DES Buckingham has hailed the job Chris Wilder did at Oxford United, saying the U’s might not be enjoying second tier football had it not been for Wilder’s spell at the club.

The 57-year-old managed United between December 2008 and January 2014, guiding the club to promotion from the Conference in the 2010 play-offs, ending the club’s four-year exile in non-league football.

Buckingham holds Wilder in a high esteem, after he promoted him to the U’s first team coaching staff at the start of the 2013/14 season, and is looking forward to taking on his Sheffield United side at Bramall Lane tonight.

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“Chris Wilder was the first manager who brought me into the senior professional coaching space,” said Buckingham.

“He was the one that gave me my first opportunity in the game, and it’s developed into what it is.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Chris for that, but then I look back now as the head coach of this football club, and I look at what Chris did for this football club at a hugely important time in 2010, to get us back into the Football League.

“It was a moment where maybe this club wouldn’t be here now if we hadn’t have gone up in the manner which we did.

“I don’t know if we would be where we are right now, if he hadn’t have done what he did in that space.

“I owe him a lot for getting me into what my career has progressed into, and this club has been able to go on and do what it’s done off a lot of the work he did to get us back into the Football League in 2010.”

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Buckingham added: “We fell into a space where we had six or seven managers in the space of two or three years before he came in.

“He steadied the ship at a time when we’d dropped out of the League. There was an expectation that we’d go straight back up, but we found that the Conference wasn’t as easy as that at the time.

“He came in over a five-year journey and allowed us as a club, when there was a lot of uncertainty, to put ourselves back in the Football League, and make sure we stayed and retained our professional status.

“It was recognised at the time, and you saw the celebrations of Chris down the touchline at Wembley when the third goal went in, which I’m sure we can all relate to and remember.

“That was a huge moment for this football club, and allowed that story and that history to continue in the way it has done.”