TOWN’S awful recent record against Oxford plunged to new depths at the weekend as they failed to show up at the Kassam Stadium.

I can accept when Town have been second best - but over the past four meetings, we haven’t shown the fight needed for the occasion.

During the home derby in August 2012, both teams were up for it, a real blood and thunder contest. On that occasion, the away side took the points, but you couldn’t fault the Town players.

But not since that day in one of the four games at the Kassam has the same desire to win been on display, which is really hard to endure.

Thankfully, the players get the chance to redeem themselves quickly as the U’s visit the County Ground in early October in the newly-renamed Checkatrade Trophy.

That cup campaign started on Tuesday evening as Town welcomed Chelsea’s U23s to the County Ground.

The competition has undergone a large amount of restructuring and rebranding, the major talking point being the inclusion of development teams from both the Premier League and Championship lining up against clubs from League One and Two.

It’s a sad indictment on our game today that the majority of chairmen seem so detached from their fans that they would voted in favour of this awful, stupid proposal during the summer.

The idea of the Football League Trophy is for clubs from League One and Two to fight it out between themselves, to earn the chance of a game at Wembley and win a cup competition, with the other two major cups dominated by the Premier League.

Could you imagine development sides from Stoke City and Swansea City as the first final of the competition at Wembley? It would be a huge embarrassment for everyone involved.

The new format of starting with a group stage is a good idea, and can be built on, but involving B teams to face other club’s first teams is a huge insult to many clubs all over the country.

I will personally never watch Swindon Town face another club’s B team in any competition, it’s demeaning to the club I support.

Hopefully this idea will only be around for one season, but it’s worrying that people in charge of our game thought it would be workable.