FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.15: EXETER AWAY

A stat (prior to this game) courtesy of “Notts Yellow”

Simon Eastwood has only saved 4 shots at home all season. The running total now is that the opposition have had 11 shots on target and we have conceded 7. Normally it is the first shot in the match.

Without recourse to such information I would have said that Easty has done okay this season. “Okay” performances don’t get a team promotion though. To me it has been clear for a while now that we need to improve our goal-keeping standards and I think many have now cottoned on to this. I’ve got mates who were pointing this out before I was willing to acknowledge it. Eddie McGinty is one for the future, apparently. The here and now is rather important too.

Our opponents

Only three clubs of the 92 are fan owned. Exeter are one with the other two being Wimbledon and Newport currently residing in the bottom half of L2. I covered the lack of financial clout such ownership models provide in the last FV so for Exeter to have achieved what they have and not be in debt is commendable indeed. However logic dictates that further progression is highly unlikely. At least in the short term I think their fans will be happy with L1 survival. I’ve got a Torquay United supporting mate who works in Exeter and that’s what he’s picked up on.

The Exeter City Supporters’ Trust purchased a majority shareholding in September 2003 following their relegation to the Conference with the club in one hell of a mess. The debt was £4.5m. A Company Voluntary Agreement was agreed and creditors got 7p in the pound.

John Russell and Mike Lewis had taken over the Grecians in May 2002 and nearly ruined them for good. This is a classic example of wrong ‘uns getting their hands on football clubs and this was at a time when the collapse of ITV Digital was seeing many go into administration anyway. In March 1999 Russell received a 15 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for obtaining services by deception in a £180k hire-purchase fraud. If that’s not a warning I don’t know what is?

Well, buggering up other football clubs for starters. From March 1994 to 2000 Russell was chairman and owner of Scarborough FC. When they got relegated to the Conference he resigned with the club insolvent and owing £1.25m to creditors.

There was a time apparently when Swansea fans were so angry with Lewis that he feared for his safety. He’d worked in the commercial department at various clubs and ended up at Swansea. The owners wanting to cut their losses sold to Lewis for a quid. He ended up selling it on for a quid to an Aussie based London businessman who flew in, sacked seven players and told another eight their wages were going to be slashed, then flew out again. No surprise when the Swans ended up insolvent with debts of £1.7m.

Soon after Russell and Lewis got together to find another club to screw over. They approached Lincoln but sensibly the Supporters Trust, then owners of the Imps, told them where to go. Exeter were another club in trouble so they went knocking there. This time the outcome was different. The majority owner and chairman, 77 year old Ivor Doble, a local jeweller, wanted a way out. He’d loaned Exeter City £483k and desperate for a solution did a deal with Russell and Lewis.

In 2007 Russell pleaded guilty at Bristol Crown Court to obtaining a pecuniary advantage having dishonestly obtained membership of the board of ECFC by substantially representing that he had substantial funds to introduce to the club”. He got a 21 month sentence and Lewis was given 200 hours community service.

They didn’t have a pot to piss in. Throw in Uri Geller, appointed as Russell’s co-chairman, Michael Jackson (yes that one) as “honorary director” and David Blaine performing a concert to raise money for the club and the craziness appears to know no bounds. Makes our short Ramon Diaz period look positively normal.

This may all be from about 20 years ago but it still makes sombre reading even though the fit and proper test for directors is now in place.  As an economy Russell and Lewis dispensed with the services of Nat West to count the gate money and Securicor to deposit it. Instead they did this themselves. There’s still some very dodgy characters around but I doubt this could happen now. Way too blatant.

Exeter’s accounts, “for a small company” for the year up to 30 June 2021 (a period fully hit by covid restrictions) provide the following information:

Turnover was £2.37m. In the previous period it had been £4.55m

Cost of sales was £3.86m, admin expenses were £1.45m.

Other operating income totalled £1.53m which included grants and donations of £1.14m and £313k from the covid retention scheme (previous year £370k).

This gave an operating loss of £1.42m but player transfer fees brought in £4.95m.

After tax they were left with a profit of £2.9m which increased the figure on the balance sheet to £4.56m

That Exeter are currently able to live within their means I would think is down to them not having the biggest salary budget around and their strategy of developing young players and selling them on after they’ve shone in the first team . They got £1.8m from Brentford for Ollie Watkins in 2017 and about £4.5m when he was sold on to Villa. Fees of over £1m have also been received for Matt Grimes, Ethan Ampadu and Joel Randall.

Exeter spent five years in the Conference. Always quite close to a return to League football, never finishing below 7^th, they got promoted via the play-offs in 2007/08 beating Cambridge at Wembley. The previous year they’d been beaten finalists. We know how painful their semi-final win was that year.

They went up again at the first time of asking, finishing second, but only survived three seasons. Then ten years in L2 followed with this being their first season back up a level. They finished second with the same points as champions Forest Green Rovers, a team they firmly put in their place at the end of September with a 4-0 win in Gloucestershire.

This season the league table tells that our opponents have been better than us. In complete contrast to us they’ll be happy with where they are. They’re 8^th and just outside the play-off places with seven more points than us. But however down I am with what’s happened on the pitch to date there’s usually always a crazy bit of hope if you look hard enough, ignore reality and play around with some numbers. We’ve got two games in hand on Exeter. Six points from those, along with a win at St James Park and we would be two points above them. Fact.

Exeter have recently suffered from the spinning of the managerial merry-go-round too. Paul Warne, Rotherham to Derby on 27 September. A week later Matt Taylor, Exeter to Rotherham. Caretakers Kevin Nicholson and Jon Hill are temporarily in charge. Can’t do us any harm.

Also their recent form has been pretty crap – not that we should be pointing any fingers. They lost 4-2 at Charlton on Tuesday. In their previous five home league fixtures they’ve scored just three goals. Like us they’ve mostly been playing the poorer sides. The results in those games were as follows: Lost to Cheltenham (19^th) 1-0, drew with Accrington (13^th) 0-0, beat MK Dons (22^nd) 1-0, lost to Burton (23^rd) 2-0 and drew 2-2 with Bristol Rovers (15^th).

I keep thinking there’s no way should we be losing to sides like this and then we do. That’s why we’re near the bottom of the league going in to this one. So please, not again.

  Exeter City 2 Oxford United 4

Circumstances dictated that this was the third time this season that I’ve used the LRC coaches to get to an away game. I again feel obliged to say what a great service and value for money it is.

Travelling in such a fashion provides a very different experience to going by train or car. Usually it’s being shipped in, dropped off quite close to the away turnstiles and picked up at the same place a couple of minutes after the final whistle. There’s no time to get into a city or town centre and sense the vibe of the whole area not just what’s going on around the football ground.

Alighting right outside the St James Terrace at about two o’clock there was time for a couple of beers. The GBG listed Bowling Green in Blackboy Road is no more than a five minute walk away. There were a handful of Oxford fans in there but as one would expect mostly Exeter. Friendly enough bar staff but they could have done with more of them. It was a bit of a wait to get served.

There was a small drinking area out the back. One small group of home fans was introducing mates to other mates with one clearly not a regular attendee. “What have you done to deserve this?” another asked. So, some of them don’t rate their team. Nice.

At another table were half a dozen youths. It’s difficult not to overhear some conversations. One held up a watch. “How much? Name a price”. Five hundred was then mentioned. Nothing to do with me but I would have loved to have said: and where did you get that watch young man?  Then it was, “if you buy a Rolex for sixteen thousand pounds it will have gone up in value as soon as you walk out the shop”.  I wasn’t picking up any football vibe from them.

For the second pint we decided to try the “Exeter City Football Club Centrespot Bar” which allegedly served real ale and cider. It’s the club bar at the ground with an outside bar on match days too. Away fans welcome “as long as you don’t fight” said a steward, laughing. We laughed too. We didn’t fight. Couldn’t find any real ale in the outside bar though. The Shipyard IPA keg, even though obviously served in plastic, was fine. The area was crowded with home fans and many pints were being consumed. At £4.50 a pop, not bad. Again, we’ve had nothing like this at Oxford since the Priory was closed and left to rot. Scandalous.

There’s a first for many things in football. Prior to this game we’d not scored more than two goals in a game. Being 3-0 up at half time, even though I know we don’t keep clean sheets, I was totally convinced that another first of the season – us conceding more than two in a game – wouldn’t happen so the three points were ours.

Not long into the second half seeing a mass exodus of home fans when we got our fourth was as reassuring as it gets, not that reassurance was needed. What kind of supporters are they?

Supporters who chanted, “You’re shit” at Easty when he was without doubt the better of the two keepers. In the stand just to our left on the terraces were a group of primary school age kids presumably on an organised trip with the under 10 team they play for. It was the shrillest version of “who are you?” I’ve ever heard. Quite funny at first but then verged on the tiresome. Hope it helped them enjoy their day out.

In those first 45 minutes we were so much better in so many areas than we have been. We were passing better, controlling the ball better and thus controlling the game. We were moving it quicker and going forward more instead of sterile sideways backward stuff and obviously as the score line tells, finishing better. Exeter were unable to stop us whilst most of the time we had them shackled and were nicking possession from them every now and again to set an attack off.

We had a chance very early on when the ever willing Kyle Joseph got on the end of a long ball and set up James Henry but our no. 17 didn’t appear to strike it properly and it went just wide. Or perhaps he was going more for accuracy than power and was just a little off. Given the standard of our shooting last week it was probably too easy to judge.

We didn’t take long to find the back of the net though. Exeter were playing the ball about midway in their own half. We were harrying. First Joseph then Cameron Brannagan who blocked an attempted pass and the ball was turned over. It was picked up by Ciaron Brown who played a first time pass forward to his almost namesake, Marcus. Skill then really came to the fore. A quick turn, the beating of a defender and then the fouling that stops skill in its tracks. A shirt pull. Referee Thomas Kirk did not miss it. The correct punishment was duly administered. Free-kick and yellow card and then the goal. Brannagan to Matty Taylor, the ball stopped dead with the taker running on to it and hitting it low along the ground as the wall did the instinctive jump. With no draft excluder employed the power and accuracy had Jamal Blackman well beaten.

There have been times this season where CB has been below the standard he has previously set but it shouldn’t be overlooked that this was his fifth league goal already in the 2022/23 season.

Our second goal also came after another free-kick. When Henry burst into our opponents half he was taken down although his tackler might well have got a bit of the ball at the same time. Instead of crossing the dead ball Henry clipped it wide to Brannagan who came inside, ran across his marker and fired a shot which Blackman could only paw back into the danger area. Poor goal-keeping but we didn’t care. A stooping header from Elliot Moore sent the ball to his left where Sam Long was stood with an empty goal just in front of him. Probably offside, but again don’t care. If a team is playing the football and on top these things tend to go for them.

Our third with the half almost up was another goal that came from us stealing the ball. Brown stuck a toe in when a striped shirt partially mis-controlled and stumbled sending the ball to Joseph. No messing, he just ran forward with the ball covering at least a quarter of the length of the pitch and when he arrived at the end of the area put a low shot accurately into the goal with a couple of inches to spare.

It wasn’t just the goals that made the first half so satisfying. The defenders defended and that provides a solid base. The back line were all winning their headers, especially Moore. Long was having a very good game even before he scored. When needed the midfielders did the covering necessary to help out. I particularly noted Marcus McGuane in this regard.

With still only 54 minutes on the clock it got even better. A tackle from Browne near the half way line won the ball from Matt Jay as Exeter were given no time to play. Brannagan drove goalwards and despite being caught, limped on a stride or two and got the ball to Henry whose shot Blackman went down low to keep out. That didn’t prevent a goal though because Joseph reacted quickest and netted from the tightest of angles. That’s four league goals for him from eight starts now which isn’t bad in a team that’s not been firing on many cylinders.

From here on in instead of just seeing the game out or going on to score more we soon seemed to fade a little. Of course overall I was very pleased with this display but quite disappointed that we did not keep that elusive clean sheet which can do wonders for confidence.

Our energy levels seemed to drop and I didn’t understand why KR didn’t make any substitutions until the 82^nd minute.

Exeter began to get some space down our right where there had previously been none. I’d just made a comment on this when a goal came from that area of the pitch. When they got the ball into the box we weren’t tight enough on our men and a deflection did for us.

The second “consolation” goal came in added time and this was a total cock up. I place blame squarely with Stuart Findlay. Just hoof the bloody ball away, don’t just stop. That should have happened even if Eastwood had made a call because our keeper was never going to get there. If there had been a call though then blame has to be shared. Thankfully this sloppiness didn’t cost us any points but on another day against a better team in a tight game it very easily could have.

Looking at the names on our bench made for positive reading. Sam Baldock, who we didn’t get to see and Josh Murphy who we did. The latter only came on in the 88^th minute but had a lively cameo role setting up Alex Gorrin for a chance that was easier to score than miss but he did the latter. AG didn’t seem to get the pace of the game in the short time he was on.

Now that most players are fit or getting there competition for places is only going to get fiercer. If players aren’t producing they won’t be in. Taylor is in need of a goal and may be one of those under threat of being benched. When I look back on his current performances what I usually remember is a touch here and there with very little influence on the game and also lots of off-sides.

With this win under our belts I suspect many Oxford fans will be looking forward to the visit of Peterborough next Saturday much more than would otherwise be the case.

Before we played Exeter I talked myself into believing we had a good chance of winning. The same stats can apply to Posh. They’re flying high in fifth position with 22 points from 14 games. We’ve only got 14 points but have played two fewer games. Beating them and winning those two extra games would give us 23 points. Away from home they’ve already lost five.