Ex-Staff Chris Williams Leaves

Marked Ox said:
If it remains profitable, keep it. But iirc, we are one of the reducing number of clubs still doing a printed version. So if anything, should we keep it going then the club hierarchy will be bucking the trend.

That doesn't however mitigate in anyway the shitshow of the communication etc from the club's hierarchy.

I don't have any stats to back the above up but just from remembering articles I've read and anecdotal stuff.
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Martin and Chris in my view, have done really well to keep the programme as interesting as possible, kept the youngsters interested and kept it going this long.
I am not sure that those running the club now would help this much.
 
Colin B said:
So, here's the Glenn Hoddle story.

It was at the time when Ian Lenagan owned the club, but was looking to get out, probably 11 or 12 years ago now. Chris Williams contacted me, and said he'd had contact with Glenn Hoddle, who'd had a successful soccer school in Spain, associated with a professional club there (Jerez I think, but can't remember exactly) but had moved it back to England and wanted to create a tie up with an English club, preferably a League Club. Chris asked, as I was friends with Stewart Donald, (who was interested in purchasing OUFC from Lenagan and the stadium from Kassam), would I be interested in setting up a meeting for me and Stewart with Hoddle?

I asked Stewart, and we both thought it was worth exploring further, and if nothing else came from it, it would probably still be an interesting meeting to have. It's not every day you get asked to set up a meeting with a footballing legend and ex England manager. So, I was given a mobile number to ring. It was really quite surreal. I rang the number, and the person answering it was quite clearly Glenn Hoddle and he answered by saying "Hello Colin, I've been expecting your call" It was unreal!

So I arranged things with Glenn, and Stewart and I met him at a hotel just outside Maidenhead. With him was a guy called Ian Duncanson, who was his Commercial Director, and in the vicinity were some of his coaches, (the soccer school had just finished training) including Dave Beasant and Graham Rix. Glenn was exactly as he is when you see him on the TV doing punditry work. Really easy going, friendly, and quite eloquent for a footballer.

He had done his homework on OUFC and knew all about the club, the stadium situation, and the off field set up. He also did an appraisal on our squad and claimed that four or five of his players were ready to go straight into our first team. He did identify that a certain Yorkshire football manager (Wilder) would be paranoid about any tie up and be convinced that Glenn was after his job! We talked through a few possibilities and it was decided that OUFC would be the ultimate perfect destination for the Glenn Hoddle Soccer School, but that it was not possible to tie a deal up at that time as none of us owned the club. However a longer term plan was put into place, that would involve Stewart buying a Conference, or Conference South, club within about a 50 mile radius of London, and the soccer school would then become a part of it. It needed to have the potential to grow and we identified a few possibles. I remember Woking being one of them. Once established, and if Stewart was able to buy OUFC, then the soccer school would move across to Oxford.

It was as a direct result of this meeting that Stewart eventually bought Eastleigh, although ironically they weren't one of the clubs we initially targeted. With further irony the GlennHoddle Soccer School never did move to Eastleigh either. I remember setting up another meeting with Stewart several years later, with some stadium architects that I knew, and Stewart joked "The last meeting you set up for me, Colin, ended up costing me about £10m!!!"

One last thing that was amusing, at the meeting, was that I said to Glenn that it might be a problem as he had worn the red shirt, in relation to his time as player manager with Swindon. He replied that he thought this might come up and joked "Well at least they got relegated after I left"

Thanks Chris for taking a risk at the time (his job would have definitely been under threat if Lenagan had found out) and for doing so in the best interests of OUFC. I've never told anyone other than my closest friends about the meeting, so as not to put Chris into a difficult situation, but now he's left OUFC feel it's time to share the story. Cheers mate, you'll be missed.
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A corker of a story that
 
Foley said:
Martin and Chris in my view, have done really well to keep the programme as interesting as possible, kept the youngsters interested and kept it going this long.
I am not sure that those running the club now would help this much.
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Agree, also from a selfish viewpoint, MB makes room for my walking football updates on a regular basis for which I am grateful, whilst mentioning that, if any of you guys over 50, women over 40, want to move from vets football to a slower paced version get in touch🙂🙂
 
Must pay more, but if they go down then it may not last long.
 
Good luck to him and them. They'll need to keep together at the end of the season if they're to bounce back up again next year. To think that they were very nearly just one division below us for this season!
 
Oxford City's general manager ( Chris Williams) was part of and contributed to Radio Oxford's celebratory piece marking 140 years of Oxford City FC at lunchtime today
 
Well it's now been a couple of weeks since CW left and the new guy came in.
Positives
- return of goal cam.
- great eight minute "All United" build up video for the play-off race with interviews and promotion highlights with Beano, Josh Ruffels and Sam Long.
- eight minute "Access All Areas" vs Peterborough. The sound was bit a bit muffled / wind affected but that can be improved.

And then commercial go and announce Ivy Pass ...
 
Yes, I read that 'Ivy Pass' announcement and had very little idea what they were on about. Maybe I am thick. You can scan a QR code (yep, got it so far) that is on a player's sleeve (that's not going to be easy to scan, as I hope they'd be running about!) to create a brand passport (no, me neither) with 'exclusive OUFC digital cards to collect' (errm...).

Maybe it will interest someone but the bit on the OWS was filled with marketing-speak and hyperbole ('an unparalleled fan experience' , 'supercharged fan experiences', 'Technology should not be in the way of that relationship but rather enhance it and create magical moments', 'zero-friction fan engagement' etc etc) without really explaining in words that make sense to actual human beings what it actually does or why anyone would be interested.
 
ZeroTheHero said:
Yes, I read that 'Ivy Pass' announcement and had very little idea what they were on about. Maybe I am thick. You can scan a QR code (yep, got it so far) that is on a player's sleeve (that's not going to be easy to scan, as I hope they'd be running about!) to create a brand passport (no, me neither) with 'exclusive OUFC digital cards to collect' (errm...).

Maybe it will interest someone but the bit on the OWS was filled with marketing-speak and hyperbole ('an unparalleled fan experience' , 'supercharged fan experiences', 'Technology should not be in the way of that relationship but rather enhance it and create magical moments', 'zero-friction fan engagement' etc etc) without really explaining in words that make sense to actual human beings what it actually does or why anyone would be interested.
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Are they giving the club any money?

'zero-friction fan engagement' - is that something that comes with lube?
 
We flagged this up yesterday. The jargon speak in the story is overwhelming, and is leaving fans very confused.
There will be QR cards around the stadium with access to digital content - interviews etc., so no we won't need to sing
"Murphy, scan us your sleeve ..."
At this stage it's a one off promotion for Friday.
We've been assured there is no crypto trade involved or planned.
You can of course chose to participate by scanning a code, or not. If you do we would love to get some feedback.
 
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