Two more of United's new opponents for next season have been decided, following the play-off finals for Conferences South and North. In the southern section, our old FA Cup friends from last season, Hayes & Yeading United, beat fellow West Londoners Hampton & Richmond 3-2, after being 2-1 down. Although United have played at the Warren before for a pre-season friendly in 2005, the merged team play their home games at Hayes (for now; they plan to relocate to Yeading's ground at the end of next season). Hayes & Yeading play at Hayes' old ground in Church Road. The ground has a capacity of 4,730, with 500 seats.

In the northern version, AFC Telford were beaten 1-0 at Gateshead this evening, earning United a hellishly long-distance away trip some Tuesday night in February, probably. United have never met Gateshead before, although former Oxford youth-team player Gary Silver played for Gateshead after United threw him on the scrapheap. Gateshead play at the Gateshead International Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 11,750 and will almost certainly be the first ground with a running track that United have played at since Stamford Bridge in 1991. Like Hayes & Yeading, which was formed in May 2007, Gateshead is a relatively new club, created in 1977 out of the ashes of Gateshead United, which itself was a phoenix club, replacing Gateshead AFC in 1973.

More newsworthy was the announcement today that Chris Wilder has signed a new three-year contract. This is a welcome move, promising some stability to a club that has gone through managers with alarming frequency over the past decade. Of course, there are no guarantees in football, but at least if some big club like Burton tries to snaffle away Wilder some compensation would be due. Good work from the chairman dude there. It seems implausible that Rage Online would actually wish to not only praise, but support, an Oxford United chairhuman, given our track record, but we can't help but be impressed by Kelvin Thomas and we sincerely hope that these sentiments don't come back to bite us on our virtual arses.