LITTLEMORE THAN WE EXPECTED

If we’re talking about new stadium locations, we’ve been practically everywhere before. What I mean is, now there’s another stadium plan, it’s a good site, the council should approve… it’s a story we’ve heard too many times before. Why believe it this time?

All previous stadium schemes have generally been supported by contributors to this magazine. I could get the token support bit over with and say yes, I hope we get Minchery Farm. (And if we do, let’s call it Minchery Farm, which sounds great, rather than The New Manor or something even worse than that.) This time, I’m not sure I do. Do we really want the only League ground in the country right next to a sewage works? Ask anyone who’s lived down there – it smells. I don’t fancy spending the next few decades watching football with the aid of respiratory equipment.

Even if it’s a fine idea, which I doubt, there are some difficult questions which Keith Cox and his chums will presumably not bother to answer, as they won’t get ?120 an hour for their trouble. (The Mail probably won’t ask them anyway.)

1. Why did Keith Cox lie to supporters about objections to the Sandy Lane plan? At the meeting in Oxford Museum during the Centenary Exhibition, Cox insisted that there were no serious objections from Arlington or Tesco to the Sandy Lane scheme. When supporters who were professionally in a position to know otherwise said he was wrong, he saw fit to question their motives for saying so. Looks like they were right and he was wrong. An apology might be in order.

2. Why has Minchery Farm only now become a possibility?If it’s a better site than Sandy Lane now, it was a better site than Sandy Lane a year ago. We are not getting the impression of a well-planned relocation campaign, are we? And there’s another point….

3. How much money was spent on the Sandy Lane plan? If cash has been wasted on an unacceptable site when an acceptable one was available, then the Directors have been shamefully careless with the club’s money. So no change there then.

4. Why is this site less open to objection than Sandy Lane? Just because Bill Baker likes it, that’s not really the whole battle won.

The southern end of Blackbird Leys will presumably now take over from the north-west in complaining about the scheme, and we’re getting rather close to Littlemore and Sandford, the latter of which will no doubt play the Garsington role. Indeed we might even be in a position to ruin the view from Garsington itself again.

There’s going to be a traffic problem as having only one road – Grenoble Road – to the ground will hardly allow an easy getaway for thousands of cars. The great Unipart parking scheme is now kaput, and even if there’s a car park, the traffic problem will inhibit people from using it. People know about Wycombe and they’ll find out about Oxford.

Even if there are no further environmental objections, there are as many problems with Minchery Farm as there were with Sandy Lane or Watlington Road.

5. Why were supporters strung along? It’s entirely unacceptable to encourage supporters to write in support of a scheme, to send them out letters from the Manor lacking the slightest hint of a change of plan, and then turn round and say it’s all off. It’s wrong ethically and it’s also wrong because supporters are going to be fed up with being messed around. The more we get messed around, the less we’re going to feel like helping the next time. When Sandy Lane was on, I wrote an article appealing for supporters to get in touch if they wanted to help – this time I can’t be bothered and I doubt if any of you could be bothered to reply.

No doubt I’ll find myself writing to the Mail at the first sign of objections that are either ignorant or hysterical. But neither the scheme, nor the means of going about it, impresses me at all. I’m going to be an armchair supporter on this one.One RB reader and frequent Mail letter-writer from Blackbird Leys told me months ago he reckoned Sandy Lane was all a bluff to get another site. Was he right? I can’t say I’m sure he isn’t. After years of hearing garbage you start believing anything. Or rather, you start believing nothing. Especially if the Board of Oxford United are the people talking to you.

EJH