[FM15] Raising Cain

21 February 2015 – Oxford United (13-7-11, 9th place) v Mansfield Town (12-7-11, 11th place)
Sky Bet League Two Match Day #32 – The Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Referee: Kevin Johnson

The last time Oxford had played at home, 9,000 fans had come to watch the draw with Luton.

This time, it was different.

The front office estimated 5,300 tickets had been sold for the matchup with the Stags, and while that was 2,000 better than before Kyle’s arrival, it was just over half what it had been just two weeks ago.

Moral of the story: win at home.

The XI was unchanged after the near-immaculate result against Burton. There was no reason to change it after such a solid team performance.

The old rule about never changing a winning eleven certainly applied here, especially with a full week between matches. Kyle would have had to have been an idiot to do so.

So it was that the Stags got their turn to try their luck against one of League Two’s hottest teams. It was an important match – Kyle’s men led in the table by three points but the Stags had a match in hand at midweek. Staying ahead of them was vital for obvious reasons.

It took two minutes for the visitors to show they meant business, as Junior Brown barely missed connecting with a free header from an early Stags corner. That was worrying. Henry Jones and Alex Fisher had half chances moments later – well, actually Fisher’s was more of a heart-in-throat full chance which Clarke palmed over the bar – and Kyle was up and off the bench early to try to encourage his troops.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Consecutive corners for Oxford in ten minutes helped restore some order and kept the ball in the opponents’ third for a few minutes while the team got its feet under them. Mansfield had come out very strong.

Their chances were also better. They were playing a simple 4-4-2 but to perfection, and Kyle’s men were having all kinds of trouble holding them back in the midfield. Finally, in 22 minutes, Hoban got a shot on target, forcing Swiss goalkeeper Sascha Studer into a save – however comfortable – that was the first sign of real life from the home team.

Then, Oxford smashed and grabbed, with Maddison going down under a heavy challenge from Max Clark just outside the Stags area, but managing to pass the ball back to O’Dowda on the left. The youngster looked up and threaded a ball to Hoskins, playing with his back to goal at the top of the area, with defender Ryan Tafazolli overplaying his left hip.

It was the easiest thing in the world for the striker to turn the defender and race to his left, leaving the defender behind and Studer hung out to dry. Hoskins’ eighth goal of the season made it 1-0 to Oxford in 26 minutes – a lead against the run of play and hardly what that play had deserved.

The five thousand faithful had been fed with the footballing equivalent of five loaves of bread and two fish, and somehow the Us got to halftime still leading by a goal to nil.

Yet in football, they don’t ask how, just how many, and Kyle well knew it.

“Fellows, that wasn’t awful, but you know as well as I do that there’s much better in you,” he said. “Show me that there’s better and let’s take some points today.”

The first half was actually bad enough that Wright stood and lit into his teammates a bit and Kyle let the captain speak his mind. He wasn’t actually a rah-rah sort of changing room leader, so this was highly unusual behavior for him.

Kyle watched with interest as Wright did the captain’s duty. He seemed excited, into the match and most importantly, willing to lead his fellows.

Maybe it was the good run of form. Maybe it was something else. Wright was willing to motivate his teammates and nothing but good could come of that.

The second half started rather tentatively. It was Grimshaw who got the first good chance of the second half, barely missing the top right corner of Studer’s goal with a long drive from over thirty yards that surprised everyone, including the shooter, with its placement.

Five minutes after the restart the Stags went to their bench, with Rakish Bingham replacing the ineffective Alex Fisher leading the line. Six minutes after the restart, the crowd was showing its appreciation for a great body save by Clarke on the substitute, who had nearly scored the equalizer on his first touch.

Then it was Matty Blair coming right back at the Us, steering a rebound of Liam Agnew’s shot agonizingly wide of Clarke’s right post. This was alarming stuff to see from a team that had been challenged to up its ideas. Oxford appeared to have fewer of them than they had had before being challenged.

Henry Jones pulled up lame chasing after a long punt from Max Clark a few minutes later, forcing Adam Murray into his second substitution.

Off went Jones, on came Chris Clements, and Oxford showed its disdain by scoring a second goal.

It came from a set piece, with Hoskins the taker to the right of the goal. His ball into the middle was scuffed, and rolled right to Agnew.

Who missed it completely.

There on the other end was MacDonald, who gleefully volleyed past a horrified Studer for two-nil to the home team and that seemed more than good enough.

Kyle prepared for his usual substitution pattern, looking for tired legs among the defensively-minded players, now that the points were in the bag.

The only people who didn’t believe that were wearing Mansfield’s colors, and most specifically, their number 22, Matty Blair.

The match passed 75 minutes, and then Blair took over. It came on a counter as Oxford held the ball in the Mansfield third. Vadaine Oliver had the ball and pushed it forward for Bingham outside the Oxford penalty area. Both the Oxford centerbacks and a full back, Grimshaw, all converged on the ball – leaving no one to mark Blair. He swooped in, freed up the ball and was in alone on Clarke to make it 2-1 in 76 minutes.

“That’s ridiculous,” Kyle fumed as the crowd reacted in the manner you’d have expected. There had been absolutely no communication on the goal and Kyle saw the need for changes.

Off came Ssewankambo, who was dead in the legs, and Grimshaw, who was evidently dead from the neck up. They were replaced by Whing and Bevans – but Kyle didn’t change to two holders to protect the lead.

He thought he could gain possession deep in the standard alignment, and was shown to be incorrect four minutes later when Agnew slipped the mark of Whing and fed substitute Ricky Ravenhill on the right, with the defense covering the middle. Ravenhill’s ball forward found Blair, who had turned Potts, and the rest was history.

So, unfortunately, was the 2-nil lead, in 80 minutes.

The double strike had changed everything and in a way Kyle was glad he hadn’t changed alignments since to find a winner now, two strikers would have been preferred.

But as Mansfield pressed forward for a third, Kyle lost his nerve. He brought on Rose for Hoskins in 87 minutes and had Hoban lead a 4-2-3-1 line. It was time to play turtle, as they say in boxing, and while Mansfield didn’t get a winner, Kyle’s Oxford never looked like scoring.

Oxford United: Clarke: Grimshaw (Bevans 76), Dunkley, Wright, Potts, Ssewankambo (Whing 76), MacDonald, Maddison, O’Dowda, Hoskins (Rose 87), Hoban. Unused subs: Ashdown, Ashby, Long, Godden.

Oxford United 2 (Hoskins 26, MacDonald 63)
Mansfield Town 2 (Matty Blair 76, 80)
H/T: 1-0
A – 5,317, Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Man of the Match – Matty Blair, Mansfield (MR 8.8)

“Judas H. Priest on horseback, what were you lot playing at out there?”

Kyle wasn’t happy, but he knew that part of the fault for the third home draw in the last five matches lay with him.

His failure to change tactics to preserve the lead was indeed a part of Vic’s sharp questioning after the match, and he said what he had thought at the time, that this group of players was good enough to hold the lead in the standard 4-1-3-2 alignment.

“We didn’t do our marking responsibilities very well,” he said. “We have three defenders all closing on the ball and nobody marking the goal scorer on their first one and on the second, our fullback gets caught too far up the pitch and we don’t close the central midfielder. They had time and space and that’s not a good combination for us.”

“Well, would a second holding midfielder have helped?” Vic was pushing hard, and Kyle didn’t want to have to push back, but he had some explaining to do.

“When you mark like that you can play ten holding midfielders and it won’t help,” Kyle said. “But it’s probably true that a shift to a defensive mentality might have helped. I just genuinely believed we could score a third goal and put the match to bed.”

“So you were too aggressive?”

“I was aggressive in the sense that I felt these players could win the match and I showed faith in the system we are teaching them to play,” Kyle replied. “If there is fault to be found, fine, blame it on me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Do you think that this result will harm the team heading to Portsmouth next week?”

That was the problem for Kyle. A trip to the south coast to take on the league leaders was next, with the team sputtering in front of its own goal and the fantastic run of form of early in his tenure dried up.

“I don’t think so,” he answered after taking a sip of water. “These players have been the best eleven in League Two since I got here and they will know what they need to do to get a win. We’ve beaten the second and third-placed teams since I got here and we drew the fourth-placed team. So I think we can hang in there with them, anyway.”

“Let’s be optimistic,” Vic said, and Kyle had to smile.

“That’s not your job,” he said disarmingly. The reporter laughed. It was good that she could see humor, which was brought about by winning.

“I’m serious, Kyle,” the reporter said. “You’ve actually been a better away side in recent weeks. Since you’re playing away, that seems to be a help. Why do you suppose that is the case?”

“I’m trying to put a finger on that,” he responded, taking a second sip of water. Suddenly, his throat felt dry. Explaining failure had never been an easy thing for Kyle.

“If I had to guess, and it’s only a guess now, I’d say that these players are trying so hard to please the increased crowds we’re seeing in recent weeks that they’re pressing a bit too hard. I’m seeing players who mean well trying to do too much. Take their first goal, for example. Everyone on the back line wanted to make the play, and that’s good. But they all wanted to do it at the same time, and that’s bad.”

“So they’re trying too hard?”

Kyle knew he was treading on dangerous ground and so he tried to choose his words carefully.

“I am not publicly accusing my players because they’ve been quite brilliant,” Kyle said. “But any professional wants to do well with the supporters cheering and chanting their names. That’s human nature. Everyone wants to hear the cheers. When we learn how to deal with that, we’ll be just fine.”

Kyle returned to his office to watch video and check up on the news, which showed that Exeter City had sacked Paul Tisdale with the Grecians sinking to 22nd in the table. Another week, another casualty, it seemed.

And his old club had a new boss too. Leyton Orient had hired its caretaker, Marcello Donatelli, as its manager. Orient held down 15th place in League One and, though safe from relegation, nobody in the organization liked where the club was headed.

“Good for them,” Kyle thought. “Maybe we’ll play you someday in a meaningful match.”

“This is a club that will bury you if you don’t mind yourselves in our third.”

Kyle wanted to make a point to his team at training and he chose the dramatic route. So far, it seemed to be working.

The Us had spent two solid days working on nothing but defensive positioning in training. Kyle just didn’t like what he had seen in those five horrific minutes against Mansfield and was doing his best to encourage his players to avoid a repeat.

“This match is all about focus and concentration,” Kyle said, walking up and down the rows of players as they did their initial stretching exercises. When they switched to dynamic stretching, it was much harder to have a captive audience.

The emphasis Kyle had placed on attack had meant the team might well leave openings at the back, which meant the back four all had to be smart enough to know how to handle counterattacking teams. Yet both of Mansfield’s goals had resulted from members of the back four all having brainlock at the same moment – and that would cause additional problems down the road if not corrected.

The worst of it was that Kyle could see Portsmouth doing to his team what Mansfield had done. No disrespect to the Stags, but Portsmouth was top for a reason.

Kyle’s fear was that other managers, who reviewed video with at least the same nearly-religious fervor as he did, would see the issue and exploit it. It was Kyle’s job to get his players on the same page before a club like Portsmouth wrecked their day.

Pompey, the former Premiership club, had fallen on ridiculously hard financial times during the chairmanship of Alexandre Gaydamak and suffered the humiliation of three relegations in four years in 2010, 2012 and 2013 thanks in part to losing twenty-nine standings points through administrations and Football League penalties.

Despite their misfortunes, the south coast club was having a very good season and was clearly in pole position for automatic promotion back to League One. That would salvage a bit of the club’s pride.

The other news of the week was reserve striker John Campbell suggesting, and Kyle agreeing, to terminate the player’s contract. Since coming back from injury in January the player had yet to feature, and at a salary of £41k per annum that was a waste of Eales’ money. So, for a fraction of that fee, the parties came to a solution.

“Wish I had had that solution at Torquay,” Kyle mused to himself as he drove home that day.

That said, releasing a striker even on the fringes of the first team was a calculated risk. Hylton was still at least two months away from a return to action so that left Godden, the youth teamers and emergency striker Callum O’Dowda as the options if anything else went wrong.

Kyle’s preference for two strikers might have had to take a back seat to expediency if any more injuries hit the team. Skarz was still at least a month away from a return to action and Mullins’ broken wrist would need at least another month to heal.

The short-term hit to finances for releasing Campbell wasn’t great, but the long-term saving in salary would pay for it. He hadn’t gotten that much consideration when he was let go, and he was happy that he had done the best he could for the player. Unemployment was never a fun thing to think about.

Yet as Campbell left the training ground for the last time, he looked happy. That seemed odd to Kyle. For him, leaving was a sign of failure and defeat.

He didn’t understand the emotion.

28 February 2015 – Portsmouth (20-8-4, 1st place) v Oxford United (13-8-11, 10th place)
Sky Bet League Two Match Day #33 – Fratton Park, Portsmouth
Referee: Phil Gibbs

It was the start of a big week for Kyle Cain’s Oxford.

The Saturday trip to the south coast to face the league leaders was the start of a stretch of three matches in eight days as the end of the league season now loomed in sight.

Following Pompey was Morecambe at home followed by a trip to the northwest to face Bury at Gigg Lane. So there was plenty to play for, with the playoff places in sight and some difficult fixtures ahead.

None of them, however, were more difficult in League Two than this one.

Kyle stepped onto the grounds of what was once known as “Fortress Fratton”, looking to the east to see the old Milton End, the smallest of the ground’s four stands, and knew that was where the visiting support was going to wind up. Once the only roofless stand in the Premier League, the Milton End, or the Apollo Stand according to its sponsors, awaited about a thousand supporters expected to make the trip south.

If that seemed like a lot, well, it was. That was about twenty percent of the gate for a typical Oxford home match these days and Kyle wanted to perform well for them.

The rest of the place was going to be dominated by the locals, of course, and being top of the table Portsmouth were drawing quite well.

The team talk was brief.

“Those are the league leaders you’re about to play. You can beat this team if you will only play like you can. But be loose out there. Have fun. You aren’t fancied to win, even though we all know you can. Play your game. Work hard for each other and go make this a special day.”

Once the match started, Kyle noted with some satisfaction that the home team was showing some respect for his lads.

They came out in 4-4-2, as they had done all season, but the leaders were wary of the threat Oxford posed on both wings. They sharply closed both O’Dowda and MacDonald, meaning Maddison had space in the center of the park to work with Ssewankambo.

For Kyle, that seemed fine. On his day, the teenager was already among the best at his spot in League Two and he could run the show just fine with space in which to operate.

The first ten minutes were halting and tentative, with Hoskins played through nicely by Maddison only to shoot wide of Paul Jones’ goal seven minutes into the match.

The match was a homecoming for Ashdown, who had the opportunity to face the club for which he had featured forty times in the Premiership and 67 more times in the Championship, and he had the chance to rub his former club’s nose in it by robbing leading scorer Matt Tubbs when the striker was played through on goal three minutes later.

After a slow start, it looked like the defenses were going to take a holiday in this one, but then Jed Wallace went close for Pompey and suddenly the pitch seemed slanted from west to east, with the Us working uphill.

Potts gave away a free kick in thirteen minutes only to see Jack Whatmough miss Ashdown’s left post by inches, and Kyle started to shift a bit nervously from side to side in his chair. A certain amount of pressure from the home team was to be expected, but the whole idea of absorbing a push was to eventually push back, and that wasn’t what Kyle was seeing.

In 23 minutes, though, James Dunne scythed down Maddison in front of God, everybody and referee Phil Gibbs, who put Dunne into his book. That seemed to give Oxford a bit of life, and seven minutes later they were celebrating as Hoskins got the ball deep to the left and squared into the six-yard box. There he found Hoban, and the Barn D’Or winner didn’t miss this time, heading home with some verve to get Oxford off to the lead with fifteen minutes left in the first half.

It was like someone had turned on a switch under the Oxford bench, with the Us substitutes, coaches and support staff all leaping to their feet at once as the ball flashed home.

The lead was as pleasant as it was unexpected. Fully awakened now, Pompey stormed back only for Dunne to thunder a left-footed drive squarely off Ashdown’s right goalpost two minutes later. That got Kyle to the touchline almost without his feet touching the ground, with a slightly revised set of instructions for the back four that included “get a body on these guys” as a key component.

The highlight of the remainder of the first half was Dunkley getting caught in possession by Jed Wallace, a defender playing too far forward, and then forcing Ashdown into a save for a corner. It would have been comedic if it wasn’t so infuriating to Kyle. Dunkley had had a significant lapse in concentration and only the keeper had saved his blushes.

A one-nil lead at halftime was nearly made of gold in this circumstance and Kyle gave his players the inevitable talk at the break: good job, don’t let up.

“You’ve done a great job keeping them away from Paddy,” he said. “On this pitch especially, that’s great work. Now you have 45 more minutes to go. Remember to play hard for each other and keep working hard. You can make a real statement today.”

Veteran defender Paul Robinson was introduced at the break, perhaps a bit of a curious substitution on the surface, but Kyle simply figured his presence would allow others to move forward, and he was right. Pompey started strongly in the second half.

So strongly, in fact, that Jed Wallace virtually walked the ball into the goal six minutes after the restart to get the home team level. Craig Westcarr and Tubbs did most of the dirty work but by the time Wallace finished tying Dunkley into knots, it was the simplest of finishes left to him.

The crowd, which looked to be well over fifteen thousand, was largely pleased, while the traveling support sat sullenly in the Apollo stand wondering if their team would be able to answer.

Kyle got up and headed to the touchline, waving for Wright’s attention. He got it, but for some reason only by the hardest. The captain seemed to have come completely unstuck in terms of his concentration and the manager nearly had to interpose himself between Wright and the pitch to get his attention.

“Are you with me, Jake?” Kyle asked impatiently, while the skipper cleared his head. “Drop back for a few minutes. They’re going to take a run, let’s defend well and weather the storm.”

Wright nodded, and then did nothing of the sort. That was vexing. It was doubly vexing when Danny Hollands threaded the needle from twenty-five yards, beating Ashdown to his top right corner with a wonder strike seven minutes after the equalizer.

Now, just like that, Oxford trailed away from home to the league leaders. It was time for a major gut check.

To their credit, nine of the eleven Us on the park responded well. One who didn’t was Ssewankambo, who seemed to switch off. The other was Wright, who remained petulant and this caused near-fury in Kyle Cain.

He had never – ever – switched off during a match, and he was never even club captain. This was inexcusable, especially in a match of this importance.

As soon as Whing and Long were ready, Kyle hauled off his captain and the Derby loanee for them respectively. He would have preferred to bring on attacking players, but this kind of squad discipline was very important and to Kyle, keeping that discipline was more important than getting an extra man forward.

Fazackerley raised his eyebrows at the double move and Kyle explained himself.

“Derek, the lads out there know what’s going on, you know that,” he said. “I can’t let my captain get away with that kind of crap and Isak, well, he’s a loanee. His club gets reports from me on his progress and this one won’t be very good.”

“I know,” he said. “But still, it would be good to try to get someone else up there.” He pointed toward the Portsmouth goal.

“I know,” Kyle answered. “But the players will know that the boss sees it when players don’t play hard and takes appropriate action.”

Behind him, the two substituted players sat in the third row of the Oxford team area, warm-ups pulled tightly around them to guard against the bitter wind and needle-like rain which had begun to fall shortly after Pompey’s second goal.

With ten minutes left, Oxford surged forward again, with MacDonald winning a corner and taking it himself. He found Hoban with it, but the striker had no angle and was under duress so his header sailed over the bar.

Hoskins was knackered, so on came Godden for him five minutes from time. It didn’t help.

Pompey had shown why they were the league leaders. That didn’t make it hurt any less, but it was a case of a better team beating an improving team. Sometimes that happens in this game.

Oxford United: Ashdown: Grimshaw, Dunkley, Wright (captain, Whing 71), Potts, Ssewankambo (Long 71), MacDonald, Maddison, O’Dowda, Hoban, Hoskins (Godden 86). Unused subs: Clarke, Bevans, Ashby, Rose.

Portsmouth 2 (Jed Wallace 51, Danny Hollands 58)
Oxford United 1 (Hoban 30)
H/T: 0-1
A – 15,937, Fratton Park, Portsmouth
Man of the Match – Danny Hollands, Portsmouth (MR 8.3)

“I don’t like giving up three points from a winning position, that’s for damn sure. But I think we can be reasonably happy with how we played against a strong side.”

Kyle was, in the words of the pundits, “doing the duty”. Praising his conquerors had always left a bad taste in his mouth and today was no exception.

It had been a good day to play Portsmouth and his team hadn’t won. Bulgarian international striker and Bolton loanee Georg Iliev had missed the match as had former West Brom and Reading defender Nicky Shorey, with both players out due to injury.

They had held Matt Tubbs off the scoreboard, after he had netted 19 times in 29 games for the home team. Those kinds of numbers grab attention, and his team still hadn’t won.

Now, Kyle had worries.

The good form of early in his tenure was gone – it was now one win from five and five points from fifteen. His words to the squad, though, were upbeat. They had played pretty well – the official possession was 52-48 to Portsmouth and the attempts nine to seven in favor of the home team.

Still, though, they hadn’t played well enough, and that was the next thing to fix.

He also had to fix his captain. That was a little trickier.

He called Wright into the visiting manager’s office while the rest of the squad prepared for the coach ride home and asked a few pointed questions.

“You shut off out there,” Kyle said.

“I guess it just wasn’t my day, boss,” the defender said.

“You know, the captain doesn’t usually switch off,” Kyle said. “Is there something wrong? Anything you need help with or something? We needed you out there and sometimes I couldn’t even get your attention.”

“No, everything’s fine,” Wright said defensively.

“Then I need you present,” Kyle said. “I have to hold you to a higher standard because you have the armband and that’s by my doing, no one else’s. This team needs you. And today you weren’t there. Now, I need you to up your ideas before I put you out there again. As of now, you’re out of the squad for Morecambe. Now go and get ready to go home.”

He dismissed the captain and called in Ssewankambo.

“I report to Derby after every match on you, Isak,” Kyle said. “I have to tell them what I saw today, which was a player who didn’t look like he much wanted to be out there. Is that true?”

“No, boss, it’s not,” the soft-spoken Swede said. “I just couldn’t get going today.”

“Well, what will it take to get you going?” Kyle asked. “Too many more performances like that and your employer isn’t going to be pleased – because you won’t be getting games for me. Do you hear me?”

The player looked at the manager, and he ran a hand over his close-cropped black hair. The onetime Chelsea trainee looked nervous.

“It just seems like I’m a long way from Chelsea sometimes,” he admitted.

It was an extraordinary thing for a player to say, and Kyle tried and failed to hide his surprise.

“Does that mean you think you should still be there?” he asked, trying not to sound thunderstruck. There were good reasons the player had been released by Chelsea, with an inability to concentrate on the task at hand being one of the prime ones.

“No, I understand that,” he said. “But I need to know how I can get back to a better level.”

“That should be fairly obvious,” Kyle responded. “You’ll need to work very hard in training and you’ll need first of all to raise your performances for this team before you can worry about your next one. Am I clear on that?”

Ssewankambo said he was, and Kyle dismissed him. He had already decided to handle the two players differently, and as he went to see Andy Awford in the home manager’s office for a badly-needed cup of coffee while his players prepared for the trip home, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

The last time he had tried it, it had ended in disaster and the loss of his job. But this time, Kyle hoped to learn from his mistakes.

The players who had taken part in the Portsmouth match got Sunday and Monday off from training since the team was playing on the Wednesday and Tuesday was simply a light walkthrough and tactical work for a match Kyle really wanted his team to win.

He knew his team needed a good, hard shake to snap it out of its lethargy as well. The fear of failure was also starting to sneak back into Kyle’s mind – and that scared him most of all.

The run of good form that had saved the club from any thought of relegation had been spectacular and most affirming. But the next step had been harder, and Kyle couldn’t deny that.

The club had lost money for the month, money that Eales wasn’t pleased to note – but some of that had come from the release of John Campbell, a move that all concerned – including the fans, perhaps a bit surprisingly – had agreed was a good idea.

So that stayed Eales’ hand a bit at the board meeting but Kyle was starting to get antsy for a return to form.

With thirteen matches to play, Oxford was seven points out of a playoff place. That was the next goal for Kyle, even though he knew full well that simply maintaining the team’s spot in the table would be enough for Eales and the board, which had set a mid-table target for the end of the season.

But the Portsmouth loss had sent Kyle back to the drawing board. The night after the match, long after the players had gone home for their evenings, he sat in his office, watching video both of the Pompey setback and the last match for Jim Bentley’s Morecambe – a 1-1 home draw with Cambridge where the team had coughed up a one-goal lead with nine minutes to play.

It was a good opportunity for Oxford to break out of its slump. A team with one win from five was hosting a team that was winless in five. Something would have to give.

He watched Morecambe’s 4-1-2-3 flail away against Cambridge, which played five at the back and ran a diamond in the midfield. The resulting slogfest saw only twelve attempts at goal for the teams in the entire match, and Kyle had to look long and hard to find a lot of inspiration from either team.

Writing on a notepad, he noted a few areas where he felt Morecambe were weak, and before long was working in front of a magnetic board mounted on the wall behind his desk, with magnets for each player. He was tinkering with his eleven, and as he was lost in thought, a knock came on the doorframe behind him.

“Kyle, a word if that’s all right,” Moore said, and the manager wheeled in surprise to face her,

“Ms. Moore,” Kyle said, resenting the woman’s use of his Christian name.

“Just wanted to run something past you,” she said, motioning to the chair across from Kyle’s desk.

“Very well,” he said, nodding to the chair. “Have a seat.”

The two sat, Kyle slightly annoyed that his train of thought had been interrupted, and looked at the woman sitting across from him, opening his hands in a “go ahead” sort of gesture.

“We are planning a few things in the community over the next month now that spring is coming – a football evening with the players after the Bury match being first on that list – and I wanted to get your thoughts on the best way to approach the team.”

“Well, if you like, I’ll be happy to let you address the team after everyone’s changed and dressed after tomorrow’s training,” he responded. He still didn’t like her very much, but he was going to do his best to get along.

Moore smiled and nodded, tossing her hair back over her shoulder as she did. If she remembered that she wasn’t in charge of the football side, perhaps the two combatants could be persuaded to drop their weapons for the common good, in this case that of Oxford United.

“If she wasn’t so damned confrontational, she’d be great to have around,” Kyle thought as the younger woman took a few notes. He shook that thought out of his head, and focused his attention on the woman’s eyes again.

She rose to leave.

“But then, Kyle, unless you get a few wins soon, I might be asking the next manager instead,” she said in a teasing voice.

Kyle sat, fuming, at his desk, as Moore closed the door, the heels of her shoes making a click-click sound as she walked back to her office.

3 March 2015 – Oxford United (13-8-12, 11th place) v Morecambe 12-5-16, 15th place)
Sky Bet League Two Match Day #34 – The Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Referee: Brendan Malone

The Us entered the day in eleventh place, on goal difference behind Stevenage. Morecambe presented an opportunity on more than one front for Kyle.

Moore had kicked Kyle right where he was the most tender – in his self-confidence – and the thing of it was, she probably knew exactly what she was doing.

His team was facing an opponent he knew they ought to be able to beat – and that was where his hopes were centered.

He let Moore address the team the day after their tête-à-tête in his office – and Kyle let Moore think it was due to weakness.

He had been very correct, polite, and almost defeated in his manner. But he had something in mind for her and all it would take was a win from his lads to put everything into motion.

And, despite all the conventional wisdom, Kyle did two things that raised eyebrows in the Oxford changing room.

First, he dropped his captain. Whing was preferred to Wright, who still hadn’t really shown he was interested in playing during the intervening days after the Portsmouth match.

Second, he gave no team talk before the match.

He had only tried that once before, late in his tenure at Torquay, and it had been disastrous. The situation was a bit different though – there, his team was fighting to stay up whereas here, the Us were merely fighting to find their form.

His goal was to get the players to think for themselves and get away from the standard message.

The players sat around the center of the changing room waiting for their manager, who didn’t walk in. And didn’t walk in. And then didn’t walk in some more.

Finally, Whing got the message.

“Lads, you know why he’s doing this,” he said. “Each of us as players has a job to do and we know what it is. He wants us locked in. So let’s get locked in and beat hell out of these guys today, yeah?”

The yelling from inside the room let Kyle know it was all right to enter. He smiled.

“Andy’s right,” he said. “You fellows tired of bad results? You know what to do. Let’s line up.”

They lined up, and spent the first fifteen minutes of the match pounding on Morecambe’s door.

The Shrimps defended well, surviving chances from Hoban and a rare foray from Potts, who surprised everyone by catching keeper Barry Roche off his line and nearly lobbing him from forty yards, the keeper scrambling back to tip the ball acrobatically over the bar.

The breakthrough, when it came, was from the other side of the park, and it was Bevans who provided. His early cross in twenty-one minutes found the breaking Hoban, defender Shawn Beeley and Roche all arriving at the ball at the same moment inside the Shrimps’ six-yard box.

Trying to get out of the way, Beeley ducked – but couldn’t keep his shoulder out of the way of his keeper. The ball hit it and deflected home for an own goal that gave Oxford the lead.

It was a break, a great one, and it came at just the right time.

It also deflated Morecambe, and that was every bit as good.

Four minutes later, Oxford threatened again, after defender Ryan Edwards brought down Hoban on a run down the right channel. Maddison lined up for a free kick, and the set piece into the six-yard box found the Irishman’s forehead. The ball then found the back of the net for a four-minute double strike that had the fans up and screaming. It was the Irishman’s 14th goal of the season and he was in imperious form.

Kyle sat impassively on the bench, quietly encouraging more from his players. He wanted them to just be getting started, and six minutes later they were all jumping around like madmen.

Maddison was again the provider, winning a 50-50 ball about forty yards out from goal on the right and threading an inch-perfect ball to O’Dowda on the left. The winger brought the ball to ground with a great first touch off his chest, dipped his shoulder and beat two men down the left flank.

His cross into the box found Hoskins, and the other striker’s glancing header flashed past Roche to make it 3-0 in a razor-sharp ten-minute span.

Kyle couldn’t contain himself. The third goal had him off the bench and rushing to the touchline, fists pumping and neck veins bulging.

If he hadn’t been ahead 3-0, you’d have thought he was having a stroke.

MacDonald nearly made it 4-0 just before half, but his close-in drive was parried by Roche, who was both unsighted and more than a bit lucky after sticking out a leg and finding the ball with it.

That chance sparked a sign or two of life from Morecambe, but perhaps it was just twitching. Referee Brendan Malone blew for halftime and the Us roared off to their refreshments in high spirits.

But Kyle had a word for them, as they say.

“Do not let your performance drop,” he warned. “As great as you were in that half, there is better in you. There’s one win from five sitting in front of me now and you have a chance to send a message to the rest of the league that you’re still every bit as good as they are. Make a statement, gentlemen.”

With that, Fazackerley took over and Kyle watched for reactions. He saw a group of players that looked locked in, focused and ready to resume their tasks.

That was gratifying, since Kyle could hear from the yelling across the hall that Jim Bentley had turned his hair dryer power up to “devastate”.

“You hear that?” Kyle interjected as his deputy spoke, jerking a thumb toward the visiting changing room. “You hear all that yelling? I want to hear more of it after the match. Make it happen.”

Maddison roared down the left right after the kickoff and nearly did, testing Roche with a rising drive that just zipped over the bar.

Not getting the reaction he wanted from his team, Bentley hauled off midfielder Ryan Williams six minutes after the restart, having used one substitution at half. Rob Hunt earned them a corner a few minutes later, but it came to nothing.

Then MacDonald got into the act for Oxford, slipping his marker at the back post to volley home from O’Dowda’s perfect cross on the stroke of the hour. You’d have thought Bentley was going to have a stroke from his gesticulation on the touchline – defender Hunt had completely lost MacDonald behind him and what’s more, when the ball was in the air, he had given up pursuit to ball watch.

That was a player who knew he was beaten, and substitutes began to warm up again down the Morecambe touchline.

Thus stung, they did manage a fight back through Laurence Wilson’s beautiful set piece six minutes later – and that didn’t best please Kyle. Hoban had given up the free kick about thirty yards from goal and Wilson made it count, giving Ashdown little chance with a laser-guided left-footed effort.

“Silly to give them any life,” Kyle snorted at Fazackerley, who made a sort of “calm down” motion with his hands. Kyle didn’t just want to win – he wanted to bury Morecambe.

O’Dowda sense that and started a run catching Morecambe on the counter just four minutes later. With Hall nowhere to be found, MacDonald’s lung-busting run down the right was unchallenged all the way to the byline, where he pulled back to find O’Dowda waiting at the right post to volley past an angry Roche for 5-1.

That made Kyle smile. So did the last twenty minutes, where his team punched Morecambe like a boxer flailing against a tiring opponent pinned against the ropes. Body blow after body blow followed with Hoban unlucky not to find a sixth and young Josh Ashby unlucky not to find a seventh at the death.

It was over. It was therapeutic. And above all, it was ‘five-star’.

Oxford United: Ashdown: Bevans (Grimshaw 77), Dunkley, Whing (captain), Potts, Ssewankambo, MacDonald (Long 77), Maddison (Ashby 86), O’Dowda, Hoban, Hoskins. Unused subs: Clarke, Wright, Rose, Godden.

Oxford United 5 (Shawn Beeley o/g 21, Hoban 25, Hoskins 31, MacDonald 60, O’Dowda 70)
Morecambe 1 (Laurence Wilson 66)
H/T: 3-0
A: 4,651, The Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Man of the Match: James Maddison, Oxford (MR 9.0)
GUMP: Patrick Hoban

“What’s a GUMP?”

Hoban looked quizzically at Kyle, as the players sat for the post-match debriefing. He had a sign in his locker next to a small picture of Tom Hanks, dressed as the famous movie character.

Not surprisingly, the players were in high spirits after their thrashing of Morecambe, so the award, of sorts, looked like something to discuss.

“First things first – I was very proud of how you played after the half,” Kyle said. “I told you not to let down and you didn’t. That was great stuff and you got a win your play deserved. Well done. Now, on to this thing.”

He pointed into Hoban’s locker.

“GUMP stands for Great Under Massive Pressure,” Kyle said. “When a player deserves a GUMP, from this point forward he’s going to get one. There might be a prize at the end of the season for whoever wins the most.”

Hoban, who had already won the gag Barn D’Or at the Christmas party, liked this award a lot better.

“Bloody marvelous,” he said, taking off his shirt to prepare for his shower.

Kyle had some other business to attend to, though. He stepped out of the changing room area and headed down the hallway under the stadium.

He stuck his head into Moore’s office, where the woman was sitting with her back to the door, typing match notes into her computer.

“Just you never mind who the manager is,” he said, and before Moore could turn and respond, Kyle was gone.

He headed back down the hallway to his sanctum sanctorum, the changing room, and from there to the interview area to meet with the press.


He was over the moon and what was more, he was feeling aggressive after getting the last word with Moore.

“Is the team over its funk?” That was Vic.

“We went through a dry patch but my hope is that we raise the level of our play and start another good run,” Kyle said. “Right now we have a few other goals that we might still reach.”

“Which would be?”

“Well, if you look at the table, one of them should be obvious,” Kyle said dryly. He knew exactly what he was saying, and it was an implicit challenge to the team.

Oxford now stood ninth in the table, five points behind Tranmere in seventh place.

In the last playoff place.

There were still twelve matches to be played. Plenty of time.

They were thirteen points behind third-placed Shrewsbury, for the last automatic promotion spot.

Not quite as much time, there.

But Kyle wanted to raise the team’s goals along with its spirits. It was time to go all-in.

That was what GUMP was all about. He had seen it on the internet and wanted his players to think about performing under pressure.

Where Kyle wanted to go, a cool head under pressure would be a great thing to have.

Before putting the finishing touches on the match preparation for Bury, Kyle noticed the message light on his phone flashing. He listened to a message from Bill Churchill, asking for a call back on a sensitive matter.

He returned the call, and got no answer.

“Whatever it is, it must not be that important if Bill isn’t answering his phone,” Kyle thought as he hung up. “It can wait.”

Oxford had now played 18 competitive matches under Kyle Cain. Twelve had been won, three drawn and three lost. Not bad.

But there was still better in everyone, including the manager. He went home that night and got right into video for the next match against Bury at the weekend.

Momentum means nothing if you don’t capitalize on it, and Kyle wanted to be sure that his high-powered squad, which was now highly motivated, got high-octane fuel for the trip to the northwest.

He planned no squad changes – which meant Whing would captain the side for the second straight match as Wright was now nailed to the bench – but perhaps the most interesting event of the day after the Morecambe match was watching a group of Oxford youth candidates put a 3-0 hiding on the u-18s, a team which included Balmy and Jonathan Meades, both of whom had featured for the Us senior team.

Sixteen-year old striker Guy Barry took home the match ball, which may have been his to start with, for netting all three goals in the match which both teams played using the senior team’s tactics. One of them had a better grasp than the other.

So that was interesting. What he saw when he got home that night was fascinating – in a sick sort of way.

The Oxford Mail had a story under Churchill’s byline that had Kyle’s blood boiling. Someone had talked to the press about his family situation and he was not happy. At all.

He wished Churchill had called him back – and now he had a very personal grudge against one of the club’s two beat reporters.

Oxford Un-tied?
Football in Brief by Bill Churchill

Oxford United manager Kyle Cain could be excused for feeling a bit distracted as the Us prepare to embark on a playoff chase that would have been considered a fantasy before his arrival.

The Mail can reveal that the manager will soon be served with divorce papers by his estranged wife Stacy, who lives in London.

• Oxford boss had torrid affair with supporter while active player
• Youth team turned upside down by manager’s daughter

The Cain family was rocked by a “youthful indiscretion” from the manager when he was an active player at Leyton Orient. While the Cains remained married, things were never the same, according to a source in a position to know.

The Cain family did not move to Oxford together back in November. Cain’s daughter, who is believed to be in a relationship with a member of the United youth setup, traveled with the manager but Mrs. Cain stayed in London.

The younger Cain’s relationship has caused friction between the manager, the player, and the Oxford front office. Due to the ages of the individuals involved, neither will be named here.

Meanwhile, back in London, the story is that Mrs. Cain has found someone new, and has no desire whatever to rejoin her husband.

The Mail attempted to reach Cain for comment on this story but without success.


There were so many things wrong with such a story, Kyle didn’t even know where to begin.

Reporting on his personal situation was bad enough, but there was absolutely no reason to bring Jenna into anything. She was sixteen, for Pete’s sake, and it was just beyond the pale.

He wondered who would have been the person “in a position to know” and didn’t have to think long.

At the stadium, Moore leaned back in her office chair and crossed her fingers behind her head.

“I have no idea who could have said such a thing, Mr. Eales,” she said. “But I can assure you, it was not me.”

7 March 2015 – Bury (11-11-12, 14th place) v Oxford United (14-8-12, 9th place)
Sky Bet League Two Match Day #35 – Gigg Lane, Bury
Referee: Gavin Ward

The Shakers were in a world of hurt. The local papers noted on the morning of the match that caretaker Alan Knight was stepping down to return to being the club’s goalkeeping coach. That meant the home team would have no manager at all when the match started.

Kyle found that a bit hard to believe – someone had to make the decisions and that was that. It did bode well for the Us chances, even though the bookies still had the home team a 6-4 favorite in the match.

Sacked Exeter City boss Paul Tisdale and former Hull top man Phil Brown were rumored to be in the pipeline but neither one would be at Gigg Lane until the start of the week, and that was just fine with Kyle.

There was plenty to play for, of course. But what Kyle really wanted to see was the team moving on from a big victory with another solid effort.

There were no changes to the eighteen. So Kyle sent the team out with the goal of plunging straight on.

They started off in just that way, storming the Bury goal and earning a corner within the first minute when MacDonald’s cross from the right was headed over the bar by defender Pablo Mills. MacDonald earned another corner in the seventh minute and Maddison picked up a set piece when Mills hacked down O’Dowda.

It was a promising start, even if nothing came of the opportunities. Oxford was prolific in the early going and that was enough.

In twelve minutes, they pounced, as Potts took a throw down the left and found Hoskins lurking outside the Bury penalty area. The striker feinted toward the byline, turned to his right instead, and hooked a beautiful ball across the box.

There MacDonald found it, scoring with a terrific first-time, left-footed volley from fully twenty yards, giving Nick Pope no chance in the Shakers’ goal.

You couldn’t have drawn it any better. Oxford led, and the team’s wonderful wing play continued a few minutes later with Hoskins again the provider.

Lying deeper than he usually did, he linked play from Maddison to O’Dowda, sending the winger through with a great ball to the left which left Adam Drury for dead at full back. O’Dowda raced in on Pope, but his low shot smacked off the base of the right goalpost.

Fortunately for O’Dowda, the rebound came straight back to him, and he reacted before Pope did. With the keeper flat-footed and searching, the followup shot crashed home to make it 2-0 in nineteen minutes and it looked as though Oxford was going to run away and hide for the second time in less than a week.

Yet from that point, the goalposts seemed to be wearing Oxford repellent. The visitors were rampant but when the ball entered the area, the resulting effort seemed to go nowhere near the target.

Up two goals, that wasn’t such a big thing, but it became a bigger thing a few minutes before halftime. It was on the simplest of plays – midfielder Tom Soares lifted a ball over the top that beat Whing clearly and wound up on the boot of leading scorer Hallam Hope, suddenly in about an acre of space down the Oxford left flank.

He had time to set and shoot, so badly was Whing beaten, and Ashdown had no chance. That gave the home team a goal on its first serious chance of the match and changed the manager’s mood.

A senseless foul by Mills that got the Bury defender booked by referee Gavin Ward moments after the goal did little to lift Kyle’s spirits, and when Ward blew for halftime, Kyle had a few things he wanted to say.

“Great half nearly wrecked by one play where you got caught with your pants down,” he said, as Whing turned bright red in response. “Fix that and let’s get three more points today.”

The teams went out for the second half and less than a minute after the restart, the Shakers did their best to fix that problem for him.

Mills was the perpetrator, with a simply silly foul, hip-checking Maddison to the turf with authority on Oxford’s first foray in the second half.

Ward looked at the assistant on the near touchline, who simply nodded. Ward showed Mills his second yellow card and put the home team down to ten men, leading to howls of disappointment from the Shakers faithful.

Kyle looked at Fazackerley and gave him a wan half-smile.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said simply. “Let’s grab this match by the scruff of the neck.”

Knight, who had to do something on the Shakers’ bench even though he wasn’t the manager any longer, sacrificed Nicky Adams in favor of another defender now that Mills was off, and all Kyle really wanted was for his team to keep up the pressure against ten men.

Not needing to score, that’s exactly what the Us did. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get another shot on target for the entire match.

That said, O’Dowda was taking a frightful beating on the left wing as the home team got more and more physical After a particularly rash challenge saw the other central defender, Adam El-Abd, wind up in the book, Kyle got his wing wizard off the park. He was limping noticeably and it was time to bring on fresh legs.

On came Rose in his place, and Kyle shifted to 4-2-3-1, removing Hoban for Long, who deserved the playing time.

But them it was Bevans limping off injured as the match moved into its final ten minutes, and with his last substitution Kyle placed Grimshaw on in his place.

The word was a dead leg, which while unpleasant was hardly fatal. Kyle wondered whether he would wind up with ten on the park as well, given the way the injuries were going.

But with ten minutes to play, the visiting fans started singing. Kyle wasn’t exactly happy with the tune they chose.

They meant well, he imagined, but as he pictured Eric Cartman of South Park singing the words, he started to get more and more upset. It was a new terrace chant and it was one Kyle never wanted to hear again:


At first, he pretended not to hear. Then his neck started to get red with anger.

Churchill’s article had really hit home, in all the wrong ways. Kyle looked over his shoulder to the press gantry to see if he could spot the reporter.

Sure enough, there he was, eating a bag of crisps and wiping some of the residue off his shirt.

Fazackerley noticed.

“Kyle, we need you present with your mind on the match,” he said, as quietly as he could.

“I know, Derek,” Kyle snapped. “Just you leave that to me, please.” His assistant had meant well too, and he remembered that only by the hardest.

Fazackerley needn’t have worried. Bury was toothless and Oxford saw out the match with ease, but with a surprise selection as Man of the Match all smiles as he headed down the tunnel.

Three more points in the bag. The playoff places were now in sight.

Oxford United: Ashdown: Bevans (inj, Grimshaw 82), Dunkley, Whing (captain), Potts, Ssewankambo, MacDonald, Maddison, O’Dowda (inj, Rose 71), Hoban (Long 71), Hoskins. Unused subs: Clarke, Wright, Ashby, Godden.

Bury 1 (Hallam Hope 40, Pablo Mills s/o 46)
Oxford United 2 (MacDonald 12, O’Dowda 19)
H/T: 1-2
A – 2,341, Gigg Lane, Bury
Man of the Match: Isak Ssewankambo, Oxford (MR 8.0)
GUMP: None

“I swear to God, Churchill, if you ever write another word about my family, I’ll knock your damn teeth down your throat!”

Bill Churchill had no place to go. Kyle had him backed into a corner of the media area and was jabbing his finger in the reporter’s face – being very careful not to touch him.

The reporter’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. Fazackerley was trying to interpose himself between the two men, with u-18s boss Chris Allen trying to pull back the Oxford manager by the collar of his jacket.

Kyle was incandescent, and with reason. Churchill had written a personal smear piece and for that, there had to be a reckoning. Red-faced, the manager’s wild eyes gave him the look of a wounded animal ready to strike back.

“I’m sorry, Kyle, I didn’t know that …” Churchill began.

“You didn’t f***king know,” Kyle spat. “I returned your bloody phone call, yeah? I wanted to talk to you, yeah? And then you f***ing do this…you blindsided me, you sack of s***e!”

His eyes were like laser beams as they tore holes into the hapless scribe.

“The Mail attempted to reach Cain for comment on this story but without success,” Kyle snarled. “Well, you didn’t really bloody try, did you?” Now his nose was an inch from Churchill’s, and it was clear that Allen was losing the tug-of-war.

Finally, Allen gave a mighty yank. The sound of tearing fabric could be heard, and Kyle stepped back, rubbing his neck from where the tearing fabric had left a burn mark. The Oxford staff surrounding him did as well.

“I want the name of your source,” Kyle demanded. “If you are going to keep your credential in my media briefings, I want the name of your source.”

“It’s confidential,” he said.

“Fine. Then your editor can give me the name. You really have no idea how big a mistake you’ve made, Mr. Churchill.”

“Maybe the mistake was made by you,” the reporter said, now standing up on his hind legs as other reporters arrived and Allen got a solid hold on Kyle. “I didn’t do what you did years ago, and I’m not the one facing trouble now.”

He was being goaded. Kyle Cain was a dangerous man to goad.

But for a change, the East London in Kyle didn’t come out for a second time.

“The only reason he’s saying that is there’s a room full of witnesses and if I punch him he’ll get me sacked,” Kyle thought to himself.

“Nice try,” Kyle finally said, shrugging Allen off of his shoulders. “And as for trouble, we’ll see about that. In the meantime, you’re not welcome here.”

However, at Gigg Lane Kyle wasn’t quite in the position he would have been in had the match been played in Oxford. He couldn’t tell Churchill to go anywhere, so the reporter simply stood his ground.

A gaggle gathered around him after taking good notes about the conversation they had had, and Kyle spoke.

“First question that isn’t about the match sees me leave,” he said, still seething. “Simple as that.”

The local reporters began their interrogation, focusing on the play of the midfield, which had been exemplary ever since Kyle’s arrival.

“They have been very good,” he said. “Our wing play has been very sharp in recent games and I’m very happy for both Callum and Alex, they’ve been brilliant.”

“What about Ssewankambo?” Churchill asked, because he knew he could.

Kyle didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at the reporter.

There was an awkward silence, until a local reporter repeated the question.

“Isak had his best game in our shirt,” Kyle said. “That’s the kind of performance we need from him and he was just great today.”

“The playoff spots are close,” Churchill asked.

Again, silence.

“The playoff spots are close,” the same reporter repeated.

“Yes, they are,” Kyle answered. “I’m very proud of the players.”

A pregnant pause followed. And with that, Kyle took his leave.

“I have no choice, Kyle. I have to reprimand you.”

Eales looked at his manager sadly, pushing his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose as he did.

“I understand,” the manager responded. “But I can’t allow what happened to be on Saturday to happen again and I trust you know that.”

The chairman reacted with sympathy but he was doing what he had to do.

“We need the Mail as partners, not as adversaries,” he said. A second article had appeared after the match, calling out Kyle for his role in the baiting of the reporter in the press room, but the manager hardly cared. The chairman did, however, and that was why the conversation was taking place.

“I need the same thing, Mr. Eales,” Kyle answered. “And I need someone who is ‘in a position to know’ as it were, to come forward. I’d like to wring her neck, because you and I both know damn well who it was even though she’s probably denied it.”

“Look, I get that nobody likes having things written about them…”

Kyle couldn’t help himself.

“It isn’t me,” he said, “It’s Jenna. There is absolutely no reason to write about a minor child’s dating life in the newspaper. There just isn’t. It’s irresponsible, it’s wrong, and as Jenna’s dad, I won’t stand for it. I also want to know who the source was. Did you ask?”

“I did,” Eales said. “If it’s someone connected with the club, we want to take the appropriate action.”

“And?”

“They wouldn’t divulge it,” Eales said.

“Well, let me help you,” Kyle said. “There are three people who it could realistically be. One is Miles Booth, and if it is, I’m terminating his contract effective today. Another is Stacy, who is evidently moving on with her life, and the third has an office just down the hall from here.”

“Diana says she didn’t do it,” Eales said. “She was the first one I asked.”

“Well, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, good for you,” Kyle responded angrily, his eyes flashing again. He was riding the lightning and he knew it, but there were some things that were more important than simple wins, draws and losses. He felt this was one of them.

Eales was trying to be nice. “I know how much this must hurt you,” he said, and Kyle’s derisive snort put paid to that argument. “But I need this team together and you’re a part of that.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Eales, what I have seen to this point is a team that does everything except make me a part. I get results, you are happy, but the way I’m treated otherwise suggests that I’m not here to be valued, I’m just here to win.”

Eales looked at Kyle with a neutral expression. “Explain,” he said.

“I did,” Kyle answered. “You’ve let that woman run all over me. A marketer? Really? Seriously, who would allow that? I’m here on a two-year contract so if you sack me you’ll owe me for another year the club really can’t afford, and if you tried to deny it to me I’d go to a tribunal and I’d win. So really, Mr. Eales, who is responsible for hiring Ms. Moore? That’s the person I’d be talking to now instead of me.”

Kyle’s breath caught as he thought of the frankness with which he had just addressed his boss. But Eales said nothing in reply.

“Your reprimand is official,” he simply said, closing a file on his desk. “Return to your duties, and congratulations on the win yesterday.”

Kyle left the office, feeling like nothing had changed.

Kyle sat in the Swan and Castle. He was alone, and drinking.

Nobody went near him. That should have been a given, considering the dark cloud that appeared over his head whenever he thought about his situation.

He had an iPad in front of him, which was loaded with video of Plymouth Argyle. The last time he had seen the Pilgrims was over the festive period on the south coast, with the 3-1 win there being one of the most satisfying of his tenure.

He watched that match twice that evening, at slightly higher speed, looking for weaknesses. The Pilgrims were on a five-match unbeaten run, even if they had draws against Bury and Stevenage in their last three contests.

They had lost only once in their last eleven in the league and were a virtual lock for automatic promotion. They were a good side and doing the double over them would stamp Oxford as legitimate playoff contenders.

They would also be loaded for bear. That much was obvious.

Kyle noted that MacDonald was one yellow card away from a two-match ban, but he was playing so well he really couldn’t be held out of the XI. With matches against third-placed Shrewsbury and fifth-placed Wycombe still to come, having a quality player out for yellow cards wasn’t optimal.

Yet this match demanded that MacDonald play. They needed him. Kyle wondered how to keep him out of potential trouble.

As he thought it through, his iPad screen was shaded.

Kyle looked up to see Allison Austin’s face hovering over him. The rest of her was attached, so that was a plus.

“Hi, Kyle,” she said. “You look like you could use a friend.”

“Don’t be silly, Miss Austin,” he responded, looking back at his pad. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Not if you don’t recognize them, no,” she said. “May I sit down?”

Kyle looked up at the woman, her long blonde hair hanging just so in a pony tail which slipped around her shoulder and beside her face as she talked. He had a decision to make.

He sighed.

“Sure, if you like,” he said. “But be prepared to get your name in the papers, I hear they’re everywhere these days.”

“Vic was really upset,” she offered, and Kyle nodded.

“Yeah. Upset,” he replied. “Got it. Meanwhile, my private life is in the papers. But at least Vic was upset.”

She looked across the table at him as the waiter approached. She ordered two Shotover Brewery Prospect Pale Ales, and then did the unthinkable. She reached across the table and lifted Kyle’s chin with a finger.

“Don’t be so hard on her,” Austin said. “She tried to get the story spiked. She said it would be unfair.”

“So why did it run, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” his companion said, sitting back in her seat. “Somewhere along the line, I guess someone thought it was news. Vic lost the argument and she wasn’t happy about it.”

“Well, it wasn’t news,” Kyle answered. “And even if it was, how many times do I have to pay for being such a bloody stupid clot? Can someone answer me that?”

“You know the press,” Austin answered.

“That sounds like sage advice,” Kyle said.

“Look, Kyle, people knew about your situation. They talked about it. Let me ask you this: what has really changed?”

“It’s not my situation, it’s Jenna’s,” he said. “A sixteen-year old girl, for f***’s sake.”

“Well, she is now welcomed to the world of football too,” she said. “It isn’t pleasant but you’re a public person again and so you have to take the rough with the smooth.”

Kyle looked at her.

“Did Bill Churchill send you here?” he asked. Austin frowned.

“Certainly not,” she said, maintaining her patience. “I don’t much care for him, if I’m honest. But I do think you deserve better than you’re getting – and that is why I came here.”

Kyle realized he wasn’t being much of a gentleman – as if that even mattered to him sometimes – and he looked up from his screen.

“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate that.”

The waiter arrived with the drinks order, and Allison pulled out a debit card.

“You don’t have to do that,” Kyle began, reaching for his wallet.

“I think I do,” Austin responded. “Maybe you just deserve something nice.”

In the runup to the Plymouth match, the talk of the training ground was Chelsea sacking Jose Mourinho.

The Blues sat sixth in the Premiership, 22 points behind leaders Manchester City, who led United by four points, by 73-69, with a match in hand – and had defeated the Reds 3-0 the prior Saturday. They hadn’t lost since before the New Year.

United themselves were 14 points clear of third-placed Liverpool, so there was very little drama in the top flight.

Obviously that wasn’t good enough for Roman Abramovich, so he made the move with a host of big-name managers reportedly waiting to take the Stamford Bridge hot seat.

For Kyle, it was a dream to manage in the Premier League, but he was several licenses away from being able to do that legally, and with the team in a promotion fight the club wasn’t about to allow him to start studying.

But Kyle had a hard time concentrating that next day. He was thinking about Allison Austin’s words to him.

“Maybe you just deserve something nice.”

Being nice to himself was hard for Kyle. He had tried it once before – the sex had been fantastic, but the end result was not exactly good for anyone, least of all for himself. His reputation was tarnished. His career and contract at Orient had nearly been terminated. And it had undoubtedly affected his job search. Word, as they say, gets around.

But the fact remained. Maybe even he, the screwup named Kyle Cain, did deserve something better.

He thought about Austin, who had kept her distance. He thought about her slender, pretty face and about the way her blonde locks surrounded it. If he wasn’t married, it would have been impossible to avoid making a play for her.

But he was married. And this time he intended to do the right thing.

Stacy was after her revenge. He didn’t think she would be so deliberately hurtful to Jenna as to tell a reporter about her plans. And Booth? Kyle controlled his professional future. He wouldn’t say a word.

That left Moore. It had been his supposition from the beginning.

So, he did the only thing he could do. He called London and asked to speak to Stacy.

She answered, which was a thing in and of itself.

“What do you know about the newspaper article that showed up here in Oxford?” Kyle asked. “The one where you’re filing for divorce?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Stacy said. “And I haven’t filed any papers.”

“The article said you found someone new,” Kyle shot back. “I have my suspicions about that but I haven’t looked into them. Is that true?”

“That’s none of your business,” she answered.

“If you haven’t filed papers, I’m still your husband and it bloody well is my business!” Kyle snapped, feeling the hairs rising on the back of his neck. “Now, I want to know what the hell is going on!”

“I’m living my life, just like you did,” she answered. Kyle felt like he had been kicked in the stomach, but it was the answer he really had been expecting.

“All right then,” Kyle said. “Do you want me to file, since you are living your life ‘just like I did’?”

“Don’t be flippant,” Stacy responded.

“I’m not the one sleeping around this time,” Kyle shot back.

“You’re just worried about your reputation.” Stacy was in mid-season form, and Kyle could feel that sense of helpless anger building once again.

But she wasn’t done.

“You know what the problem is with you?” she asked. “You think people care. Let me tell you something. People didn’t care about you then, they don’t care now and they won’t care about you in the future. In fact, when you go, most people where you happen to be are going to stand up and cheer. And you’re worried about how they’re going to react?”

“You know what the problem is with you?” Kyle responded. “You really, honestly, do not know when to shut up.”

He hung up the phone, and started a web search for a solicitor. It was time to think about the future.

14 March 2015 – Oxford United (15-9-12, 9th place) v Plymouth Argyle (20-8-7, 3rd place)
Sky Bet League Two Match Day #36 – The Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Referee: Keith Hill

This was another good test for Oxford. Shrewsbury’s midweek win had vaulted them into second place past the Pilgrims while making up their match in hand, so the top of the table showed Portsmouth at 75 points, Shrewsbury on 69 and Plymouth on 68.

The race was shaping up nicely, with ten matches still to play and all to play for, as they say.

The crowd was decent – the stadium was just slightly under half full at kickoff – but Kyle didn’t want to mess with a good thing as far as his XI went. With a few changes – including finally restoring Wright to his place on the back line and giving Dunkley a rest – he felt his team was ready to move from strength to strength.

Plymouth had played 5-3-2 in defeating the team immediately above Oxford in the table – Northampton – the week before. Five at the back might just have been the way to stop Kyle’s offensive machine, which had scored as well as anyone in England since his arrival.

But it was before the match that Kyle received a small gift that, had he not been listening, wouldn’t have proved to be such chicken soup for his soul.

Alone, before warmup, with the stand about a third full of supporters, he left the changing area to take a trip to the touchline. It was a departure from the norm for Kyle, who usually had a strict set of rules and superstitions he followed on match day.

At that point, the media department (and no, that wasn’t Moore) played a certain song. It came at exactly the right spot in the playlist, which was published on the team’s social media. Kyle had seen that list, posted by Moore, and decided to take a listen. What he heard stopped him in his tracks.

For the entire duration of the song he simply stood there, oblivious to his surroundings, listening to a song that described him better than he knew – which was the point of whoever chose it.



The song ended, the next tune on the pre-match playlist began, and Kyle walked back into the tunnel, his chin on his chest.

In the Oxford Mail stand, Allison took out her mobile phone and sent a text.

“I’m certain he heard the song. Thanks for making it happen with the club.”

She sent the text, and on the other end, Victoria Young sat back in her press gantry chair and smiled.


Argyle should have been expected to be in the ascendancy from the kickoff, as the higher-placed team and also the one wanting revenge. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see the Us on the back foot.

Except to Kyle, it wasn’t the start he had in mind. Whing particularly was having trouble, the aged defender being beaten twice over the top for pace in the first twenty minutes by striker Reuben Reid, who for reasons unknown preferred to shoot wide rather than test Ashdown.

Kyle had listened to Fazackerley, who had told him before the match that Dunkley should be dropped because Whing was better suited. As the second hiding occurred, Kyle didn’t look at his deputy. He didn’t need to.

Maddison wound up in referee Keith Hill’s book after that second incident, covering for Whing, who had been left for dead. He clipped Reid’s heel as the striker ran, with Hill playing advantage and then rightly booking the Oxford midfielder.

“We can’t handle that kind of pressure,” Kyle snapped, and Fazackerley could only nod in agreement. Yet besides the direct route issues, Whing was otherwise playing reasonably well, or rather well enough to stay Kyle’s hand.

Argyle skipper Curtis Nelson had the best chance of the first half, stinging Ashdown’s palms with a bullet from twenty yards that forced the keeper into highway robbery to prevent the first goal of the match.

The match got to halftime scoreless and that gave Kyle the chance to try to light a bit of a fire under his team. They hadn’t gotten anywhere near the goal in the half but they were still in the match and that was what mattered the most.

“This match is there for you,” he said. “You’re hanging in there against a good team and you have a chance to make something happen for yourselves. You can make a real move in the table today if you will only believe that you can.”

He sent the team out unchanged for the second half, and Kelvin Mellor got above Whing on an early corner to head just over the bar.

Kyle motioned for Dunkley to start warming up and would brook no argument. The central defender had played well in recent games and it was evidently the wrong time to rest him.

While he warmed up, Ssewankambo gave away a free kick right at the top of the Oxford D, and Bobby Reid whipped it home in 58 minutes to give Plymouth a deserved lead.

The set piece defending hadn’t been awful – but the placement had been perfect and that was that. Kyle stood up and headed into a growing drizzle to encourage his lads.

“It’s still there, men,” he called out. “Come on, chins up and let’s go!”

One player who got the message was MacDonald, who took a beautiful lead ball from Sam Long, playing at right back on the day, and burst deep into the Plymouth area. He was brought down on a clattering challenge by a well-beaten Matthew Clarke, and Hill wasted no time in pointing to the spot.

With the crowd roaring its approval, Hoskins took the ball, placed it on the spot like it was made of crystal, and whipped a perfectly-taken penalty past Luke McCormick to get Oxford level in 64 minutes.

The air on the Oxford bench was one of confidence and finally, when Whing was beaten over the top for a third time, it was time for the veteran to come off. Dunkley took his place, and Hoban came on in place of Godden. Kyle had simply wanted to get the loan striker a game, but he had proven miserably unequal to the task.

As the match moved on, both teams got into the flow of things and it was a much more entertaining spectacle for the viewer. Substitute Lewis Alessandra had a chance to put Argyle back in front but fluffed a shot from no more than three feet in front of the Oxford goal, with Ashdown scrambling to take the ball in his chest and deflect it behind for a corner.

The reaction was what Kyle had hoped to see – the back line punching up the keeper in congratulations with Ashdown returning the favor by waving them to their spots for the set piece. O’Dowda responded with a terrific effort on Oxford’s next time forward that was turned behind by McCormick in reply.

It was great stuff, but as the match moved past the 85th minute Kyle decided discretion was the better part of valor, removing the exhausted MacDonald in favor of Jeremy Balmy, finally back from injury, and moving the team to 4-2-3-1 for the closing minutes.

Then O’Dowda struck, with Balmy the playmaker, with a cross from the right that was headed free by defender Kelvin Mellor, but only as far as Ssewankambo. The loan midfielder played the ball to the left for O’Dowda, who had his back to goal.

But the winger turned, dipped his shoulder and produced an absolutely sumptuous left-footed strike that beat a stunned McCormick to his short post as the match ticked into the 90th minute.

The Kassam came unglued, and the bench erupted in the kind of riotous celebration that you would have expected from the last kick of the match.

Only, it wasn’t.

Plymouth surged forward in three minutes of added time and earned a corner when Wright was forced to head Rueben Reid’s effort over the bar. Bobby Reid took it – and Jamie Richards was first to the ensuing scramble in front of Ashdown, beating the keeper to his far post to get Argyle level again.

That was the last kick of the match.

Kyle felt like he had been kicked in the teeth. The air had been let out of the Oxford balloon. Two badly needed points were now dissolved into the March mist.

It hurt.

Oxford United: Ashdown: Long, Wright (captain), Whing (Dunkley 70), Potts, Ssewankambo, MacDonald (Balmy 86), Maddison, O’Dowda, Godden (Hoban 70), Hoskins. Unused subs: Clarke, Grimshaw, Ashby, Rose.

Oxford United 2 (Hoskins pen 64, O’Dowda 90)
Plymouth Argyle 2 (Bobby Reid 58, Jamie Richards 90+2)
H/T: 0-0
A – 5,557, The Kassam Stadium, Oxford
Man of the Match: Callum O’Dowda, Oxford (MR 8.3)
GUMP: O’Dowda