CHRIS KOENIG looks back on the highs and lows of Oxford United in its 115 years as a football club

Whatever you may think of the roller-coaster ride that Oxford United Football Club has enjoyed in its 115-year history, the fact that it still exists at all, let alone has an all-seater stadium the like of which early supporters could not have imagined, is surely something of a miracle.

It started in 1893 as one of several small clubs in and around Oxford. Its first match, as the tiny village club of Headington United, was probably against the United College Servants Wanderers, resulting in a 2-1 defeat.

Its founders were a 49-year-old football-playing vicar of Headington, which, incidentally, did not become part of Oxford till 1929, the Rev Scott Tucker, and a younger, local doctor called Dr Hitchings, who was anxious to provide healthy exercise for the young men of Headington.

A report in the St Andrew's (Headington) Church magazine of November 1893 read: "The cricket season being over, Mr Hitchings, with his customary zeal for the young men of the parish, has inaugurated a football club."

That first match was played on a makeshift pitch at Headington Quarry, and the club continued to play at various places around the parish for the next 30 years or so. Not until 1925 did it find a permanent home at the Manor Ground, which until then had been known as Mattocks Field after the company that grew roses there.

Public-spirited shopkeepers bought the Manor Ground for the use of Headington people as a sports field in 1924. They placed a covenant on the land, stipulating that it should remain an "open playing" field forever; then they formed a company, the Headington Sports Ground Ltd, to manage the football, cricket, tennis, and bowls clubs.

Admission to the uncovered enclosure on match days was 6d (2.5p), the ground 4d, and season tickets 4s (20p). Ladies and boys 2d.

United's early difficulties, immediately after the move to the Manor, was the fact that it shared the ground with the Headington Cricket Club - and the seasons overlapped. Eventually the cricket club moved out and in 1960 the football club became Oxford United.

Since then the club won promotion to the top flight and won the League Cup, in 1986, under the ownership of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell but has since plummeted to the Conference League.

The more recent history of the Kassam Stadium, at Minchery Farm, is almost as colourful as that of United itself. Work got under way to build the stadium in 1996. Then contractors walked off site complaining of unpaid bills, leaving the thing half-built for the next four years.

In 1999 Firoz Kassam appeared on the scene as "the only buyer in town", to quote former city council leader and the Lord Mayor of Oxford, John Tanner.

He paid £1 for the club and undertook to complete the stadium, though with only three sides instead of the four originally envisaged. As for the old Manor Ground, it was sold in 2001 for development as a hospital despite the existence of the old covenant.

Of all the original clubs founded by Headington Sports Ground Ltd, only the Bowls Club remained, other than Oxford United itself. The Bowls Club was therefore the only organisation able to enforce the covenant. After lengthy negotiations its committee allowed the development.