Greatest game ever: The day Chelsea were almost outsmarted at Oxford

In my first season as a ‘proper’ football fan, 1995-96, I watched Oxford United gain promotion to what is now the Championship. This was where my club belonged; I knew that this was our level. Looking back at our three years in that league, it’s pretty clear we were out of our depth.

When we met Chelsea in a Fourth Round FA Cup-tie in January, 1999, only one division separated us, but the gulf could not have been wider. Chelsea came to the Manor Ground, a rickety stadium made up of a collage of misfit stands and terraces with a six-foot slope to boot, armed with a table-topping £40m worth of talent, including the likes of Gianluca Vialli, Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo, and a teenage centre-back named John Terry.

Oxford United, in contrast, were around £10m in debt, struggling to sell the club, and had had to offload stars Matt Elliott, Darren Purse, Bobby Ford and Phil Whitehead over the previous two seasons simply to stay afloat.
 
The 1998-99 season had begun with optimism for Oxford, however, especially with the record £475,000 signing of Dean Windass from Aberdeen. I was never quite sure how we managed to afford this until I discovered later that we didn’t pay for him until after we sold him on for over £900,000 to Bradford before the season was through. The game against Chelsea would perhaps be Windass’s defining moment in his short spell at the club.

From what I remember, the first half was fairly quiet on the pitch, and nervy in the terraces. A couple of half-chances either end, but Ed De Goey had yet to be truly tested. A Dean Windass free-kick over the bar was the closest we came, and Zola was looking worryingly lively.

It was the second half which really saw the game come to life, as Oxford traditionally attacked the London Road end and gained the customary second-half advantage we craved at every coin toss. Some said the atmosphere of the packed terrace often acted to ‘suck’ the ball into the goal, others would note the aforementioned six-foot slope.

Either way, it worked, and the magical moment arrived after just seven minutes. Heavy Oxford pressure and a fervent crowd brought a succession of corners, and Windass out-jumped World Cup winner Marcel Desailly at the near post to head in an in-swinger from Jamie Cook and leave the Chelsea team stunned. This was it; my dream of a famous victory was coming true.
 
A couple of quick Chelsea chances followed and the game was alive. The crowd was in top voice, and Oxford probably should have wrapped the game up on a couple of occasions. Left back Paul Powell was causing all sorts of problems down the wing and his cross was air-shot by the Crouch-esque gangly substitute striker Kevin Francis.

Time was ticking away, and our battling spirit would surely be rewarded. Even when the dreaded four minutes of injury time was announced, and a collective 9,000-strong groan of desperation followed, we were surely on the verge. We had more than held our own this half, my memory is that we completely outplayed Chelsea; this was it.
 
The unthinkable arrived deep into injury time. A Chelsea corner, constant pressure, and a tangle in the box between Francis and Vialli saw the Italian fall to the floor and referee Mike Reed become Oxfordshire’s Public Enemy No. 1.

The other bald one, Frank Lebouef, stepped up to compound the misery with an annoyingly cool spot-kick. To this day I stick to the claim it was a horrible dive from Vialli, but when a clumsy 6ft 7ins  striker is defending against an international striker the fate is almost inevitable. We trudged away heartbroken and empty-handed.

The game, for then 12-year-old me, stood out not only because of the fact we nearly (and perhaps should have) knocked the Premiership leaders out of the FA Cup, but for the fact it was the greatest atmosphere I had, and still have, ever experienced. The crowd were loud, boisterous, and clearly intimidated the Chelsea superstars.

This game carries some of the ultimate highs (the goal, nearly falling down to the next level of terracing in front of me in excitement) and lows (the ending, how could football do that to me?) of my football experience, and will be forever etched on my memory.
 
As for the replay, I wasn’t allowed to go to an away match on a school night. We would take the lead at Stamford Bridge within five minutes, but even that and a Dennis Wise red card wouldn’t be enough to stop a debutant Mikael Forssell scoring twice in a 4-2 Chelsea victory.
 
The rest of the season saw Windass on his way to bigger and arguably better things, his 15 league goals not enough to keep Oxford from a relegation, which would begin a seven-year plunge into non-league football.