I agree with the comments of David Tinson and Tim Siret (Oxford Mail November 29 and December 2 respectively), regarding the treatment and sacking of Mr Patterson as manager from a non-league club that still regularly attracts more than 4,000 people to its home games.

The U’s have historically had a habit of handling issues relating to players and management poorly, and, at times, with a lack of care and attention.

Remember John Aldridge being left behind at QPR? Or the Saunders/Lawrenson fiasco?

Many things may have worked or conspired against the U’s in the two or three seasons before loosing league status, but agreeing to go to Southend (and losing 4-0) on a Friday night, so as to allow Southend’s players to go Christmas shopping on the Saturday, wasn’t perhaps the brightest move on our part.

Allowing Orient to bring several thousand of their fans to our place as they battled for points to go up, while we were on the same day fighting for our lives, was also not the shrewdest of moves.

Nor was it the fault of the then-managers.

The gate money of about £70,000 from those Orient fans would have been seen to be easy money by United at the time, but at what cost since?

This season saw us opening up at Barrow in Furness on a Friday night. Mr Patterson was of course blameless for that. I still cannot believe our club sat back at the league meeting and simply allowed that 800 mile round-trip on a Friday to happen, with so many U’s fans likely to be planning to travel to Barrow for a Saturday fixture.

You can guarantee that Mr Patterson will one day return with someone to rain on our parade. That’s how this wonderful game of football works.

I understand that, as with any type of business, there is little room for sentiment at Grenoble Road.

But that does not relieve the U’s from perhaps affording a little more grace towards Mr Patterson.

If an individual club cannot demonstrate a little respect and appreciation of loyalty to one of its own, to one who has served them in several roles for up to nine years, what chance have we, the supporters, of getting any?

One manager, as I remember, began his managerial career in England at the Manor Ground and promptly suffered a 2-0 defeat to what were then the “mighty” U’s.

By the end of that season, he too was nearly out of work. His employers however gave him time and space to improve results and position.

He of course is Sir Alex Ferguson, and the rest is carved into footballing legend (though he still lost to us first!).

I’m not suggesting we’ll ever outdo the likes of Manchester United – despite hammering them regularly in both league and cup in the past. But it is the same game, with the same ball, and the same problems.

Mr Ferguson (love him or hate him, you have to admire him) has always stuck by his players and club and they in return by him.

Occasionally it must be hard, even for him, to handle the pressure if his side fails to win at least two major trophies in a season. Unfortunately we now have to start all over again.

Football is, as Mr Patterson says, not a “quick-fix” sport. And while all U’s fans will have their own opinions about tactics, or who plays where, and when, and with whom, at the end of the day there should only be one guv’nor.

I have an uneasy feeling we’ve just let a potentially very good one slip from our short-minded and impatient grasp.

I wish Mr Patterson, and his family, every success for the future... except against us!

DAVID WILLIAMS, David Walter Close, Oxford