Oxford United - 1 (Windass 24.)
Crystal Palace - 3 (Foster 58. Morrison 77. Bradbury pen 80.)

Our first double of the season, and only our second away win, finally arrived! The return of our two Chinese players, plus Craig Moore obviously helped out defensively, but it was nice to see, for once, that the attack finally found some power. The first half of the match passed without a goal being scored, but this is reported as being mainly due to the leniency of the referee Mr Danson. The most blatant of these incidents was certainly when Sun Jihai barged Chris Remy off the ball, though there were plenty of incidents on both sides. The referee was not swayed by any of the appeals.

If the first half appeared to be tame, at least from the goalscoring perspective, the second half was totally different. With the half almost 15 minutes old Simon Rodger put in a superb cross which was met by Craig Foster whose first time header gave Paul Gerrard no chance whatsoever. Gerrard, who is currently on loan from Everton, then pulled off a brilliant save when Matt Jansen put Lee Bradbury clean through to deny the visitors an unassailable lead. A free kick to Oxford, taken from 30 yards out, was then sent over the wall by Dean Windass to level the scores, and things were suddenly starting to look grim for the Palace supporters. It took until 12 minutes from the end, after introducing Clinton Morrison for Matt Jansen, for our second goal to come. A free kick to us for once, saw the ball come off Windass, but Gerrard looked well capable of controlling the situation. Suddenly Morrison rose from the crowd, and headed the ball neatly home to once again give us the advantage. To really add the icing to the cake Bradbury was brought down in the area, and finally the referee granted the penalty we had been looking for. Lee picked himself up and duly converted the opportunity, and the score was a very respectable 3-1. The last 10 minutes of the match passed without incident, and the players and fans for once made their way home feeling rather better about themselves than is usually the case.

Colin Pryce

Oxford United: Gerrard, Robinson, Powell, Wright (Cook 68), Watson, Warren (Wilsterman 87), Remy (Beauchamp 68), Smith, Thomson, Windass, Murphy.
Not Used: None.

Crystal Palace: Miller, Sun, Smith, Moore, Linighan, Foster, Burton, Fan, Bradbury, Jansen (Morrison 45) (Rizzo 90), Rodger.
Not Used: Mullins.

Attendance: 8,375
Referee: Mr P S Danson (Leicester).