We are delighted to have one of England’s best ever defenders as our Guest of Honour on Saturday.
Colin Todd was an outstanding centre-half who played 12 games for the U’s right at the end of his career, and later went on to manage our opponents on Saturday, Bradford City.
“I was coming to the end of my career when I joined Oxford but I knew Jim Smith very well,” he tells the matchday programme “I’d worked with him at Birmingham and had a good relationship with him.
"I think there were about 12 games to go in the promotion race and I came down and joined them for that period. It was a very healthy period for the club. The team was going extremely well at the old Manor Ground and the support was good, we had decent players: Trevor Hebberd, Malcolm Shotton and Gary Briggs, but the team had done the hard work and it was just a matter of picking up points to make sure we got promotion, which we did and which was a great achievement.
“I came in to help the team and it’s something you’ll always remember, winning a championship. In terms of my career, it was another winning mark after I’d had success at Derby County, etc. I played enough games with Oxford to pick up a medal. I was at Forest before I came down to Oxford and it was just a matter of wanting to play football. And to help make sure promotion happened and it did.”
Colin spent three years in charge at Bradford from 2004 onwards and will be back to see two of his former clubs meet this weekend.
We are sure everyone will make him feel very welcome and you can read a full interview with him in Saturday's match programme.