Oxford

Probably the best read for any Swindon fan other than the confirmation of Takeover completion.

This is taken from Oxford Mail.

Oxford United. Passed away at Tonbridge, Kent, on the 18th of December after a long and painful illness. Will be sadly missed.

Obituary

By A. Fan

The death last night of Oxford United Football Club should come as no surprise to anyone but it is nevertheless a vastly sad event. The club, still relatively young in footballing terms had been seriously ill for a long time but had for many seasons battled on against adversity.

Starting from humble beginnings in Headington, Oxford the club achieved the coveted league status in 1962, and for many older fan the years immediately after this were the real glory days for Oxford even though they subsequently reached much higher league status.

In 1964 Oxford reached the 6th round of the FA cup by beating high flying Blackburn Rovers. This was then a record for a fourth division side and I was one of 22,750 crowd who saw them bow out of the cup to Preston North End.

Promotion to the third division followed in 1965 and to the second division in 1968, a position they maintained for eight years.

The first of the real financial problems started around this time but the situation was rescued in 1982 by local millionaire business man, Robert “Captain Bob” Maxwell.

Maxwell would oversee both the clubs highest ever league position and be responsible for the onset of the illness which finally killed the club.

In 1982 Maxwell was responsible for brining legendary manager, Jim “bald eagle” Smith to the club from Birmingham. Smith engineered back to back championships in 1984 and 1985 and Oxford United were unbelievably in the old First Division.

An inexcusable fall out between Maxwell and Smith saw Smith move to QPR in the summer of 1985 without seeing Oxford kick a ball in the top division. The managership passed to one of the most decent men ever to work in British Football, Maurice Evans who guided the team to a famous Milk Cup victory at Wembley in 1986, ironically against Jim Smiths QPR. The club held its place in Division one until 1988 when the pressure by the bigger clubs became too much and it slipped back in to the second division.

Underlying problems were now building at the club with Maxwell himself moving on to pastures new leaving his daughter, Ghislane, as the token chairman. The whole structure was weakened and all but collapsed when Maxwell disappeared from his yacht in 1991. What became of Maxwell? Well a body was found and buried in Jerusalem but was it “Captain Bob”? His business empire was collapsing, he had defrauded his company pension scheme of countless millions and just as things were coming to a crisis, he disappeared. Maybe his remains are laying in Jerusalem or maybe he is sitting sipping champagne somewhere as I write this.

1993 saw the club relegated and although there was one more promotion back to what was now known as Division One (the Premier League being in existence by now) the end was already beginning to take shape.

Motor racing man Robin Herd took over the club for a while and even started to build the new ground in Grenoble Road but he ran out of money and interest and building stopped. What he did bring to the club however was access to a large tract of land which an incompetent City Council seemed ready to part with at bargain prices if they could find someone who would finish the stadium and take on the club.

Step up Firoz Kassam. Kassam is hotelier and property developer who sits high in the rankings of the richest Asians in Britain. At a time when many of us though that the club would surely die he stepped in, cleared the debts, finished the stadium and moved the club to Grenoble Road. Most of us were initially taken in. Here was Oxfords own Abramovitch.

Sadly we were all deluded. Kassam was not a football man at all and it was not the club he wanted, just the land that came with it, and as he acquired this so his interest in the club declined and disappeared and so the club sunk lower and lower. Finally when he had got everything he could out of ownership of a now terminally ill club he sold the remains on to local business man and ex United player Nick Merry and a consortium of financial backers. Merry brought 1980s legend Jim Smith with him and a dog fight to avoid relegation from the Football League began. Sadly this ended in despair and failure and the rest as they say is history.

Last night at Tonbridge Oxford played out their last desperate moments as a potential league football club and died in effort. A sad end to a once glorious club.

From all true fans all there is left to say is “goodbye old friend”.

(EDITORS NOTE: Oxford United is succeeded by a very sickly child, a non league club dragged down by the trappings of league status. It can only be a matter of time before the burden of the cost of keeping up the Kassam Stadium, the various coaches and training facilities and the league level wage bill before part time status, ground share and oblivion is finally reached. A sad day for the City of Oxford.)