Oxford United has lost its fight to retain its football league status despite high profile press support.

The U’s had been hanging in a precarious position in League Two, and needed to win Saturday’s match against high-flying Leyton Orient to avoid a drop to the Conference.

But the club faced heartache when the game finished 2-3 to Orient – securing them a promotion to League One.

Both the Oxford Mail and rival weekly the Oxford Courier Journal had thrown their weight behind United and encouraged readers to show their support too.

The Mail printed thousands of posters for United’s game against Northampton a fortnight ago, which turned the stands into a sea of yellow (pictured).

And last week, in the run up to the crunch match, it turned its masthead team colours yellow and blue.

It also collected messages of support from the fans to hand over to the team and dedicated news pages to building up the groundswell of support.

On Saturday it repeated its poster run and published a special message of support from new England boss Steve McClaren, who both played for and coached the U’s in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile the Courier Journal put together its own posters, which it asked readers to take to the game.