Kevin Sandwith joined the Chris Wilder Revolution yesterday with the hope of swapping unpaid misery at Weymouth for a potentially thrilling end to the season at Oxford United.

The 30-year-old former Weymouth captain has signed for the U’s until the end of the 2008-9 campaign, and is in the squad for this evening’s televised Blue Square Premier clash with Torquay United at the Kassam Stadium, where he is likely to be on the bench.

He said: “I was released from my contract at Weymouth so I was just trying to get somewhere for the season.

“A club the size of Oxford, it was an offer I couldn’t really turn down.”

He knows Wilder from their days together at Halifax, and said it was only a chance call to his former boss, that ended with a move to United.

“I played for Chris for about 18 months, and kept in contact, and talked a few times about different players. I just gave him a call to see if he knew of anyone and he invited me down.

“Since Chris has come in, Oxford have taken off, and pushed up the table, and have a chance of the play-offs.

“It will be good to be around and involved with the lads in what will hopefully be a good end of the season.”

The turmoil at the Wessex Stadium has meant it has been a tough time for all the Weymouth players, who have left and been replaced with fresh-faced youth-team players.

“I’ve got my girlfriend and little girl down there and it’s not an easy situation for me to be in, but you’ve just got to get on with it, and do what’s best for yourself and your family,” he said.

“It’s not a good situation to put the kids in. A lot of those that played against Rushden are only 16 or 17 years old and hadn’t even trained with us.

“To put them in that situation isn’t good, but hopefully they will learn from it.”

On what the U’s have designated as “Wear Your Colours Day”, to turn the Kassam Stadium into a sea of yellow and blue, Wilder will have one of the strongest squads available to him since he took over, with Lewis Haldane returning from suspension and likely to bolster the bench further.

United, in eighth place and looking for an eighth successive home league win, will go level on points with fifth-placed Torquay if they can beat Paul Buckle’s team, who knocked them out of the FA Cup.

“Torquay’s a test for us,” Wilder admitted.

“Paul has set up a very competitive team that goes away and wins. I saw them on Tuesday and thought they were desperately unlucky not to beat Forest Green.

“I’m sure Paul will come here and, especially with a decent crowd and with it being on television, want to win the game, so I would imagine it being a very open game.

“We know that players will have to play to the top of their form individually.”

He added: “We’re dragging teams closer, but not as close as I would like.

“Fair play to Stevenage, Cambridge, Histon and Wrexham, they don’t show any signs of faltering at the moment.

“They’re picking up points consistently – especially Cambridge, who have had four away games and won four on the bounce.”

Simon Clist and Adam Murray will both be facing one of their former clubs.

Clist said: “Torquay will be tough, they’re one of the teams that are up there and they’ve got a couple of games in hand on us.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we take the points off them.

“I went on loan there from Bristol City for a few months – they were a League club then – and I know Kevin Nicholson and Michael Brough, who’s now gone on loan to Salisbury.

“We just want to carry on our home form as we have done, and we have been strong at home.”

Buckle said: “I don’t know what Oxford’s tactics will be, but they’re on a good run and they’re a massive club with great ambitions of getting back into the Football League.

“It’s live on television, which is great, and it all makes for a more open game.”

The Torquay boss needs to decide whether to play both wide men, Wayne Carlisle and Roscoe DSane, and whether Matt Green’s wonder goal in midweek keeps him in the starting line-up ahead of Elliott Benyon.

Oxford Utd: (from) Turley, Batt, Willmott, Foster, Carruthers, Chapman, Murray, Clist, Nelthorpe, Farrell, Constable, Odubade, Haldane, Hinchliffe, Hutchinson, Sandwith, Burnell, Day.

Torquay Utd: (from) Bevan, Mansell, Woods, Hodges, Carlisle, Caraoyol, DSane, Hargreaves, Sills, Benyon, Green, Christie, Wroe, Stevens, Ellis, Robertson, Thompson.

  • OXFORD United's Kassam Stadium is set to be announced as the venue for the final of the International Challenge Tournament between England C and their Belgian counterparts at the end of the season.