A discarded plastic training cone, on top of some piping, next to the pitch away at Altrincham

(Take this as metaphor, or muse on it to distract your mind from seeing Yemi Odubade flying through the air to send the ball high over the houses behind the goal, again, and again, and again.)

Attempting to read the signs at Plainmoor

Image from 'Darwin and after Darwin' by John Romanes, courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons.

Augury is the attempt to interpret the signs of nature to determine the will of the gods, usually as it is conveyed to mortal man by the flight and call of birds. Evermore confused about this Oxford squad, We Are Oxford United sent Oxford University's finest expert on religion in the ancient world (or at least the first one we found spending too much time at the Kings Arms) to Plainmoor to attempt to divine what signs he could of Oxford's seasons in their performance against 'The Gulls'. A number of academic papers are apparently planned based on these 'research findings', and, as a result, due to copyright restrictions we can only reproduce the abstract to the first of these. Which frankly, given the amount of beer we seem to have paid for under the auspices of 'research funding', we're pretty hacked off about.

This study aims to apply the analytical framework of classical theology's sociological reading of divination to the modern ritual of 'non-league football'. It draws close comparison between Roman augurs of bird flight and spectators of a non-league game of football as both attempt to divine pattern and meaning to seemingly random movement. After a theoretical comparison of the two meaning systems, the analysis is applied to a recent game of non-league football between Torquay United and Oxford United. Themes considered include faith, foresight (and the lack thereof), betrayal, inevitability, intoxication, and madness. The article goes on to consider why the attendees of both rituals thought seemingly unconnected factors to be affected by one another (birds and the future; non-league footballers and the outcome of their game), particularly given the seemingly overwhelming evidence of the past (the inaccuracy of augurs; Oxford looking the business against Cambridge and Rushden but still getting done at Lewes). Following Cicero's De Divinatione, a critical analysis is provided of the arguments for connecting augury and football to such sources as God, nature, or fate. Finally, it is concluded that Torquay and Oxford need to work on their set pieces, both the taking of and the defending of, as frankly, it bordered on pathos.

The dying of the light?

(We could certainly have done with a bit more rage away at Lewes)

Dark day ends with victory at home against Cambridge

(Oxford, United,..)

Defeat at home to Crawley

Image courtesy of Image*After.

(A wounded London Road bellows defiance: We ARE the London Road)

As I walked out one matchday morning

‘It becomes increasingly easy in urban life to ignore their extreme humours, but in those days winter and summer dominated our every action, broke into our homes, conscripted our thoughts, ruled our games, and ordered our lives.’

- Cider With Rosie

It was a clear morning in September, and the sun was establishing the little grip on the day it would hope to exercise. As I walked along the streets with their close houses toeing the pavement, I scented the sharp cut in the air that comes when Summer finally surrenders the struggle to Autumn, its waste and indifference giving way to acute attention, undercut with the promise of cold.

It becomes easy to ignore, but for those who tramp through this ritual, the seasons have always ruled The Season, with their own marks and measures for these followers. High sulky summer marks the beginning and the end, the early days when you bask in the pleasure of a return to a habit given up, lolling in the activities of matchday, with the luxury of games ahead to make up for points carelessly mislaid in these drowsy days. Winter is the season of anxiety, a sense of something slipping, or something slippery, a just-melting icicle held in mittens, sliding through your grasp before you press your hands together and it flies up almost uncontrollably. Spring is the season when we start to see the signs of growth, the things we will reap according to that which has been sown, before the final few days when we briefly see summer again, and surprise is all too rare.

And autumn: autumn is the season that reminds us that this is to come, that these summer days are over, and we are here again; but that this is not enough, and that there is purpose at hand.

On the way to the ground I paused to take a drink. The pub was a murmur of other football supporters, their folded newspapers, their beer, their darting eyes, and sudden shouts. The pool table was covered, and a pair of policemen completed a circuit of the bar, gloved hands tucked into belts. Laughter came from where the crowd closed again behind them. A solemn-faced man watched his boy scuffle with a friend, before haring between the legs of tables and drinkers. As kick-off time neared, and the bar queue adopted a quiet new urgency, the talk was of games gone and the game to come.

‘Should’ve taken three points last time out.’

‘We’ll do it today, just you see.’

Autumn had arrived, and this talk had assumed a seriousness.

Waiting in vain for the Us to go steaming in at Kidderminster

(I still want to be in that number)

Murray lays down the captaincy

Image courtesy of the Wikipedia Commons.

('Far off he stands / In sunset land, and on his shoulder bears / The pillar'd mountain-mass whose base is earth, / Whose top is heaven, and its ponderous load / Too great for any grasp.'

- Aeschylus, 'Prometheus Bound')

A moment of joy at home against Kettering

Listening to Oxford win at Northwich

(Cheshire seemed a long way away last night, but by the end of the evening there was a shade of light visible on the horizon)