Bulman explains his Crawley Town departure

By smunnery bysam munnery sam.munnery@essnmedia.co.uk

DANNIE Bulman has hit back at claims he joined Oxford United because they offered him a more lucrative contract than Crawley Town.

The former Reds midfielder says he joined the U's for "football reasons", insisting he felt Oxford have more chance of being promoted to the Football League next season.

Bulman, 30, wants to return to the League having played there with Wycombe Wanderers and believes Oxford represent his best opportunity to realise that ambition.

"My ultimate goal is to get back into the Football League, and without meaning any disrespect to Crawley, I thought Oxford would give me a better chance of doing that," he said.

"It's not hard to keep putting in the performances but it's nice to have a fresh challenge. It's a better chance to get into the Football League and it's a two-year contract so it gives me and my family that security."

Reds manager Steve Evans has said that Bulman "turned down" the club's offer of a new contract when his existing deal expired this summer, because Oxford's contract offer blew Crawley's "out of the water".

Bulman revealed he was offered new terms "verbally" that were about the same as his previous wage, but decided to hold back on agreeing anything once he heard Oxford were preparing an offer of their own.

"We didn't really get as far as [discussing a new contract formally]. Crawley said they wanted to keep me but next time we met I had heard Oxford were interested and so I said I wanted to keep my options open," said Bulman.

"I didn't want to get into a money battle because the decision I would make was going to be the best of footballing reasons.

"I'm not going to go into Crawley and ask how much do you want to offer me. It was just about football."

Bulman also paid tribute to Crawley for restoring his self-belief after being rejected by previous club Stevenage Borough.

"Crawley gave me confidence to think I was a good player again," he said.

"When you get rejected it's not nice, so I wanted to repay that faith Crawley showed in me and I hope I did that."