In the Coventry City programme, Oxford United Chairman Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth writes the following notes:
Good afternoon everyone and a warm welcome to you all, including our guests from Coventry City and the TV crew from SKY. What a great chance to show everyone at home what good football we are playing at the moment and what a fantastic atmosphere we have here for home games.
As you know, I get to as many games as possible and I have been here all week, based for a lot of the time at the brand-new training ground. I will be open with you, as always, and the training ground is not quite finished yet, but it does not seem to matter to the people there. Everyone has such a fantastic team spirit and it was a pleasure to see how people are settling in. I would like to thank Richard Blackmore and his team for their unbelievable hard work, Scott Humphreys and the ground staff for preparing some great looking pitches, and all the staff for the way they have helped each other move in; every time I turned around there was somebody bringing in equipment or furniture and everyone was pitching in and helping each other.
I would like to thank Thai Airways and Tourism Authority Thailand for a fantastic prize of two tickets to Thailand as a thank you to one lucky season ticket holder.
I was also able to spend time with Karl, Shaun and Faz and the rest of the coaching staff. I have huge respect for all three and always enjoy talking football with them. That respect has grown since the start of the season. Results did not go as we expected at first, but nobody panicked because we know that what we are building on the pitch here needs strong foundations and will be here for many years to come. Strong hearts and minds were needed and the results have started to come as things have settled down and the squad has got to know each other more.
On Tuesday night we maybe saw two new faces in that squad when we finished the game with two 16-year-olds up front. Fabio Lopes was our third youngest player for about two weeks until Slavi Spasov jumped above him in the list on Tuesday! For him to then score on his debut was a very proud moment for his family, but also the Oxford United family; I saw Leon Blackmore-Such, our under-18 manager, alongside Chris Hackett, go across to congratulate Slavi’s father when he came on and that connection between the club and the young players is fantastic to see.
There are a lot of good players at all age groups and plenty to look forward to, but for now we have to live in the present and concentrate all our efforts on winning another important home game.
Enjoy the match.
Sumrith Tiger Thanakarnjanasuth
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc