Oxford United Chairman Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth writes the following notes for the Rochdale programme this evening:
Good evening everyone and welcome back to see us take on Rochdale. It takes that little bit more effort to come out on a cold Tuesday night to support your team and we truly appreciate that effort and hope you are rewarded with an entertaining game that ends in another important home win.
Sadly our fantastic run ended with our first defeat in ten games at Bradford on Saturday. I think we deserved more from that game, we certainly started very well and looked as though we were in control but you can never take anything for granted in football and two goals very close together gave Bradford the win, despite plenty of late pressure as we chased the game.
You know what? Nobody enjoys losing but we had gone almost two months without defeat and should not allow one result to derail what we had been doing. The team is in good shape and has found a highly effective way of playing so we just need to learn lessons from Saturday and do our best to bounce back and start another run- if we go nine games unbeaten again then who knows where we will be by the end of January…
Off the field I would have liked to attend the recent OxVox meeting but was unfortunately unable to get over for it, but Zaki and Niall went along to represent the club and I think a strong relationship between the Board and OxVox is very healthy and should become even stronger than it has been in the past. The biggest problem when we attend public meetings like this is how much we can actually say when things are happening in the background. Questions on the stadium, arbitration, HMRC and the relationship with Firoz Kassam all came up, as we expected, but while these things are all moving quickly behind the scenes there has to be a level of confidentiality which I think is frustrating for everyone. All we can do is be honest and open and hope you can see that we are working so hard to do the right thing, always, for Oxford United.
Finally, may I end by saying how good it is to see the whole EFL supporting ‘Rainbow’ week. Oxford United prides itself on being inclusive and open to all, and I wanted to show my own support in some way so I asked if my daughter Jenn could be involved in designing the programme cover. I am very proud of how she did that, but equally proud to see the club fully involved and making sure that we work without any prejudice.
Tiger
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc