It was one of football's most significant sliding doors moments. And had things played out as many of those in charge of the game hoped they might, Newcastle United would be today facing a somewhat different opponent in the FA Cup fourth round. Forget Oxford United; instead Thames Valley Royals would be the side walking out at St James' Park.

It was in April 1983 that Robert Maxwell, the media mogul and chairman of Oxford, announced that his club was immediately to merge with Reading to form a superclub: Thames Valley Royals.

“I think he was really serious,” recalls Nick Harris, then as now a match commentator for BBC Radio Oxford. “Two ailing businesses, bring them together into one: as a businessman he thought it would work. What he didn’t realise was this wasn’t business. It was football.”

At the time, both clubs were in what is now League One, both played in crumbling stadiums, both were haemorrhaging money. Maxwell had become Oxford chairman only the season before. Jim Rosenthal, a lifelong Oxford fan then working for ITV, recalls the substantial tycoon’s popularity was never high locally.

“His modus operandi was to start businesses and then leave people unpaid,” he says. “My first job was on the local paper and we were forever running stories of people being left out of pocket after trying to do business with him.”