A Decade To Remember

[Lincoln.yellow1]

Our first game in January 2010 was a 0-1 loss at home to Tamworth albeit it was our first home defeat of the season and although we were top of the Conference going into the new decade, bad weather had some of our games postponed so catch up was apparent and although we swapped top spot over the next few months it was our awful form in March (7 points from 21) that pushed us down into the play of positions especially with Stevenage winning 7 on the bounce during the same period to then go on and win the league by a country mile.
After a fairly straight forward passage to the playoff final the pressure was firmly on us to put the last 4 seasons behind us and regain our football league status and after a cracking start to the game then closing it out with one of Oxford United’s iconic goals ever when Alfie Potter netted in the last minute to send 33,000 yellows into raptures of relief.
The next few seasons was all about consolidation and building for the future rather than looking over our shoulders and after 5 seasons of top half finishes 2015/16 season saw the team playing its best football arguably in our entire history as we ripped other league 2 teams apart and higher league teams in the cup competitions as well as another Wembley appearance however finishing 2nd in the league after 46 games gave us promotion to the 3rd tier of English football, a division we left 14 years prior to this.
Our first season back in League one was ours for the taking, however after a slow start and too many cup games meant we were always playing catch up and in the end playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday in March and April took its toll on our threadbare squad.
The appointment of Pep Clotet after Micheal Appleton left for big money threatened to rip apart everything we stood for over the last half a dozen years and there was no tear shed when he was shown the door in the 2017/18 season and the appointment of Karl Robinson looked to put a bit of stability and optimism back into the club however fighting relegation in his first full season with a memorable away win at Doncaster Rovers cemented our place for another season in league 1 looking forward.
The current season on paper looked to be one of the most competitive leagues in the 2nd tier for ages with the likes of Sunderland, Portsmouth, Ipswich, Rotherham, Peterborough and to a degree, Bolton so it was always going to be difficult to get into the top 6 let alone the top 2 however with us winning 5 games on the bounce at the end of February and early March combined with the injury time winner at Shrewsbury from Josh Ruffles after being 2-0 down we are now only 3 matches from the promised land of the Championship something every Oxford United board member, management team, back room staff, player and supporter would have taken not just in August when this season started but 10 years ago when we started re-building this club we love...
10 years ago, a 1-0 home league defeat at home to Tamworth, 10 years on, we have a real chance to be playing the likes of Nottm Forest, Derby, Middlesbrough, Birmingham, QPR, Reading, Stoke City, Cardiff, Sheffield Wednesday and probably Aston Villa.
Its been one hell of a decade, we now must grab this opportunity and stay unbeaten for 3 more games.
WE CAN DO THIS........!
Ei, Ei, Ei, O, up the football league we go..........!

 

[MarkG]

I don’t think Appleton left for money. I think he could see that we didn’t have a promotion winning budget and got out before blotting his cv again.

But then again having the highest squad budget in league 1 and probably a decent one for the championship didn’t help Blunderland this season.

Good review of the decade though. Didn’t we lose a couple of awful games coming up to the play off final? Was it Eastbourne so that we had Rushden & Diamonds in the semi rather than Luton ? Smart move that one.