Oxford Utd 0, Bury 1

By JON MURRAY

AS disasters go, this ranked high on the Richter Scale.

A weak headed backpass by skipper Les Robinson was pounced on by Bury's on-loan Leeds striker Derek Lilley in the 29th minute and, hard though United tried to break down the visitors' defence after that, they couldn't.

Once again it was United's inability to stick the ball in the net that cost them dearly as they crashed to their first home defeat of 1999 against a team who hadn't won away all season.

Malcolm Shotton's side were relyng on Bury finishing below them in Division 1, but the Shakers, despite scoring just 30 goals in 41 games, have now gone level on points with Oxford and have a game in hand.

Shotton's assistant Mark Harrison had said before this crunch relegation battle that they hoped for an early breakthrough, and

The chances were clearly there in the opening few minutes as Oxford made a bright start.

But this United team seem unable to seize the moment. An exciting 30-yard run from Joey Beauchamp, cutting in from the right, in the second minute should have finished with a goal, yet when his shot struck Andy Thomson, the Scottish striker swivelled but then mis-hit his strike on goal. The ball ran to Kevin Francis, who bundled it over the line, but by then Francis was offside. The real chance was Thomson's.

Seconds later, Beauchamp sent a curling cross behind the Bury defence but Francis blazed over from a tight angle.

United's 6ft 7in striker is still looking for his first goal of the season but he wasn't far away in the sixth minute with a left-foot drive which struck the outside of a post.

It took Bury, who had adventurously chosen to play three up front, a quarter of an hour to get going and when they did force some pressure, Chris Swailes headed over the bar.

The first real danger signal from Bury came in the 27th minute when Carl Serrant played a short free-kick to veteran defender Steve Redmond and he unleashed a tremendous 25-yard drive which Paul Lundin did well to push away from the top-right corner of his goal.

Two minutes later, Robinson's error left Lundin helpless and suddenly United were staring full in the face at a nightmare scenario.

When you're at the bottom of the table, though, you need the occasional moment of luck and Oxford had none on Saturday. Nicky Banger fired a 25-yard free-kick over the Bury wall only to see it smack against the bar.

And incredibly, moments before half-time, the hard-working Banger struck the bar again with goalkeeper Dean Kiely again completely beaten.

This time it was a fine piece of skill from Banger, who dribbled past two players and then hit with a cracking 20-yard drive over Kiely and against the underside of the bar. The ball bounced down, very close to the line and Thomson was unable to reach it before Kiely had recovered.

Photographers close to the goal said the ball had crossed the line, but the linesman was 15 yards away from being level and would not give it.

It seemed typical of United's luck, and Bury's good defending, that when Mark Watson again beat Kiely with a header, there was Dean West, just on as a substitute, to clear off the line.

Realising the dire straits their team were in, United's fans in the London Road end gave great vocal support at the start of the second half as the home side attacked down the slope. And once again an early chance was there for Thomson. Paul Tait's threaded pass put him through on goal but he shot too close to Kiely who saved.

Thomson then laid a chance on for Banger with a cut-back and Banger blazed over the bar.

Shotton made a double substitution, hauling off Thomson and Banger and trying out Simon Weatherstone and Matt Murphy, but it couldn't change the pattern of the game.

With 14 minutes to go Francis sent a firm header from a Phil Gilchrist cross just pst the far post and that was the end of United's huffing and puffing.

Bury substitute Adrian Littlejohn made a terrible hash of a great opportunity to make it 2-0 when he latched on to a bad backheader from Martin Gray and shot tamely wide.

But 1-0 was bad enough.

If Oxford United do go down at the end of the season, they will look back on this game as the one that killed them.

Story date: Monday 12 April

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.