OXFORD SCHOLAR

Des Buckingham is loving life in charge of his hometown club after a nomadic career. He speaks to Lawrence Ostlere

- Lawrence Ostlere

They didn’t sing the words, but after a humiliating 5-0 defeat by Bolton Wanderers in March, most Oxford United fans expected Des Buckingham to be sacked in the morning. Oxford had been third in League One when Buckingham took charge four months earlier; now they were eighth and plummeting out of the promotion picture.

“We went to Bolton and, probably naively on my part, we chose to change our shape and press and be aggressive away from home, and it didn’t work,” Buckingham says. “That was on me.”

The reaction on social media was damning and, as a lifelong Oxford fan who was born in the city, it stung.

“By all means say what you want about me as a head coach, but I think when people step over the line personally, especially when it’s your own people, that’s tough,” he says. “I know my family struggled seeing that as well. I probably needed a better way to deal with that [than to] go home and overthink it and over-worry and think up scenarios that are just not there … you can dig yourself a lot deeper than ever needs be. Mentally, it’s probably the biggest challenge I’ve had to deal with in my life.”

In the days that followed, Buckingham shut out the noise and stripped his team back to basics, leaning on the principles he’d learnt on an extraordinary coaching journey via Wellington, Melbourne, Mumbai and, erm, Stoke. Oxford lost only once more all season and met Bolton again in the play-off final at Wembley. A tactical masterclass delivered a 2-0 victory and restored Oxford to the second tier for the first time in 25 years.