
Brian Fream Memorial Trophy – FGR Supporter of the Year.

Festival of Football & Award Ceremonies
- The Rovers Raffle will be in aid of FGR U14s Boys tour of Ireland so please buy a ticket. At the moment enough money has been raised to send the boys out to Ireland but not enough to get them home again so please dig deep and help re-unite them with their families. The boys parents will be helping sell Raffle tickets.
There is a Festival of Football at the Oxford match.
- From 1pm there are some family-fun activities on the pitch at Nailsworth Primary School.
- FGR Ambassador Awards will be presented in front of the Candriam East Stand before the game at 2:30pm.
- FGR Annual End of Season Awards immediately after the men’s first-team’s match including the Brian Fream Memorial Trophy – FGR Supporter of the Year.
- Forest Green Under-16s Girls taking on Oxford United Under-16s Girls on The Bolt New Lawn pitch at 6pm. Fans can watch the game from the East Stand, where the concourse will remain open. The Gym Bar will close at 6:30pm.
More details here – Festival of Football vs Oxford United | WE ARE FGR
How Are They Doing
Oxford are currently 20th with 41 points – just outside the relegation places.
Oxford United finished in eighth place in season 2021/22 just outside the play off places.
April Results:-
Oxford v Cheltenham (25th April)
Barnsley 2 Oxford 0
Oxford 1 Portsmouth 1
Oxford 0 Bolton 1
Port Vale 0 Oxford 0
Oxford 1 Sheffield Wed 1
Peterborough 0 Oxford 0
Reverse fixture 19 Nov 22:-
Oxford 1 FGR 1 (goal – Matt, assist – O’Keefe)
One To Watch
Cameron Brannagan
An academy graduate of Liverpool, Brannagan made his senior debut in 2015 but managed just nine appearances for the club. He joined Fleetwood on loan in 2017 before signing for Oxford United on a permanent deal the following year. A midfielder who scores goals too. He is Oxford’s current top scorer.

Tyler Smith on loan from Hull.

Cameron Brannigan
January Transfer Window
Oxford signed Hull City striker Tyler Smith on loan until the end of the season. The 24-year-old scored three goals in 15 appearances for the Tigers in the Championship this season.
Oxford signed Nottingham Forest forward Ateef Konate on loan until the end of the season. The 21-year-old has scored eight goals in his past eight games for Forest’s under-21 side and was voted October’s Premier League 2 player of the month.
Manager

Liam Manning
Karl Robinson who had managed Oxford United since March 2018 was sacked in February 2023 as Oxford found themselves in a relegation battle. He previously managed MK Dons and Charlton Athletic. As a player he had played for several non-league teams.
Perhaps ironically Robinson was replaced by Liam Manning who had a similar background and who had been sacked, in December 2022, as MK Dons manager when the they found themselves in a relegation battle.
Liam Manning played as a youth for Norwich and Ipswich but his adult playing career was with various non-league teams and included a period playing with Icelandic team- Selfoss. At the end of his playing career, he moved into coaching first with West Ham U23s which at that time included Declan Rice before becoming head coach at Belgium’s First Division B team Lommel SK who he took from bottom of the table to third place.
In August 2021 he became MK Dons manager and took them to third place in L1 missing out on automatic promotion by one point. Unfortunately, they lost in the playoff semi-finals. Manning’s second season at MK Dons, having lost some players, proved more of a challenge.
Rovers Connection
Striker Matty Taylor was born in Oxford and was part of the Oxford Academy making seven substitute appearances but was released in 2009 just days after helping Oxford win the Oxfordshire Cup. He then played for Didcot and North Leigh.
Matty Taylor turned full time professional with FGR and played ninety-six times, scoring twenty-two goals between 2011 to 2014. He left to join Bristol Rovers and then moved to Bristol City before re-joining Oxford United in July 2020.
In January 2023 he joined Port Vale on loan re-uniting with his old Bristol Rovers boss Darryl Clarke.

Matty Taylor during his time at FGR
Famous Oxford Supporters
- Woody Harrelson – Hollywood actor
- Richard Branson – Entrepreneur
- Timmy Mallett – Entertainer
- Tim Henman – Tennis player
- Jim Rosenthal – Sports broadcaster
- Desmond Morris – Anthropologist

The ‘Utterly Brilliant!’ Timmy Mallet supporting Oxford United.
In 2002, Mallett made West Ham agree to stop selling copies of their mascot, Herbie the Hammer, in their club shop after he complained that it looked too similar to Pinky Punky. West Ham United withdrew the item.

Woody Harrelson ‘Cheers’ on Oxford United
Club History
Founded in 1893 as Headington United, Oxford United adopted its current name in 1960. It joined the Football League in 1962 after winning the Southern Football League, reaching the Second Division in 1968. After relegation in 1976, between 1984 and 1986 the club earned successive promotions into the First Division and won the League Cup in 1986. However, Oxford was unable thereby to enter the 1987 UEFA Cup because of the UEFA ban on English clubs in European competitions. Relegation from the top flight in 1988 began an 18-year decline which saw the club relegated to the Conference in 2006, becoming the first winners of a major trophy to be relegated from the Football League. After four seasons, Oxford returned to League Two in 2010 via the playoffs, and six seasons later achieved promotion to League One, after finishing second in League Two in 2016.
The club crest is a sort of visual pun, it depicts an ox above a ford to symbolise the location. In 2008, a bronze statue of an ox was unveiled outside of what would have been the west stand. It was subsequently vandalised in January 2011, being covered in pink paint and the club used the opportunity to raise money for a breast cancer charity. The club mascot is, unsurprisingly, an ox called Ollie.
Ron Atkinson holds the club record for the most overall appearances for Oxford with 560. In total, nineteen players have made international appearances while playing for the club.
Since 2001, Oxford United have played at the Kassam Stadium, previously they played at the Manor Ground. The Kazzam Stadium hosted its first football match on 4 August 2001, it was a friendly match against a top team – Crystal Palace, which Oxford very luckily won on penalties following a 1–1 draw.
The all-seater stadium has a capacity of 12,500 and has only three stands instead of the usual four; when first planned in 1995 it was originally going to have a 16,000-seat capacity, but by the time the stadium opened Oxford was playing in a lower division, so the smaller capacity was deemed adequate.
The record attendance is 12,243, which was achieved in the final game of the 2005–06 season, when a defeat against Leyton Orient condemned them to relegation from the Football League. On Boxing Day 2006, a crowd of 11,065 watched United draw 0–0 with Woking at the Kassam Stadium, the largest-ever attendance for a Conference match (excluding play-offs). Although in June 2006, Sir Elton John played a concert to a crowd of around 16,500. In the event of an emergency the Kazzam Stadium would be used under emergency powers which exist under contingency plans for the partial evacuation of London so that might result in a record crowd.

Oxford United Mascot is Ollie the Ox.
In 2001, Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries, now Baron Harries of Pentregarth, allegedly conducted an exorcism after the feeling of a malicious force and the team’s loss of thirteen of their first seventeen games at the new stadium was blamed on a curse placed on the club by a man who had been evicted from the site during construction. The Bishop’s spokesman, however, told the BBC Radio 4 “What the Bishop did was what many clergy do, which is bless the ground. He used a prayer which said: ‘Bless this place and protect it from evil.’”
The Kazzam stadium is still owned by Firoz Kazzam although he no longer owns the club. Oxford United’s lease on the Kassam Stadium runs out in 2026 and the club is looking to move to a new ground at Kidlington, technically outside Oxford. One of the driving forces is that car usage at the Kazzam Stadium is about 90% whereas at the proposed new location that would drop to 10%.
Oxford United: Club seeks move from the ‘cursed’ Kassam Stadium – BBC News

Kassam Stadium
What Are They Thinking
Oxford United Forum – Yellows Forum
Oxford Facts

Roger Bannister – first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
- The University of Oxford is the World’s Second Oldest University.
- The Name Oxford comes from the Word Oxanforda, which means cattle crossing.
- During the English Civil War from 1642 to 1646, Oxford was the Capital of England.
- During the World War II, Oxford was never bombed because Hitler was intending to use Oxford as his Capital if he conquered England.
- 27 British Prime Ministers were educated at Oxford University.
- Oxford was used as a filming location for Harry Potter and Actress Emma Watson (Hermione Granger in Harry Potter) went to school here.
- Oxford has its own use for a comma, known as the Oxford Comma and is used after conduction in a list of three or more.
- The first colleges of Oxford opened in the 13th century, however, no female students were allowed until 1878.
- Roger Bannister, who was a medical student at Oxford, was the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. His time was 3mins 59.4 seconds.
- Rock band Radiohead was formed while attending the Abingdon School in Oxford.
- Oxford’s Botanic Garden is the oldest in the World, Founded in 1621 as a Physic Garden.
- The oldest Music performance hall in Europe is located in Oxford, the Holywell Music Room, which was built in 1748.
- Oxford has more published writers per square mile, than anywhere in the World.
- Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum was the first Museum in the World to be opened to the public, officially opened in 1683.
- During the Medieval times, students at Oxford University were not allowed to marry by the rules of the church, this is why the first degrees awarded is called “Bachelor of Arts”.
FGR Players
For information about FGR Men’s Team players click here – The FGR Squad – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club (fgrsc.com)
For information about FGR Women click here – FGR Women – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club (fgrsc.com)
FGR Supporters Club
FGR Supporters Club Home Page – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club – The official Forest Green rovers supporters club (fgrsc.com)
For information about joining FGR Supporters Club click here – Join FGRSC – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club