Reading 4 - 0 Norwich

Tuesday, 31 January 2006
The Coca-Cola Football League Championship

Come on Norwich, Lets be 'avin you!

Well I know they've just sold Dean Ashton for the 'Ammers for £7m but Norwich were poor.

Reading were excellent from start to finish, Glenn Little was magnificent (on TalkSport they were joking that Tord Grip had been at the game - Little to replace Beckham?) , Doyle was too much of a handful for the 2 static centre halves, even Murty looked quick and he was up against Darren Huckerby. And poor old Andy Hughes - how did we ever get £500k for him?

• Marvelous free kick from Shorey that beat Robert Green all ends up
• Sidwell with a diving header frmo a Little cross
• Lita with a richocet of his thigh after great work by Doyle
• Convey with a 50 yard run after Shorey had scooped the ball beautifully over Andy Hughes over

I wonder what Cilla said to Delia afterwards?

Interbreeding

Very strange interbreeding stats about tomorrows game!
Steve Coppellio managed Crystal palace so too did Wally Downes,Steve Bruce and Terry Bullivant and SC, WD and TB also managed at Brentford and worked under each other......Will the game be a tactical truce or will Coppellio's vast footballing brain win the day?

Reading Reserves 1 - 1 Birmingham

Saturday 31st January
FA Cup Round 4

Birmingham have been struggling this season but look a lot better now Chris Sutton has joined from Celtic. However - they have a real makeshift defence for tomorrow (I'm writing this bit on Friday) and the pundits (and my mate Christian from Birmingham) think Reading are favorites. What they keep forgetting to say it that it's our "reserve team" that's been playing in all the cups.

A good turn out in the Upper West Bar
What a strange game ... Birmingham at near enough full strength, Reading putting out there reserves. Only Hanneman, Sidwell & Harper from the usual "1st team" played. Bright start from Reading, Shane Long put us 1-0 up with a firm shot into the bottom right hand corner and we looked okay. Jermaine Pennant was lively (last time he was in the area he was banged up for Drink driving after his sat-nav allegedly directed him to Aylesbury instead of Birmingham!) and Chris Sutton always looked a threat and Sonko looked more like Lois Lane than Superman on one occasion but everyone felt pretty confident at half-time and in the early part of the 2nd half.

Steve Bruce then did a "Jose Mourinho" and sent on 3 subs at once - Forsell, Dunn and someone else - the tempo changed a little and Birmingham's play improved, resulting in Dunn grabbing an equaliser. Oh well - more match practice for the reserves!

PS Christian asked me if I was going up to Birmingham top see the replay. I'm not that sad that I go and watch our reserves away games :-)

Crystal Palace 1 - 1 Reading

Friday, 20 January 2006
The Coca-Cola Football League Championship

Off to the pub tonight to watch this on Sky. I wonder what the coverage will be like? Probably all about Simon Jordan the "charismatic" chairman of Palace and "what a great job" Ian Dowie is doing. (see the Derby game)

Mind you, Steve Coppell was featured on 5 Live's Sportweek with Gary Richardson last Sunday which is a start, though he doesn't give good copy like say Big Sam, or 'Arry.

There is more to talk about here tonight though because Steve Coppell has managed Palace on 4 separate occasions, most successfully when Wright (Ian) and Bright (Mark) were up front and they reached the Cup Final - 1991 I think. We'll see !

More later ....

Back ... not a bad game at all although my administrative arrangements to get to a suitable venue left a little bit to be desired! Andrew Johnson looked lively and Sonko is SUperman looked a little shaky. Marcus Hannemann was brilliant - 3 or 4 top quality saves - and unliucky ( I thought) to give away a penalty. Johnson's quick and whilst he scooped the ball away from Hanneman it was never under control - in fact it went straight out on the volley for a corner - and all he was looking to do was throw himself against the keeper. I've seen them not given ...but sadly not this time.

Reading were brilliant though - only two minutes later a crisp short passing move saw Lita lay the ball off to Harper who crashed it into the net from the edge of the box. Kiraly - who wears those stupid grey tracksuit bottoms like something out of Rocky - got nowhere near it.

Fair result, good away point, and although Sheff Utd & Leeds both won, we'll settle for that.

Reading 3 - 2 West Brom

Tuesday, 17 January 2006
FA Cup Replay

I didn't go to this one either - I need to save up for next years grossly inflated Premiership season ticket!

Sounded like a good game though - Reading Reserves v West Brom Reserves - and a Leroy Lita hat-trick sealed it in Extra Time. And the ref booked him for taking his shirt off!

Good news overall for Lita because he hasn't played much recently but with Kitson & Doyle in the goals, & Long making his impressive start to his Reading career, he needs to do something to justify th £1M price tag.

Birmingham next then, and they're in poor form. I can't think when Reading last progressed beyond the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Arsenal 71 was a good game but we got knocked out, and Man Utd during Cantona's era was also a 3rd round knockout. What a season it could be - our first team wins the league and the reserves march off with the cup!

Reading 2 - 0 Coventry

Saturday, 14 January 2006
The Coca-Cola Football League Championship

I was expecting this to be a difficult one. Coventry under Mickey Adams have become hard to beat and were surely coming to the home of the runaway league leaders for a point. What was likely to make them even more resolute was the homecoming of Adie Williams (club stalwart) who was sadly released during the January window last year. He's still a good player .. but he is slow and was bound to drop off deep .. and so it proved! Coventry played 5 at the back with Richard Shaw (ex-Crystal Palace veteran) and were difficult to break down in the final third. Loads of possession for Reading but no end product really although both Convey and LIttle looked lively ... and Kitson didn't!

And then either side of half time Kitson scores twice (he's now top scorer in the league) and it's all over. Coventry change to 3-4-3 and had a go but Reading were too good. (phrases you never hear!)

Onwards & Upwards - 9 point clear of Sheff Utd in 2nd and 21 point clear of Dirty Leeds in 3rd.

West Brom 1 - 1 Reading

Saturday, 07 January 2006
FA Cup

Highest ground in the football league West Brom! Not a lot of people know that ... or perhaps they do nowadays. Strange really , don't really think of Birmingham as that high up. (There's more trivia about the highest grounds in this article from the Guardian

Anyway - didn't go to this one, "doesn't matter if we lose, concentrate on the league" and all that, and listened to it on the radio and boy did it sound dull! Reading put out their 2nd team, West Brom changed 3 players, and it was all very non-descript until the last 10 minutes when 2 quick penalties, one for either side, sent the fans home happy. Not a bad result - shows how far we've come and a replay at home! A great chance to see players of the calibre of Geoff Horsfield in the flesh :-)

Interesting Links
More information oabout Football Grounds in Britain

Derby 2 - 2 Reading

Saturday, 31 December 2005

As soon as I sat down to watch this on Sky it was clear that the commentator (like so many others) had little respect for Reading and ALL he continued to talk about was what a false position Derby were in, how good their manatger Phil Brown was, what a good player Idiakies was and so on. Let them carry on like that but one day Reading will surely get the credit they deserve!

Seth Johnson - yes the same one that was the wonderful Peter Risdale's last signing at the time of the yellow and blue goldfish - scored the opener and didn't that give the commentator a field day ... "What a great time to score", "Johnson's Premiership class", and so on. And then Reading went down the other end and equalised! Kevin Doyle again.

Johnson scored again in the seconf half (see above for commentators comments)and then it did look a little like Reading's unbeaten run was coming to an end until firstly Davies, the Derby centre half, got himself sent off after receiving a second yellow card for a tackle on Shane Long. Who? Yes, Shane Long was making his debut after coming across from Cork City as part of the deal that brought Kevin Doyle over. And he looked good too. Strong & quick and very lively and sure enough he poped up in the box with minutes to go, leapt above everybody and nodded in the equaliser! 2-2!

Reading 2 - 0 Leicester

Wednesday, 28 December 2005

"Workmanlike side" is I think the way to describe Leicester. Not a lot of talent on display and Craig Leveine has brought down a players he knows from the Scottish league such as Rab Douglas (ex-Celtic) and Mark De Vries (ex-Hearts). I'm not sure they are any better than those that Mickey Adams had at his disposal.

Remember when they were a "big club" (see Millwall game ). Admittedly Martin O'Neill did wonders with them but it's all gone wrong somewhere. They don't look so big now!

Yet another goal from Doyle and then Gunnarsson pops up at the far post with not much time left and it's 2-0.

Wolves 0 - 2 Reading

Monday, 26 December 2005

Watched and listened to the Wolves Away game on a combination of Sky's Soccer Saturday and BBC Radio Berkshire. Sounded like Wolves ran out of ideas and only the arrival of the veteran Colin Cameron seemed to provide any spark.

Glenn must have been disappointed. I wonder if he got the Reading team bus to drop him off in Woodley on the way back?

Millwall 0 - Reading 2

My first visit to the New Den.

A pleasant(?) stroll through Surrey Quays before getting lost and hastily asking a policeman the way. I had a quick tour of the exterior of the stadium before realising that Away fans were supposed to get the train to South Bermondsey and be marched into the Away End passing through all the high metal fences. I imagine it wasn't quite like this in the days of "Harry the Dog" !

Plenty of fireworks before the game probably due to the arrival of Peter De Savary as chairman. Colin Lee spent some time at Reading during Mark McGee's rein, and McGee also used to manage Millwall. What would have happened if they hadn't both buggered off to that "big club" Leicester in 1995 ....

Fairly even game, brilliant strike from Steve Sidwell opened the scoring and then the game changed following the sending off of the young Millwall defender making his debut. Kitson missed the resulting penalty Reading then carved open a number of opportunitiers - Little & Convey both going close - until finally Doyle made a great run to make it 0-2.

And so we were then marched back to South Bermondsey station ... many making brave noises to the Millwall fans through the metal fences ... and finally we got the train to London Bridge where there was lots of chanting as the victorious fans marched through the station and off we all went home.

I continued to imagine it wasn't quite like this in the days of "Harry the Dog" !

Interesting Links
Nice little story about Harry from 1987 - see the postscript after the "Lawrence revives Millwall" story