Oxford United Chairman Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth wrote the following notes for United's final home programme of the season, against Doncaster Rovers:
I would like to welcome you back to the Kassam Stadium one final time this season and thank you not just for your support this afternoon against Doncaster, but also for your amazing backing throughout what has been a very long and at times challenging season.
The first half of the season did not go to plan but there are so many factors in that. We will not make excuses: we made mistakes last summer and we had to learn a lot of things along the way. You can’t rewrite history; all you can do is try to learn from it, but I also think that some things were beyond our control. The training ground took longer to complete than we thought and I think there was no sense of a ‘home’ for the players for a while. Then we had such bad luck with injuries: a fit Simon Eastwood, Ricky Holmes, Samir Carruthers and Rob Hall would have made such a difference in the first 12 games.
I want to thank Karl, the coaches, the players and the staff at the training ground for what they have achieved since then. I visited many times and they were always working hard and the atmosphere was always excellent. They never lost faith in each other and with a little patience, things started to turn around and improve with every week. The last ten games have been an amazing few weeks and I think we have so much to be optimistic about as we come to the end of the season.
The whole Board is here for this game and we have meetings where we will put the finishing touches to our plans for next season. We know we need to be more robust in terms of planning and budgets and we know that recruitment will be key this summer. We have a very good squad and we also know a lot of very good players who are going to add to that.
It is an exciting time for all of us and I just want to urge you all to buy a season ticket and be part of it alongside us. The last few games have been so exciting and we remain committed to building an entertaining side playing good football for you. Add in youngsters like Jack Stevens and Nico Jones making debuts and doing well and I hope you see that with the Academy doing so well, the future looks very bright; can I just congratulate our Women's side on winning the County Cup last weekend as well.
The whole club is growing and developing and today is one last chance to show that progress. Let’s end with another home win, with a sea of yellow and players and fans totally united.
You can read the full programme online at www.matchdayfix.com/oufc.