Oxford's Rowett rues the 'crazy' pressures of management

Richard Cawley has an in depth interview with Gary Rowett on his Substack page.  When he brings Oxford United to The Valley on Saturday he will be marking a year in charge of the club.

Rowett is frank about the downsides of a football career: "As wonderful as being in football is, there are times when it does become a job, like doing a long journey on a Tuesday night and it’s minus two outside.

“You also have to be able to deal with that stress. Everyone has different mechanisms. I try to make it logical and think about what I need to do to win the next game, rather than worrying about the last one. It keeps you going.

“Nowadays you might get one job in management and be out in one month or six months. There are managers at a club for two weeks and people are saying they are under pressure - it’s absolutely crazy. There is no other job like it, in that sense.”

Rowett was a Curbs target but played just 15 games for Charlton, being sidelined by a severe injury which ended his playing career. He thinks that perhaps staff did not realise just how serious his injury was.

Subscribe to Cawley's Substack page to read more - a good Christmas present for an Addick.

Most of my vivid memories of Oxford are of the old Headington ground which betrayed their origins as Headington United.   It certainly had 'character', some of the tiny stands looked as if they had been made from Meccano.   Parking in a nearby rural lane, I heard a supporter rebuke his son called Tristam.

When I was helping out on the club web site, I was dispatched to cover Oxford Reserves versus Charlton Reserves.  This was held at Witney Town on a freezing cold night.   The referee was Wendy Toms.  She gave John Barnes a yellow card.

I was talking to a former colleague at a Christmas lunch yesterday.   He is a mustard keen Canary, but lives in Oxford and one of his sons has transferred his allegiance to the local club.  Overall it seems to me that the support is more Blackbird Leys than All Souls.

I must say I find the current ground with one end opening to a car park disappointing, but there are plans to relocate to a new stadium to the north of Oxford.