Ficklenomics

13% of people are bad.  That’s one of the conclusions from the book Freakonomics.  That number: 13%, was found to be true and tested in a number of different scenarios, and so robust, that it is difficult to disprove.

Available at all good book shops (and probably some bad ones)

Now, that could mean that out of 100 people, 13 are pure evil, and the remaining 87 are living angels. Or, more likely, there is a sliding scale of “badness” in all of us:

Some of us are bad 13% of the time, conforming to the average, some of us 2% and some of us 60% (I know a few, think Paolo) – this is the law of averages.

Now, I don’t know what percentage of us are fickle, because that was not covered in the book, but what I can say about myself is that I have become like the ‘pure evil’ example above and confess right now, that I have become 100% fickle, especially in the case of Oxford United.  More precisely; in the hours that follow an Oxford United match I am 100% pro Wilder or anti Wilder depending on the outcome.  My ‘swing’ on this is wider than the ball-sac of a prize bull that’s been deprived for a whole mating season.

When Oxford lose, I will be thinking “We’re too big for this league, with our budget and fan-base we shouldn’t be playing the likes of Dagenham and Redbridge (no disrespect) week in week out, we should be 9 points clear at the top.  How the hell can Hartle-bloody-pool be in the league above us?  He’s had long enough…” Etc. you get the idea with that.

When Oxford win, I eye the league table and think “A couple more wins, and we’re in with a shout, why can’t people be more patient and loyal with Wilder, he’s done so much for us, and we had all the injuries and stuff…”.

I can’t help what I feel, it’s extreme, it goes either way, and I hope you respect my honesty.  What I don’t do (and here comes the holier-than-though section, so those of an extroverted opinionated nature may want to look away now) I do not share my thoughts with others when we lose.  I see this as destructive, and can’t really think that any good is going to come of that situation.  I fully understand why others do though, we all need an outlet.   Mine happens to be video games, so for every #Wilderout you see from others on twitter, I’ll have a floor full of decapitated zombies.

Picture used by kind permission of Tim Walker

I never used to be so fickle, but I think this is a result of our inconsistent form.  This season has seen many extremes. We beat sw*ndon easily (again, again) we troubled the league leaders, and our individual players look like guys that should  be getting promotion.  Our first three games gave me a taste for something that for a while I believed in.  Then came the record equaling run of defeats, and the still coldly simmering OUFC civil war.  These extremes have driven me to become a fully fledged fickler (new word for you there) and the next time you see someone say “OMG, Oxford fans are so fickle” I will count myself as one of the subjects.

Whether or not I stay this fickle remains to be seen.  It will take a consistent run of form in either direction to change, so until then I’ll keep putting Wilder on a pedestal or mentally seeking his resignation on an alternate weekly basis, and if you don’t hear from me after the Torquay match, it’s because I’m probably taking a zombie’s head clean off with a vileda mop handle.

Why I’m going to Vale

A round trip of 240 miles, the very real prospect of a long journey home in dreary driving conditions as a season for Oxford United fizzles out.  The enormous cost of a tank of fuel and the 20 notes needed to get in.  There are many reasons NOT to go to Port Vale.

However, to not go is, to me at least, unthinkable.  I live for football.  Moreover, I live for Oxford United.  I have heard others say that they do not want to go because we have no chance of making the play offs.  Their predicted outcome is I think very likely, but that’s not the point.  After Saturday there will be no more games, for quite some time, I will be wandering around on a Saturday a lifeless husk.  Sure, there’s a European Championship this summer, but it’s not the same.  My interest in the international game has withered as over-paid buffoons, with whom I have no connection, generally make fools of themselves and perpetuate the worse of our national stereotypes.

Come early August, I will be at fever pitch with excitement for the season to come, it seems so far off already I can barely think about it.  So Saturday you see is one last game, a chance to see my team play in a proper competitive situation.  A game that in its own right, I want us to win.  Whatever the outcome, we are Oxford United fans – the 12th Man, and we will sing our songs.  Our songs will be heard by those that will stay, and will be heard of by those that will join us.  Even if this battle in the Vale is won, it is surely likely that our fate is sealed for this campaign.  Regardless we go; “Oxford ’til we die”, stoic, passionate.  Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more.

(Apologies, this went a bit “Braveheart” at the end but the urge took me .  SPARTANS! (Historical mix up deliberate))

Blog on Pause

Due to the increasing pressures of maintaining a healthy work/life balance, I am not finding time to update the blog.  So, until I find a bit more time, I’m afraid this blog is on pause.

I will continue to update the YouTube channel regularly:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TimOUFCWalker?feature=mhum

The “TravelOxometer” is still available for download (where you can work out, amongst other things, how many miles you have travelled as an OUFC fan):

http://oufc.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/download-the-traveloxometer/

And if you are really bored, you can still learn how to draw an Ox:

http://oufc.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/how-to-draw-an-ox/

Until workloads become more manageable, I’m signing out, but who knows, maybe it will be back one day…..

Oxford fans – By far the greatest fans, the world has ever seen.  COME ON YOU YELLOWS!!!

My hurried blog post about Southend

I went to Southend on Tuesday night.  It’s very difficult to summarise what happened without it sounding like one of Chris Williams travel reports from the programme, only, not written quite so well.   

Due to my son’s “illness” (you know the kind; profuse coughing and moping around up until the moment you concede he doesn’t have to go to school, at which point a remarkable recovery takes place, allowing him to play Little Big Planet 2 all day, and have me in and out of the kitchen to service his insatiable need for food, while I do my best to ‘work from home’.  Back in my day, the only thing to do at home when you were off school was watch the Cedar Tree and possibly Crown Court.  In other words there was no incentive to be off school.  Nowadays there are so many distractions it’s a wonder that any kids ever attend school) I was able to go direct to the game from home, whereas I previously planned to go straight from work in Wycombe.  This meant that I had to wait for my Wife to arrive back as leaving said Son on his own would be bad form, and could possibly attract the attention of social services.

[There is a long story that goes here about the horrendous journey that I actually wrote, I read it back and it was dull, the general idea for you to get from this bracketed section therefore, is I had a horrendous journey]

And then Oxford went and lost, and then I had to drive all the way back.  Oxford fans were great as ever.  There: blog post done.  I’m not going to Gillingham.  Still optimistic though.  COYY!

The Green Eyed Monster

I went to the new Indian Restaurant in the cinema complex before yesterday’s game with a couple of mates.  It’s an eat as much as you like style affair, good value and good food I thought.  One of my mates (@YellowTim on twitter) made an observation around how if you were cooking a curry at home and filled your plate with, say curry, some rice and a vegetable side; and after finishing eating that, you wouldn’t go back in the kitchen and cook another one for a second plate.  However in a situation where you can eat as much as is physically possible and there’s no additional cost in effort or price then the 2nd or even 3rd plate is inevitable.  The reasons we do this are obvious, but at the heart of it is one of the seven deadly sins; greed.

Greed is a good quality for a football team to have.  The motivation, not just to settle for what they have but to drive on for more with single-minded determination.  This is a quality we see in our own team at the moment.  While yesterday we were not able to get all three points, we certainly saw a good performance from a team that did not give up.  The game ended 1-1 with Craddock scoring the equalising goal.  There were some neat passages of play and on another day, against a different defence Oxford could have won by a large margin.  A point though seemed ok, especially in light of the brilliant Clarkey saving a penalty for us.  The greed, it seems is instilled in every member of the team when they are called upon to play their part.

Attendances at home, and the atmosphere especially, continues to improve; we sang  throughout the match and the quiet patches were fewer than the noisy parts.  The support is better, not only in the songs but the general support and willing-on of the players.  The ascending noise levels are both a precursor, and reaction to, performance on the pitch, each one fuelling the other.  Additional fuel was thrown on the flames by some cheerleaders.  Contemplating this has led me to reconsider the definition of what a cheerleader is.  Say the word “cheerleader” and I normally think of American sport, pom-poms and glamorous girls, but the literal translation of the term is the leader of cheers.

A cheerleader from yesterday's game (somewhere else)

The cheerleaders we had yesterday were the best to ever visit our home, they had a good routine that involved lifts and stuff and with their up-beat music and demeanour they got a good reaction from the crowd which, I think, carried itself into the match.  I for one enjoyed their display, and if nothing else gave me the legitimate opportunity to do a google image search for cheerleader.  The one guy in the squad got a predictable reaction from the Oxford Mail stand, but this was borne I think out of jealousy, another of the deadly sins.  While he must get a lot of grief for what he does, it’s easy to see what he gets out of it, and, on balance, the grief is probably worth it. 

Speaking of grief and strife, I have just been given clearance by my Wife to go to Southend on Tuesday night if I want to.  The sensible thing would be not too,  I would have to leave work early at a particularly busy time and I don’t deal well with late nights.  The problem is I’m loving my football now, I go because I love it (not just out of routine – which is what a lot of us were doing for a long time) and when all is said and done, I’m just a bit greedy.  See you all at Southend (probably)!

Cobblers ‘n Shrews, Pink Ox in the News

Life on the field for the mighty Yellows continues to improve. Since last writing the U’s have played away at Northampton and at home to Shrewsbury.

In the former, a capacity away crowd of 1.6 thousand fans roared their team on. Oxford were the better side on balance and were undeservedly beaten 2-1. Northampton rival Wycombe for the worse home support I have ever witnessed. Their mascot (a dragon called Clarence I think) is lethal with the ball when it comes to taking out linesmen (sorry lines-people, I came over all Andy Gray there) but is woeful with a drum stick. He could be seen travelling from stand to stand attempting to, literally, drum up support with embarrassingly little response.

In somewhat surreal circumstances after that game I went to a wedding reception at MK Don’s Stadium. I’m looking forward to the day when we play them. I’m told by a supporter of the team that the problem they consistently have is that the away fans are neatly packed into a small area conducive to singing loudly while the home fans are dispersed widely in a stadium that is clearly too big for their numbers of support. The result is that their team rarely get any kind of home advantage from their own support. I would love to see how many fans we took there and the sort of atmosphere we could create.

Pink Ox

At home, the match against Shrewsbury was a classic. The back-story to this match was the Pink Ox. It’s been well documented (in fact, on the day the news broke about the Pink Ox, it was allegedly the 7th most popular news story on the whole BBC news website) about how vandals (artists?) painted the bronze Ox outside the stadium bright pink. The club were opportunistic in taking the initiative to raise some money for breast cancer while simultaneously getting publicity for the club. I love this kind of ‘making the best out of a bad situation’ approach. The steps the club took were reflected in the demeanour of the crowd.

An upbeat crowd, started slowly in getting behind the team, with little opposition from a quiet, yet sizable group of Shrewsbury supporters. Three great goals from ex-Shrews Hall and Constable (x2) was enough to sink the Shropshire side who in riposte had very little to show in attempts on goal apart from the heavily deflected goal they actually scored.

In other news the U’s announced a pre-season tour to the U.S. giving many Oxford fans their first chance to watch the club away from British shores. The costs and details of this are eagerly awaited by all. It could be the most glamorous “Why not make a weekend of…” I’ve ever had the pleasure of compiling…..

Revenge is a dish best served cold

The regular reader of my blog will know that I did not enjoy the trip to Bradford.  It was a far heavier defeat than I thought we deserved and circumstances conspired to make a miserable afternoon.  The low-light of it all was my lad saying that he did not want to go to away games anymore.  So retribution was what I was looking for in today’s return match at home.

On Friday I tweeted Harry Worley, explaining how much I wanted revenge  and in reply  he said “the result was awful, we will try and make sure that we put it right!”.  So in the 10th minute when Bradford took the lead from a fluky corner I was left thinking that the justice I so desperately yearned would not be dealt.  However, Oxford were dominant, more dominant than they have been for many years.  Dominant in possession, dominant territorially and dominant in performance.

There are not many times when a side losing 1-0 gets a standing ovation as it departs the field at half time, but this is what happened. This dominance had failed to produce a goal but the magnificent fans knew that this was a performance to be applauded.  As the second half began Oxford kept right where they left off.  This was not a frantic throw-everything-at-Bradford assault, but a cool, calm, patient and self-assured offensive.  Despite this, I will admit that I did not think we were going to score.  I just had the feeling that luck was against us (I guess it’s a heritage I just can’t shake off).

Luck, it seems was something that Chris Wilder spoke to the players about at half time; something along the lines of “let’s not be an unlucky side”.   There’s a lot to be said for that.  There are so many victims in life, people who are the recipients of bad fortune, but I think it’s true that you largely make your own luck.  While destiny can not be fully controlled, positive outcomes are much more likely if you work on influencing the factors that you can control.  This leaves much less to fate.  I would like to think that as a group of fans we can achieve this, and believe this was even a factor today.

So it was a cool, confident Oxford side, that took control of their destiny, including a fantastic performance from Harry Worley, true to his word.  We crafted two scrappy goals that sent us all delirious.  The nature of the goals did not matter.  What did, was that we got the result we deserved, and the revenge was served in a manner that I found MOST satisfying.