Finnegan's awake

A fine goal after 16 minutes from John Finnigan gave Cheltenham a lead they never looked like losing in United's first league game at Whaddon Road. This was added to in first half injury time by Mike Duff as the home side controlled the game in their attempts to gain automatic promotion to Division Two. Cheltenham goalie Book didn't have a shot to save in the first half, and only Jamie Brooks forced him to block as United gave a dismal performance, in keeping with this entire dismal season, which is now indisputably our worst since joining the league 40 years ago.

United started with Dave Morley at right back and Sam Ricketts as left back, with Andy Scott up front alongside Jamie Brooks. A double substitution after 62 minutes saw Chris Hackett replace Paul Tait and Scott Guyett getting a rare opportunity to play, coming into midfield to replace Dave Waterman. With twelve minutes remaining Paul Moody came on for Paul Powell in a desperate attempt to rescue something from this farcical performance.

Referee AN Butler, who was so kind to us when we beat Halifax 6-1, booked three Oxford players, Tait seeing yellow in the opening minute for kicking the ball away, with Scott and Dave Savage joining him later. The official attendance was announced as 7,013, which is odd as the official capacity of Whaddon Road is just 6,550. Match report, by our usual reporter, available here.

United remain in 21st position, but cannot finish any higher than 18th following (our previous lowest finish in 1963 and 1964). Cheltenham have now regained third place following Mansfield's 3-1 defeat at York, for whom Lee Nogan scored the equaliser. Rochdale are still in with a shout of automatic promotion despite only drawing 1-1 at lowly Lincoln, Paul Simpson scoring for Dale. Plymouth are back on top of the Third after winning 2-0 at Carlisle whilst Luton could only manage a 0-0 draw at home to Macclesfield to end their run of 12 straight victories. Bristol Rovers also drew, 1-1 with Hull, which means that United could still finish 91st should results go that way in the next week.

In Division Two Bury look almost certain to join Cambridge and Wrexham in relegation, as they lost 1-3 at home to Colchester to leave themselves three points from safety but with an appalling goal difference and just one game to play. Bournemouth and Notts County are the other two teams in contention. In the Conference Boston went back to the top on goal difference after winning 2-1 at Leigh RMI. Dagenham & Redbridge won at Doncaster last night to temporarily regain pole position.