three points. However, the last chance of the match came to Oxford’s Jack Midson, whose header from a Jake Wright free-kick crept agonizingly past the right post.
Sadly, we were denied the chance to bring the roof down at Adams Park. Still, a positive performance from Oxford United; it is only a matter of time before we record our first league win of the season.
