At last it's over

United finished the season the way they started it, going down 2-1 at home, with Jamie Brooks the Oxford goalscorer. Brooks gave United the lead, twelve minutes into the second half. A fitting reward for the man who swept the boards in the player of the season voting, and it capped a fine spell of football from United, who started the second half on fire. Unfortunately after the goal it all went horribly wrong as goals from Glenn Naylor in the 72nd minute and substitute Mark Sheeran five minutes later gave mid-table Darlington all three points.

Sam Stockley started the game at right back and Simon King made his first start of the season in the left back position. Chris Hackett began the game on the right wing and Dean Whitehead returned to the midfield in place of the released Paul Tait. Paul Moody came back to the starting line-up instead of Andy Scott. A double substitution at half time saw the two wingers, Hackett and Paul Powell, replaced by Scott and Dave Waterman. Twelve minutes from time Jefferson Louis made his United debut when he came on for Dave Savage.

Referee PJ Prosser booked Scott and also sent off Darlo's Mark Ford nine minutes from time for kicking out at Waterman. The attendance was 6,167 and a match report can be found here.

Despite this result United still finished the season in 21st position thanks to Bristol Rovers losing 2-1 at Rochdale, for whom Paul Simpson scored yet again, and Lincoln only drawing 1-1 at Hull. Darlington finished 15th, moving above Exeter who lost 2-0 at home to Hartlepool. Mansfield grabbed the third automatic promotion place thanks to beating Carlisle 2-0 with Cheltenham going down by the same score at Plymouth. Rochdale's victory guaranteed them a play-off spot, as did Rushden & Diamond's 4-2 win at relegated Halifax. The final play-off position was secured by Hartlepool thanks to Shrewsbury losing 2-0 at home to Luton.

In the Second Division Bury and Bournemouth both lost 2-1, at Peterborough and Wrexham, to join the Welshmen and Cambridge in Division Three next season. Reading scraped a 1-1 draw at Brentford to clinch automatic promotion, lucky bastads. In the Conference, with three games still to play, Boston gave themselves a two point advantage over Dagenham & Redbridge by beating Farnborough 4-0, with Mark Angel scoring the second, whilst the Essex boys could only draw 0-0 at Scarborough.