Oxford United Chairman Grant Ferguson wrote the following programme notes for the Sky Bet League One game against Exeter City on New Year's Day:
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to a new year at Oxford United. When fans tell me they have been coming to watch the club for any number of years, I sometimes wonder if that is calendar years or seasons. Whichever it is, thank you for being with us again at the beginning of a new year and I hope yours got off to an appropriate start last night, and that together we are looking forward to a successful and prosperous new year.
The match against Charlton on Thursday night marked the half-way mark in the regular league season - our 23rd game out of 46 - and so today seems a good time to take stock of where we are.
Let’s deal with the on the pitch first. Clearly, we are nowhere near where we want to be in the league table. Undoubtedly the number of long-term injuries we had early in the season has been a factor, but it does not entirely explain our league position, particularly when we believed we have a squad that can get us promotion. We have now given some good teams a long head start, but a friend and U's fan recently reminded me that Oxford have often put together strong runs in the second half of the season, including in 1995/96 when the team were much worse off than we are today and managed to produce a run of results that got us promotion on the last day of the season.
I continue to believe that is possible this season. We have the players to get us there. At times we have shown that we are as capable as the best teams in the league, with some excellent individual and collective performances. If we can stay fit, improve our consistency, keep believing, we can get there, but we need to make our move now or that gap to the top is only going to widen.
Off the pitch, I think we are in a healthier position. The summer saw major investment in two new training pitches which are now fully in use and give the players a fantastic surface to train on. The importance of the training ground as the players’ home is not to be underestimated; they train there almost every day with excellent facilities and resources, and work with excellent staff who are focused on their fitness, health and wellbeing. The development of the facility will continue in 2023, including investment in the needs of the Academy and the Women's team. As we discussed at the recent fans' forum, a lot of progress has been made on the project to create a new home for the club and that too will continue to be a major focus in 2023.
I think I have mentioned before, the plan is to build a football club, not just a team. We want the first team, the Academy, and the Women’s teams all participating at a higher level. We need a commercial team that can leverage that and help make us financially sustainable, and we will continue to contribute to communities in Oxfordshire as best we can, recognising that we are a community club that relies on the support of these communities. The goal is to build a club that you will all be proud of and that kids across Oxfordshire will aspire to play for.
2023 will be a pivotal year for the club. Thank you for being here right at the start of it and going on this journey with us.
Grant
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc