By Mark Gelder Tonight Oxford United welcome Stevenage FC for their first league visit to the Kassam Stadium.  Oxford have a good home record against the Boro, with three wins and a draw.  Last Saturday, United ended their run of three straight defeats with a 2-1 victory against Port Vale, despite going behind to a first half penalty.  Jack Midson had an easy tap-in from a strong Alfie Potter shot that the goalkeeer could only parry away, and Harry Worley scored a good goal from just outside the six yard area. 

That match was at the 114 x 76 yards 'Wembley of the North', and United used the width to play Hackney and Potter out on the wings with Midson up front in the midlle.  The Kassam Stadium is 115 x 71, so slightly narrower, but still a bit bigger than Boro's 111.5 x 70 yards pitch.  In the away fixture at a muddy and wet Broadhall Way exactly one month ago, the two sides fought out a Nil-Nil draw, despite both teams going close with shots against the woodwork. 

Last match out, Boro scored a one-nil away victory over Wycombe Wanderers, however defender Scott Laird was sent off for two yellow cards and will be suspended tonight.  They have a couple of other doubtful players in Jon Ashton, Joel Byrom and Taiwo Atieno. 

For United, Tonkin will be available again after his one match suspension, however after the performance on Saturday when there were seven changes he may have to stay on the bench.  Apparently in a post-match interview Chairman Kelvin Thomas said that the rested players would be thinking “####!, when will I get a chance again?”

The Yellows start the game in ninth on 50 points, five points outside of the play-offs with ten games to play.  Boro have played a game less and are on 48, and it seems both teams can forget about relegation battles for this season, and will need an exceptional run in to make the play-offs.

The 'Boro tea break' in which one player feigns injury so that the rest can take on refreshments and tactics on 30 minutes is now infamous throughout the league, with a letter appearing in the Football League paper the other week.  The other fact which we like to remind the Boro of is their away attendance from a 3pm Saturday afternoon fixture on 20 December 2008, when only 86 visited.  The Boro fans thereafter created the 86 club to commemorate those loyal supporters, and ran up a limited edition (86 naturally) of badges too.   
[@opponent]Stevenage[/@opponent]
[@connection]Stevenage[/@connection]