News that Manchester United could soon be in the hands of Rupert Murdoch has left thousands of fans on the brink of despair. But if supporters imagine things cannot get any worse, they would do well to remember the saga of another United that fell into the hands of a media mogul.

When you sup with global communications tycoons you need a spoon twice the length of the Old Trafford pitch.

And there's certainly no better proof of that than at Oxford United, which is still trying to disentangle itself from the Robert Maxwell era more than a decade ago.

It was not so much a roller-coaster ride as a flight tied to the back of a Tornado jet with a nuclear warhead under each wing and the Red Baron at the controls.

Under Robert Maxwell, Oxford United did enjoy almost unimaginable success, winning a place among the soccer giants in the old First Division, as well as lifting the Milk Cup at Wembley on a glorious spring afternoon in 1986.

But there was a price to be paid - although for once, Maxwell did not pay it with other people's money.

By the time Cap'n Bob dashed off to Derby County in 1987, United was already sitting on a financial timebomb, although few knew it. The publishing tycoon briefly made Oxford the envy of small, hard-up clubs across Britain. But the Sugar Daddy proved to be an evil tyrant who saw the club - like the pension funds he defrauded - as his personal plaything to be picked up and dropped on a whim.

To capture Manchester United, BSkyB are prepared to hand over £575m. But it is mind-boggling to consider that Maxwell almost acquired the Old Trafford club himself in 1984, when he allegedly offered £10m. Instead, the man who liked to boast that he had saved the Daily Mirror settled for rescuing Oxford United FC.

He wasted no time in putting £128,000 into the club's ailing bank balance and put pressure on the city council to support the hunt for a new stadium.

To Maxwell's credit, in Jim Smith he found a first-class manager and had the sense to let him get on with the job of winning third and second division championships in successive seasons. It was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable rags-to-riches-to-rags stories in English soccer history. But dark shadows had already begun to fall over the Maxwell era long before the tycoon's death in 1991.

Financial juggling and secret deals between Robert Maxwell and his son Kevin, whom he had installed as chairman when he left for Derby, appalled many. It certainly sickened Mark Lawrenson, who departed as manager in disgust.

Oxford United fans may have been given memories to last a lifetime, but dignity and integrity were no longer words associated with the Manor.

Manchester United fans are already being promised the earth by BSkyB - millions for players, a ticket price freeze and a stock market windfall.

They hardly need telling that, compared to Oxford United, the club created by Sir Matt Busby has much more to lose.

The fans taking their seats in the theatre of dreams will have no wish to find themselves instead in a gilded palace of nightmares.

But for hard-up Oxford United, still awaiting a new ground, even dreams are now hard to come by.

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