Oxford News
When Oxford City played at the White House ground
The pub, the Slow and Steady in Abingdon Road, was originally called the White House and behind it was the White House ground, where Oxford City played for many years.
City could not generate such large crowds as Oxford United, but they had a strong following of supporters who would cheer on the team in their home matches.
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However, one of the most memorable matches at the ground involved not Oxford City but Oxford Boys.
In 1966, the young team had a great run in the major national competition, the English Schools’ Trophy.
In the year that England won the World Cup, the Oxford under-15s fought their way through every round to the final.
They excited thousands of fans throughout the city in their finest season since 1908.
Those in the picture above were among 6,062 who packed into the White House ground to see Oxford defeat Luton 2-1 in an enthralling semi-final.
Led by team manager Michael Hammett, a teacher at Wheatley Park School, they had beaten High Wycombe, Swindon, Woking, Cambridge and Havant in the early rounds.
In the quarter finals, Oxford faced a long trip to Seaham in County Durham, where they triumphed again to earn the right to face Luton.
Everything looked lost when Luton broke away to take the lead early in the second half, but a calmly-taken penalty by skipper Tony Tompkins spurred Oxford into action.
With 10 minutes left, Stephen Whelan scored after the Luton goalkeeper dropped a cross and from then on, Oxford’s superiority was never in doubt.
The final whistle brought a huge roar from the crowd, who filled every side of the ground.
The first leg of the final at Oxford United’s Manor Ground at Headington attracted an even bigger crowd – 9,062.
Sadly, East London proved too strong for Oxford, winning the first game 3-2 and the return leg at Millwall 2-1.
But Oxford were not disgraced. The Oxford Mail, in an editorial, summed up the city’s feelings: “We have a team to be proud of.”
The Oxford Boys that year weren’t the only ones to enjoy playing at the White House ground – the club often welcomed junior sides to play competition matches.
However, all that changed in 1988 when City were evicted by their landlords, Brasenose College, which sold the site for housing.
They were forced to leave the Isthmian League, but after a spell of inactivity, they reformed in 1990 and, based at Cutteslowe Park in North Oxford, joined the South Midlands League, winning promotion in their first season.
There was further joy in 1993 when they moved to their current ground, Court Place Farm, in Marsh Lane, Marston.
The Slow and Steady pub, on the corner of Whitehouse Road, where former Lord Mayor John Tanner held his party (Memory Lane, March 9), is owned by Brasenose College and opened in 1897 as the White House Inn.
It was designed by architect Henry Thomas Hare, whose grandest Oxford building, the Town Hall, was completed the same year.
But these days, many smokers seem to have got the message and given up. Perhaps that is not surprising, given the threat to health and the high cost of buying a packet.
No Smoking Day continues to be an annual event. In the past, Oxford Mail photographers were always out and about recording those promoting the campaign.
Picture 1 shows Kerry Cole, 16, left, and Mary Glaspole, 12, encouraging everyone to ‘stub it out’ in Oxford in 1995.
Adam Baker, 10, had a similar message in Picture 2 in 1998. He had created a poster which had won him a prize in a competition.
He had a particular reason to spread the word. His mum apparently “smoked like a chimney!”. She refused to be in the picture for some reason!
Oxford United players were also happy to join in. In Picture 3, we see, left to right, Mike Ford, Phil Whitehead and Matt Elliott tying up a giant makeshift cigarette on the Manor Ground pitch in 1996.
Pupils at Rush Common School in Abingdon, in Picture 4, went to great lengths to say what they thought, encouraging everyone to ‘Take the Plunge, No Smoking Day’.
It must have taken some time to create the letters and make sure they were in the right order when they got in the pool.
Children at Hailey Primary School, near Witney, in Picture 5, were on safer ground, getting a lecture on the dangers of smoking from health visitors in 1991.
Members of SASH (Students for Action on Smoking and Health) in Oxford adopted a different approach in 2000, displaying 330 names and photographs of people who had given up smoking or died from its effects. Chairman Patrick Mackerras is seen in Picture 6.
The first No Smoking Day was on Ash Wednesday 1984 and now takes place on the second Wednesday in March.
Every year, the campaign is promoted with a short phrase. In 2010, this theme was ‘Break free’, encouraging smokers to break free from the chains of cigarettes and give up. The 2011 theme was ‘Time to quit?’
Research following the 2009 campaign found that one in 10 smokers quit on No Smoking Day. In 2011, Parliamentary notices for the campaign reported that almost 750,000 smokers attempted to quit.
The pictures were taken by Oxford Mail photographers Dave Fleming, George Reszeter, Damian Halliwell and Richard Cave.
The 66-year-old revealed in the latest episodes of the fifth season of his series Clarkson’s Farm that he had been diagnosed with “aggressive” prostate cancer that had been discovered early.
In an interview with The Times, Clarkson confirmed that a PSA test two months ago revealed no indication of cancer and he is officially in remission.
He said: “I was talking to David (Cameron) about it earlier this morning. He said the amount of people that come up to him is mostly in public conveniences and say, if you hadn’t owned up to it, I wouldn’t have got checked, and they wouldn’t have found it.
“So now there’s a group of us, (food writer) Giles Coren, David, me, one or two other people, and we meet for lunch every so often. Everybody has different Gleason scores, and everybody has different Stockholm and PSA scores. We all compare notes and I actually get muddled with what mine were.
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“But it is quite funny watching people looking at us and going, ‘that’s quite an interesting group of people, what do they all share in common?’.”
Clarkson went on to say that the news of his diagnosis has “landed harder than I thought it would”.
He added: “This is why I have to say to everybody who’s reading this, please, please, please go and get checked.
“It’s not uncomfortable, it’s not undignified, and it’s a no-brainer. I did, and that’s why I’m sitting here talking to you 11 months down the line.
“I’ve seen so many people die of cancer. It doesn’t bear thinking about what it must be like to live knowing that an illness is going to kill you.
“It must be very, very, very distressing. I don’t know the history of what happened to (former Olympic cyclist) Chris Hoy, but to be told your cancer is inoperable and to still carry on you’d have to be incredibly brave.”
Speaking from a hospital bed at the end of the season finale, Clarkson revealed he had experienced complications during treatment, which he told The Times had been caused by him resuming a course of tablets he had been taking for his earlier vascular and cardiac problems.
He said: “That was horrific and it was all my own fault. I’d been on drugs for heart issues and I had to come off them during the cancer treatment.
“Two or three weeks after the cancer operation, I thought I’d better put myself back on those blood thinners. Big mistake, huge.
“It (resulted in) a very big emergency in the middle of the night. I’m not even going to go into the treatment that was required as a result of that, because it was horrible. I didn’t ask a doctor, I just thought, ‘I’m sure it will be all right to go back on blood thinners’.”
The diagnosis came almost two years after Clarkson underwent a heart procedure, which saw him fitted with two stents to improve blood flow to the heart.
At about 9.20pm on Monday, June 15, an initial incident occurred in Barberi Close/St Nicholas Road in Littlemore, during which a man was approached by a group of males travelling in a blue vehicle and threatened.
The victim was able to leave the scene without injury.
About ten minutes later, an incident took place in Beckett Drive, Radley, where a group of males travelling in a blue vehicle believed to be linked to the first incident, assaulted another man who sustained a serious injury.
He was treated at hospital and has since been discharged.
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Thomas Quinn, aged 19, of Deacon Way, Banbury, has been charged with one count of section 18 grievous bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article.
He appeared at Oxford Magistrates’ Court today (June 20) and was remanded in custody pending a further court appearance at Oxford Crown Court on 17 July.
The force has made a further seven arrests in connection with this investigation.
Six have been released on police bail, with a further person released with no further action.
Officers previously reassured residents that they are treating the stabbing as an isolated incident and that patrols have been stepped up locally.
Police previously appealed for witnesses and footage regarding the incident which “scared” members of the community.
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