NO true Oxford United fan will ever forget how they felt on May 6, 2006, one of the worst days in the club’s history.

At about 4.50pm on that fateful Saturday, the unthinkable happened and the U’s were dumped into non-League obscurity, beaten 3-2 by Leyton Orient, with one of the club’s former players adding insult to injury by applying the coup de grace.

From that day until this, Oxford United have been all but obliterated from the football map. Let’s not pretend otherwise. The Blue Square Premier may be the peak of the non-League pyramid, but it’s still a backwater for a club with United’s history and fan base.

Tomorrow at 5pm, the waiting is over, the talking stops and the biggest match in the club’s recent history gets under way at Wembley.

At stake is promotion back to the Football League and – let’s be blunt – this is a match that the club cannot afford to lose.

Apart from the small matter of more than £500,000 in extra income that promotion would bring, victory against York City – once a proud Football League club themselves – will end four years of hurt and humiliation for a club that has gone from beating Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the top flight to losing at home to the not-so-mighty Hayes & Yeading.

The Football League is everything in terms of Oxford United and its future development on and off the pitch under its capable and ambitious chairman Kelvin Thomas. Defeat in the play-off final is not an option.

Quite simply, tomorrow is Oxford United’s day of destiny.

Manager Chris Wilder and his players are confident, relaxed and focused on the task in hand. That’s good to know.

Because, to paraphrase Admiral Lord Nelson’s message to his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, Oxford really does expect that every man does his duty tomorrow – and gets United back where they belong.