To Me You Are A Work Of Art

Oxfordshire is a curious place, full of twee wife-swapping villages like Duns Tew and sprawling hellzones like Blackbird Leys, where the only currency is brick and the only joy is wrapped inside a stinking fist.

Well some of the faithful came to fill the away end at Adams Park/Curseway Stadium yesterday and they left in dribs and drabs, some being thrown out by the hand of FackinOldBill, while most crawled out on their bloody knees, awed by the sheer power of The Project, now being micro-managed by SteveBrown30.

Wycombe tore the yellow peril apart in stages, feasting on their bones like a fucked-up raven, and it was beautiful to watch. To see Sergio Torres skip past flailing idiots with ease, to see Tommy Mooney dancing a jig of justice in front of their massed apes, to see Kevin Betsy run with the ball like a modern-day Matthews, all of this is an excellent tonic for the mind and soul.

To see the bitter, twisted, petty drones that support Oxford is also enjoyable. They may get their wish and get to play Swindon next season but it will be the football equivalent of two doomed divers scrapping over a mouldy old oxygen bottle. The dream is dead and the two are Conference-bound. Wycombe, in contrast, are surging upwards, like a moon rocket destined for heaven.

Swastika Eyes

If you're a fan of sexy drawing, either fellate Tony Hart or follow Wycombe Wanderers this season. Yesterday's sojourn to the shattered panoramic dismay of Lincolnshire ended level, meaning that The Project has now produced 17 draws from deep inside its whirring macabre machinery.

Of course, a haul of four points from two away games this week is as respectable as a businessman in his suit and tie, but it is at the discombobulated confines of Adams Park/Curseway Stadium where the title will be won and lost, as it were.

There are six home games left this season, and a shimmering 18-point haul needs to be fished in by the men in bleached blue quarters. Six wins out of six, plus some generic scraps on the road would surely be enough to see a open topped jamboree outside the Town Hall, with MonkeyMan Beeks shirtless and spazzed out on Jim Beam.

But, as this week's excellent One-One article highlighted, the atmosphere at Adams Park/Curseway Stadium is so bad that Wycombe will be lucky to scrape 10 points. Those responsible will not see the error of their ways until they are locked safely inside a prison, so it may be the play-offs once more, and a two-legged semi-final against Carlisle looms like a bush-nonce.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, and third in the Bucks Free Press.

Pentecostal Retreat

The shrieking horror of life within the burning ranks of the Drone Army was revealed on Saturday at Adams Park, High Wycombe. The 86th "must-win" game of the club's Football League career ended in a predictably breathless draw, The Project creaking, rolling and bucking like the Mary Rose, but you would think that the Wanderers had succumbed to a eight-goal drubbing, going on the waves of mutilation pouring down the Woodlands stand.

This is the club's finest season since 1995 and yet going to home games is becoming as unpleasant as fleeting sex with stray dogs. If the players are ever guilty of showing a lack of passion then who can truly blame them when they gaze at the crowd and see face upon face of bitter lemon and whining hound.

Adams Park may be under the dire influence of the Curseway Curse but that is no reason for the fanbase to not get behind the 11 men on the pitch, and try and drive them onto promotion.

The next home game is Oxford United, those former Headington non-league no-marks are surely ripe for a good old fashioned potato peeling. If the atmosphere is dead for this contest then truly it will be time to pour petrol onto the fading Desso surface and burn a funeral pyre for what used to be Wycombe Wanderers Football Club.

The men in blue quarters deserve better than this, and they'll probably get it at Meadow Lane and York Street. Those who remain behind should weep with shame...

Winter In July

It was Scotch John Gorman's Kevin Keegan moment, the precise point in time when the chance of winning the league championship slipped away like desert sand through the gnarled fingers of a Nomad.

Wycombe paid £80,000 for Jermaine Easter.

Newcastle threw away the title 10 years ago, February 1996, when they splashed out petty brut-style on Colombian forward Tino Asprilla. He was the man to bring them the big grey pot and they ended up with not a lot.

Now, a decade on in leafy Bucks history has repeated itself, first as tragedy (Faulconbridge) and now as farce. Jermaine Easter is not to blame, he only penned his childish signature on a WWFC contract, dreams of Home Counties glory echoing in his eyes.

Memories of the way we used to be.

The defence is crumbling like a jammy dodger and the team has got through more goalkeepers than a wasteful youth club, yet the strikers are bolstered like the 5th cavalry and the young boys at the back are being slaughtered by Jerry riflemen by the hundred.

The Project has never been in this much danger, this is our Stalingrad, our Ypres, our Redbridge Forest.

Stand up and be counted before they run out of fingers, or we run out of hope.

Begin The Begin

The Project journeys into foreign territory tomorrow, but it is forged in the molten centre of the earth and arbitary boundaries do it no harm. The 11 men in red could do it a mischief, though, and the top of the table is getting tighter than powder.

Wycombe: Originators of The Project, play in blue whenever possible, sweep across the pitch like a medieval army, will cut you open like a luxury tin of beans.

Carlisle: Newly-promoted, have a Cumbrian skeleton-army supporting them, not many people leave their bit of the country without serious mental damage. But Michael Bridges surely due a long-term injury soon.

Grimsby: Hammer-throwers, if Michael Reddy leaves or chokes then they'll fall to pieces like a well-cooked mackerel, due to fade like Marty McFly

Northampton: A bigger squad than the Elite Republican Guard, tucked tight in their council stadium by the bowling alley, have lost only four times and are pressing like an aroused dog.

Leyton Orient: Away from home they're metal, at the Matchroom they're cardboard, Wycombe go there in March and there'll be clash of civilisations. Book your hotel in Bow now.

So there we go, seven games against the top five and Wycombe are unscathed, but it's petty trips to Wales that could undo us, so let's hope that there's no onions left uncut at 1pm tomorrow.