Reading photographs: Release

Hope has been a recurrent theme on these pages. But hope so easily melds into expectation. It's hard to think back to August, when we realised that the hope inspired by a strong finish and the building of a convincing squad had somehow coagulated into expectation.

We realised this over the course of about an hour after Richard Brodie had scored at Minchery on a sunny day in August, and the mood on the terrace gradually turned from disappointment, to frustration, to despair. We started to realise: we had thought this was our season.

It took three minutes for the world to change.

Several times this season we've experienced that moment when you exhale so hard that it's a struggle to breathe. We did it that afternoon, and this image shows Matt Green mirroring this. Pain and pleasure in one image, as something is released from within. It's a startling image, but in fact this isn't an image of Matt Green after scoring the first of two goals - the goal scorer is behind him. Mark Creighton, 'The Beast', is locked in fierce embrace with his centre half colleague at the time. It's the sort of embrace you recognise that again shows that dual pleasure and pain: the pleasure is heightened because you realise what you only just avoided.

An unlikely goal scorer, and an unlikely reaction.

And Luke Foster: we're coming for you. What we'd written before and never published seems somehow apt at the point we find ourselves now.

There'll be some other retrospective pieces on this season over the coming weeks. Thanks for reading.

[Image credit: Steve Daniels/Rage Online, and reproduced here with kind permission]

Turning town yellow and blue

(A season that didn't end staring at the concrete floor at Minchery, avoiding each other's glances. It ended in the dusk on Broad Street with a hand shake. It feels like we haven't just brought Oxford back into the league, we've brought a real club back to the heart of Oxfordshire.)

In our beginning was our end

8th August 2009: 16th May 2010.

[The above photo is © Lewis Outing LRPS CPAGB, and reproduced here with his kind permission. See more of his photography here: http://www.mainlyfax.fotopic.net]

Reading Photographs: Permissible transgressions

Television pictures of pitch invasions often give the lie to any claims of spontaneity. Members of the crowd toe the hoarding area impatiently, waiting for their moment. The last day of last season: Quod est demonstrandum.

The invasion at the end of the Rushden game was similarly impatient: we knew it would happen. Yet; this time... smiles on the faces. In this picture, the London Road forms a backdrop to the scene assembling in front of it. A Rushden player strides away, looking back: this is not his act. Still, you have to scrutinise for a moment to pick player from fan. The two intermingle, and any initial hesitation the players may have had is swept away in the delirium of the moment. The gestures of celebration imitate... well, which was first? We are there. We are on the pitch. We are Oxford United.

[Image credit: Steve Daniels/Rage Online, and reproduced here with kind permission]

Seems like... old times

Yellow in Headington again.

Wrexham at home

Sunshine brings Us back to where we were at home to Mansfield

Desire brings results at home to Rushden

(Performances are one thing, but it's all about a mindset now)

Victory at home to Histon beneath constantly shifting skies

Grays 0 - 4 Oxford

The sublime followed by the ridiculous at home to Ebbsfleet

Back on the march at Crawley

Remnants of another time at home to Yeovil in the Cup

(On the outside and looking in, but working on it)

Oxford 5 - 0 Grays

(Is it possible to talk at the moment about this Oxford United squad without sounding messianic?)

History is quietly cast to one side as Oxford win at the Racecourse

Oxford through the looking glass at home to Luton

(Luton show us how we looked three seasons ago)

[Sir John Tenniel's illustration from Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Oxford 4 - 0 Chester

(Sometimes it's hard to see much other than the players on the pitch)

A force of nature at Burton

(How else to explain what has happened to this football club? Now all we can do is watch and wait, witness to things beyond our control and comprehension.)

Woking 0 - 2 Oxford

(Sun shines on United, but the world around starts to loom large over Us)

Time slows at home to Wrexham

(In the final moment the persecuted souls of Oxford supporters cry out, James Constable rises: there is silence, and then thunder.)

[El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]