An enjoyable afternoon in Aldershot, which makes a change from Tuesday night cup games. Oxford
winning 3-0 with first half goals from JPP, Duberry and Leven. Pre-match pub predictions from me were a 4-0 victory and also for Duberry to score, so I put £2.50 on the first at 66/1, and £5 on the second at 16/1. Good old Dubes didn't let me down, but second half we were all urging on the 4th goal, and Deane Smalley's late ricochet off the bar was costly.
£17 for the terrace seems fairly steep compared to say Hereford,
Macclesfield prices. In the Aldershot programme they talk about that FA Cup 3rd round
game in 1987, when Oxford were top flight visitors to Division 4 Aldershot (we lost 3-0). The Shots raised the price to £9 instead of the normal £3, and these days that would be like paying £50 or £60 if a Premier League side came to our ground - but
the Shots did keep prices sensible for Man United in the Carling Cup this
season. Apparently that FA Cup game holds the record for the lowest
ever FA Cup 3rd round attendance.
It was sad to see a few fans kicked out before even getting in for drink, and
several others having an impromptu picnic with cans of lager on the
grass banks outside the turnstiles before the game.
JPP seems revitalised and showed why he was signed in the first place.
I'm not convinced that Wilder wants him back long term and first thought
he was given game time to put him in the shop window. However he
deserved his start and goal. Also rewarded with his own song - not
original, as Celtic and Liverpool use it too, but "I Just Can't Get
Enough" by Depeche Mode / The Saturdays (depending on your age).
Also a fairly new Duberry song ["In our defensive foursome, he's absolutely awesome, we signed him from St Johnstone, he's Michael Duberry", to the Adams Family theme], and of course the Marvin Morgan song
too [MM had tweeted a year ago that he wished Aldershot fans who had booed him off the pitch were dead, so everytime we play Aldershot (or Shrewsbury now), we sing "He wants you all dead, He wants you all dead, Marvin Morgan, He wants you all dead"]. I wonder if any other clubs picked up on this, the Shots fans must
find it bizarre over a year later to still be reminded of it.
Towards the end of the game, their fans had obviously given up caring,
cheering every touch their players made, and of course cheering pretend
goals.
United fans replied back in song after each pretend goal "3-1 to the Oxford Boys", then "3-2 to the Oxford Boys", but the Shots fans didn't even sing enough pretend goals to get back into the match
The ground has a posh new £17K full colour LED scoreboard too. Funded by the Shots Trust. I didn't think these were supposed to keep counting after the 90 minutes though, as we got to see all 4 minutes of added time counted on. Hopefully the LEDs are high quality, as it seems that Aldershot 0 may become burned in otherwise.
