Oxford City vs Rochdale at Court Place Farm doesn’t have quite the same ring as Chelsea vs Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, but last Saturday’s match was important all the same.
At this level, you feel part of the match, which never happens in an executive box at the Emirates
‘The Hoops’, Oxford’s oldest football club, founded in 1882 when Gladstone was prime minister and Old Etonians won the FA Cup, were playing their first ever home game in the fifth tier of English football. Rochdale, whose 102-year membership of the Football League ended in May, were playing their first away game in the Vanarama National League. Seven hundred and eighty-one of us, including a spirited contingent from Lancashire, turned up to see the clash of the two sides and ‘The Dale’ claim a 1-0 victory with a 71st-minute goal. It was a far cry from the heavyweight battle at the Bridge at the weekend, but it was wonderful.
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