Oxford United: A new beginning

Hello friends and welcome to my new story which features Oxford United of the Blue Square Premier League. As they say if you fall off the horse you should get right back on and so it is with Football Manager.

To start with a quick history of  Oxford United…

Oxford United was founded in 1897 as Headington United, adopting the current name in 1956. Oxford joined the Football League in 1962 after winning the Southern Football League, reaching the Second Division in 1968. After relegation in 1976, between 1984 and 1986 the club earned successive promotions into the First Division, and also won the League Cup. Oxford was unable to enter the 1987 UEFA Cup because of the UEFA ban on English clubs in European competitions. Relegation from the top flight in 1988 began an 18-year decline which saw the club relegated to the Conference in 2006. This was the first time in the history of English football a team that had won a major trophy was relegated from the Football League.

Its home ground is the Kassam Stadium in Oxford with a capacity of 12,500, and has held the highest average attendance in the Conference for the last three years. The club moved to the stadium in 2001 after leaving the Manor Ground, which was its home for 76 years. Swindon Town are the club’s main rivals.

I had no idea when chosing Oxford that Swindon were their main rivals. How ironic, but that’s football to a tee :)

Here’s a look at the Kassam Stadium

Onto the pre-season then a the first review of the clubs finances meant that I wouldn’t be buying any players so any new additions to the team would be from loans or out of contract players. I told the board I challenge for the title but that didn’t raise any funds either.

When looking at the squad and determining their natural positions it was clear that the best shape for a tactic would be a standard 4-4-2 though I was missing a true defensive midfielder altogether as well back ups would be needed in other areas such right back, target man and perhaps another central defender. I’d also decided that I wanted to play a quicker paced game so stamina, acceleration and of course pace would all be required. Overall I was very happy with the players I already had and so Adam Murray (AMC) was the only player to find himself on the transfer list.

As of the end of July this is the transfer situation but due to injuries, Subotic, Hanson and Kupisz all returned to their clubs without playing more than one game. Replacements are already in the works though some I’ve already gotten in the form of Patterson and Eyjolfsson. The Oxford scouts recommended both Chanot and Gyan even though they didn’t quite meet my criteria but the fans were ecstatic over the pair arriving at Kassam Stadium.

Overall Transfers: July 31st

Key Individual Signings;

Pre-season friendly games went better than expected for the most part and the loss to Ipswich was a really close game and we had several chances to win it. Although we played weaker opposition in the remainder of the games we only conceded one further goal and thats a morale booster for sure.

Up next then is the season proper and massive schedule to begin with so keeping fit could be a problem? We will start the season at home to York and hopefully will get off the a great start by taking all three points

So that’s the first post on my new story. What do you think of my choice of team?

Thanks for reading.