Moore than enough

Oxford's groundsman Mick Moore has left the club after seventeen years as groundsman, during which time United have played in all four divisions and Mick won the Groundsman of the Year award in 1998/99. Moore has got a job at St. John's College, Oxford where, presumably, the students are used to a higher standard of grass.

Mick claims that, having successfully bedded in the new pitch at the Kassam Stadium, he needs a new challenge and it appears that his leaving is far more amicable than the furore surrounding Joey Beauchamp. Moore's successor has yet to be announced but, whoever it is, they will have a tough act to follow. At least Moore, by staying in Oxford, could be available for advice.

Boston bottom

Boston United will be starting their first season as a league club four points adrift of the rest of the division. The Conference champions were docked four points and fined £100,000 for contractual irregularities (paying their players backhanders, basically) by a Football League tribunal today. Boston could, in theory, have faced expulsion from the League, but that might have opened up a whole can of worms regarding Halifax and Dagenham (which is not, by the way, the name of a new merged club). Presumably Boston's biggest sin was getting caught, as it's unlikely that this is an isolated incident.

In an unrelated story Nigerian James Okoli, who had a brief, non-playing trial with United at the start of last season, is having a trial with York City. Okoli made five appearances for Motherwell last season.