We are pleased to have JP Pittman back with us on Saturday as our special guest.
Jon-Paul is one of football’s good guys and enjoyed spells at both the U’s and our opponents Wycombe Wanderers and is currently playing for table-topping Torquay United in the National League South.
“It probably should have been the peak of my career at Oxford, as I was coming off the back of a good couple of years at Wycombe" he told us. "Looking back, that should have been the time that I really kicked on, but I struggled so much with my hamstrings that it was difficult to build any momentum. I remember when I returned from my loan spell at Crawley that I got Player of the Month, but at the end of that month I got injured again, so it was difficult to show the Oxford fans what I was about because it was so stop-start when I was there.”
“I loved it there though. When I signed at Oxford I had the chance to go to Burton, Gillingham, Crawley and Oxford and having grown up in Oxfordshire it was pretty much a no-brainer, but the club was a great club anyway and I knew a lot of the players from having played with them before.
“I still speak to James Constable all the time and still keep in touch with Harry Worley and Jake Wright and a few of the other guys because they were a good bunch of lads. It’s not often in football that you keep hold of all those contacts.”
“I enjoyed it at Wycombe as well. Obviously my first spell was better than my second spell; first time I had a couple of promotions and it was largely successful, but the second time I went back and it was under different circumstances financially. They were really struggling and it was a transitional period with a new manager and young players coming through. I went back there to try and boost it and take it back to where I remember the club being. It wasn’t to be and it was a tough season but we managed to get through it.”
Find out what JP is doing now, and more about how he was brought up in Oxfordshire, in the matchday programme, and make him feel at home when he returns for Saturday’s big game between his former clubs.