After providing his ‘View from the Stratton Bank’ in August, I’ve invited back Oxford United fan Steve Butcher to give the yellow & blue perspective on the A420 derby.

Fear and dread….that’s what I was feeling as the A420 derby was approaching. Swindon were beating everyone who stood in their way, a club record 10 wins in a row, storming to the top of League 2, while we struggled to get past Dagenham & Redbridge, Barnet and despite them losing eight in a row even Macclesfield left Oxford with a point!

On top of that, we had an injury list like no other, Capaldi, Wright, Leven, Potter & Craddock all injured, what hope did we have for the biggest game of the season?

Before the game, there was plenty of banter on the Social networking sites and forums, but no sign of any trouble around the stadium.

Before the game, the Priory was buzzing with anticipation – could Oxford Utd record their first double over Swindon Town since 1972/73….I went live on Radio Oxford and said they could…2-1 I said, a repeat of the scoreline in August. Deep down, I’d have accepted a draw!

In the ground, I hadn’t seen scenes like it, the closest was probably the play off semi final versus Rushden & Diamonds. The 1,200 Swindon fans were vocal as was the 10,000 home fans!

There has always been a hatred between the two clubs, and not playing for 10 years before this season hadn’t reduced that. In fact Paolo Di Canio’s comments about James Constable had increased the tension ahead of August’s game, but to then try unsuccessfully sign him again in January and Beano being mentioned in most press conferences in the lead up this week was spicing things up again.

PDC had done his homework, and Beano was a marked man. It wasn’t long before he had his first run in with the match official,and 10 minutes for his second! Constable and Joe Devera went up for a challenge, Devera went down like he’d been shot, Constable was surrounded by half the Swindon squad while the other half went for the ref… I’ll be honest I didn’t see the incident (No, I’m not doing a Wenger!!) I was busy arguing with a steward who had decided it was easier to upset my 7 year old daughter for standing up, instead of everyone else around her, preventing her from seeing the game.

It wasn’t until I saw Constable leaving the field I realised what had happened! Im not saying it was a good challenge, but it also didn’t need the 6-7 Swindon players to voice an opinion.

There was also tension in the North Stand between both sets of fans, stewards and police kept the two sets of fans apart, but objects were thrown.

There was also tension on side of the pitch as Matt Ritchie unnecessarily got involved with a ball boy, but to his credit, Ritchie did find the lad after the game and apologise.

Down to 10 men, against a side as good as Swindon, I feared the worst, this could be embarrassing – that was until Lee Holmes took on the Peter Leven role. A free kick on the right was whipped in by Holmes and Asa Hall gets there first 1-0! 90 seconds later Holmes is at it again, a perfect ball for Oli Johnson from the left and its 2-0 absolute delirium on all 3 sides of the ground! Are we really 2-0 up?

At no point did I expect that to be the final score, surely Swindon would get 1, 2 and then 3…

Very much like the game at the County Ground, Swindon threw everything at us in the second half and every man in yellow put their bodies on the line. You know your team is doing something right when the opposing manager substitutes his substitute within less than an hour gone in a game
I don’t remember much of the second half, it was all a bit of a blur but a massive sense of relief at the final whistle!

We’d done it, we’d completed the League double and now unbeaten in three A420 derbies, a period of over ten years!

I fully expect Swindon to go an and win the League and I also expect Oxford to at the very least be in the play-off’s come May – whether or not we can break into the top three, I’m not sure…but we have shown we can compete in the big games…Swindon however haven’t…

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