Saying Goodbye – Cheers Griff, Brian and Tomasz

When the team is doing badly we can’t wait to clear the decks and kick out players we don’t think are performing, but when things are going so well, it’s always that bit harder to say goodbye. Today Reading began the first steps towards building their 25-man Premier League squad by releasing 13 players, the most notable of which are defender Andy Griffin and midfielders Brian Howard and Tomasz Cykwa.

While none of the three featured heavily during our title run, all three made important contributions at some stage or another and it’s only right to remember some of those good times as they depart with our very best wishes.

Pain of Premier League Exile Over

Afternoon, two games left to go in the season but most Royals fans have one eye firmly on next season’s Premier League campaign. After the joy of Tuesday night Jamie Butler makes his Tilehurst End debut looking at the steps that led back to the Premier League after a four year absence.

A recent BBC programme featuring on another Southern based side to play in blue and white hoops highlighted a “4 year plan” to achieve Premier League football at Loftus Road. Strange then, how Reading’s own “4 year plan” has panned out since relegated on that Sunny day in May 2008 at Derby and this post shall serve to highlight some of the least enjoyable milestones for Reading fans along the way.

Our first game back in the Championship was a Sunday kick-off away to Nottingham Forest which saw a team with Stephen Hunt playing at Left Back grind out a 0-0 draw in a largely forgettable game. For the first part of the 08/09 season, Reading looked to be heading back to the Premier League in style with Stephen Hunt and Jimmy Kebe dominating each wing week in, week out. 5 straight wins culminating with a classy 3-1 victory away to fellow promotion chasers Birmingham on the Saturday before Christmas 2008  had many Royals fans believing we were following the gold paved road back to weekly MoTD coverage and visits of the country’s biggest clubs.

So Close But So Far – Reading FC’s Unused Unused Subs

With so much of our time spent looking at league tables and run ins I decided to try and do something about as far away from the promotion race as possible. As such, this is going to be the first in a series of looking at what I’ll loosely term the ‘least significant Royals’ and we start today with those players who were named on the bench for Reading FC at the Madejski Stadium but were never brought on and never ended up making a Royals home appearance.

In Reading’s 14 years at the Madejski Stadium 11 players have made it as far as the bench for a Reading home game but never actually appeared on the turf in a Reading shirt. Four on the list are still at the club, with Mikkel Andersen, Jordan Obita, Brett Williams and Sean Morrison all having a chance to make that debut so we’ll look at the other seven and look what happened to them after their chance of glory at the Madejski with Reading had gone.

St Patrick’s Day XI

17th March is a day that many use as an excuse to put on a green wig, get bladdered on Guinness and enjoy the craic. I say, rather than pretending we’re Tony Cascarino and that we’ve got an Irish grandmother, lets instead salute some of the best players that the Emerald Isle has given us (and Alan Maybury).

As usual this is my team so whilst there are probably some glaring omissions you can hold me to account in the comments section. Also, I’ve decided to adopt rugby union’s approach and I will be selecting players from both the Republic and Northern Ireland. No doubt this will offend some but probably fewer than had I been forced to include Joe Gamble and Patrick O’Kelly.

Best Reading FC Moments of 2011 – Part 4 Play-off Pandemonium

Football League Championship, Play-Off semi-final second leg

The Scene – Cardiff City Stadium, Tuesday May 17th

Result : Cardiff City 0 – Reading 3

Part four of our greatest Reading FC moments of 2011 sees Jon Keen take a look back at a crucial play-off trip to Wales when The Royals delivered a vital performance just when it mattered, and secured a trip to Wembley.

Royal Links – Reading Fans Still Remember The Balmy Record-Breaking Days of 1985

Thanks to Zammo over at HNA? for flagging this one up, a great little article from former Reading Evening Post Reading reporter Clive Baskerville on Reading’s record breaking efforts during the 1985/86 season that saw promotion back to the second tier.

It features on the Total Football website which is now being edited by a Royals fan Mark Roach and it’s well worth a read here

 

Mad Stad Legends – Graeme Murty

Part three of our Madejski Stadium era Reading FC legends series sees Jon Keen nominate Graeme Murty.

When Tommy Burns bought a virtually unknown winger from York City for the sum of £700,000 at the end of the 1997/98 season, no-one could have known just how far that player, Graeme Murty, and Reading FC would travel together and how he would truly become a Mad Stad Legend.

Mad Stad Legends – Jamie Cureton

Part two of our Madejski Stadium era Reading FC legends series sees me make the case for Jamie Cureton.

In the 15 years I’ve been watching the Royals I’ve been lucky enough to see some great finishers at the club. Jimmy Quinn, Trevor Morley, Kevin Doyle, Dave Kitson, Shane Long, Paul Bray…. OK maybe not. Still in that timeframe one man has stood out to me as someone who knew where the goal was, and the one man you wanted a chance to fall too inside the penalty area. Jamie Cureton.

I’ll not labour too long on what Jamie got up too before he came to Reading, or afterwards. The guys over at Ex-Canaries.co.uk have produced an excellent history piece on Jamie’s exploits before and after his time at Reading, so for me this article is my reasoning why I consider Cureton a Mad Stad ‘Legend’.

Mad Stad Legends – Brynjar Gunnarsson

Welcome to the first of what we’re hoping will be a week long look at some of the ‘legends’ of the Madejski Stadium era. Each day one of our writers will be picking out one player who they think deserves the tag of legend and at the end of the week we invite you to pick out your favourite. Today, Mike Terry looks at our current longest serving player Brynjar Gunnarsson

What Can The First 10 Games Of A Season Tell Us About The Next 36…

So ten games down and it’s fair to say we’ve already been on a bit of a roller coaster, certainly life is never dull as a Reading fan. From the last minute comebacks against Millwall and Bristol City, to losing to a fluke goal at Hull, beating Mills and mighty Leicester at the Walkers and delivering the killer blow to Sean O’Driscoll’s reign as Doncaster manager…. just another typical season then!

After all of that we’re in 15th place in the Championship with 12 points from a possible 30, 10 behind leaders Southampton and 6 clear of bottom side Bristol City.

Every game has an impact and every game is important but how much do our points and league placing today impact where we finish after a full 46 games? Below the jump I’ll look back on our recent starts to the season and see if we have anything to worry about, or be optimistic about.

The Reading FC – Went on to Better Things XI

With Matt Mills and Shane Long both securing big money moves over the summer I thought it would be as good an opportunity as any to take a look back and see which players have left the club and gone on to better things. Given the up and down nature of the club over the last couple of decades it’s probably necessary to define what I mean by ‘better things’. So what I mean is players who have improved their career and/or played at a higher level than they were doing so at Reading. For that reason I’ve ruled out pretty much the entire Premiership side. The likes of Sonko, Shorey, Sidwell, Doyle, Kitson and Hahnemann all effectively stayed at the same level when they left the club and as yet, none of them have really moved up from where we were.

The Reading FC – Weren’t They Supposed To Be Good? XI

After the relative success that was my ‘Royal Caribbean XI’ I thought I’d have another bored, pre-season stab at another Reading XI. This time I’m focussing on those players that arrived with much pomp and fanfare but actually turned out to be pretty rubbish. What is quite gratifying is that this was an XI that was actually quite hard to compose. Whilst we’ve had no shortage of crap players at Reading, by and large we haven’t been disappointed by expensive flops or big names that failed to impress. I should say from the outset that I’ve only included players from the last eighteen or so years as that’s how long I’ve been watching; I’d love to hear of flops from the bygone years! There are a few omissions that will be explained at the end but please feel free to add your thoughts.

Kit Conundrum – What’s Your Favourite Reading FC Shirt?

July 6, 2011

So the club’s 2011/12 home shirt has seemingly been leaked online thanks to an error from an online retailer. While the club haven’t confirmed this as being next season’s home strip it certainly matches up to the ‘teasers’ they’ve had on the OS.

This will be the club’s fourth straight season of releasing a brand new home kit and it seems the days of a home shirt every 2 years are now very much a thing of the past. Personally I’m always happy waiting until the end of the campaign and picking up a shirt for £10 but I can imagine it’s frustrating for families who have to continually buy the latest strips to keep kids happy.  Then again this is the reality of the footballing world we live in now so I’m not going to launch into a rant about such things….

Instead I thought I’d look back at a few of the hits and misses over the past few seasons and I would love to hear your views on favourites and horror shows!

 

****Edit : The club have just released details of the home, away and goalkeepers shirts on their Facebook Page, check them out, have to say I’m a fan of the away kit.

Reading FC In The Play-Offs – A Look Back – 2008/2009

2008/2009

After a nervy 0-0 draw at the Madejski on Friday we head to Cardiff knowing that a win will send us to Wembley for the first time in 16 years. For Reading, tomorrow will be the first time we’ve had an away leg second , but perhaps that’s what we need to snap out of a winless streak that includes both of our last two play-off matches, against Burnley in 2008/09 when a moment of madness from Andre Bikey helped end one of the most successful periods in the club’s history.

An Open Letter to Sir John Madejski

Dear Sir John

A few hours before the start of what may be one of the most decisive matches in Reading FC’s long history, I thought it apposite to write an open letter regarding the future of our club.  It’s clear to all that the club is potentially at a crossroads – promotion to the Premier League will make the club a much more attractive asset to potential buyers, whilst another year in the Championship will inevitably mean the sale of some or all of the club’s more valuable players.   Both of these outcomes are virtually inevitable given the broken financial model that is English football in the Twenty-First century.

Reading FC In The Play-Offs – A Look Back – 2002/2003

2002/2003

Just three days to go until the first leg of our play-off semi-final against Dave Jones’ Cardiff at the Madejski Stadium and we’re a tantalising 270 minutes from promotion back to the Premier League. In the meantime it’s time to look at another of our previous play-off campaigns, this our 2002/03 Division One play-off ties, which saw us again match up with Mr Jones, who at that time was managing Wolves.

Reading FC In The Play-Offs – A Look Back – 2000/2001

2000/2001

So after yesterday’s results we know that Reading will be facing a trip to Cardiff in the play-offs next week.  Until then I’ll be continuing to look back on our previous play-off campaigns and today I’ll be looking back at the 2000/2001 season, which saw the Royals get to another final, this time in Cardiff. 

Reading FC In The Play-Offs – A Lookback- 1994/95

1994/1995

Last Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Coventry ensured that Reading would make the play-offs for the fifth time in the past 16 years. Between now and our first leg match, I’ll be looking back at our previous four play-off campaigns and looking at whether this year’s team is better placed to make it through the biggest three games of the season. 

Today it’s time to have a look at our first play-off experience, back in 1994/95, when Jim’n’Micks barmy army made it all the way to Wembley

Reading’s Caribbean XI

April 27, 2011

Yesterday I was given the fairly mind numbing task of opening the post at work, not a glamorous job but apparently it was my turn. In the two and a half hours I spent sat there, opening and sorting, I entertained myself by trying to make up Reading XIs. Loanees were a bit too easy, as was an international XI. It was however doing the latter that I suddenly thought, “we currently have two Caribbean internationals, I wonder if I can make a Caribbean XI”. So that was my slightly pointless task and against all odds I was successful. It’s probably fair to say that I’ve taken a few liberties; one player never actually played for us, another is from East London and didn’t play internationally and technically I don’t think the Cayman Islands are in the Caribbean. Regardless, below you’ll find  my Caribbean XI.

Chris Armstrong – A Look Back On The Career Of One Of Football’s Good Guys

April 24, 2011

Tomorrow afternoon Chris Armstrong will lead out both teams at the Madejski Stadium, giving both players and fans the chance to show their appreciation towards a truly inspirational player, who has legitimately touched thousands of those in the football family and beyond.

Armstrong retired in March after revealing he’d been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis back in December 2009, admitting that his body could no longer handle the rigours of top-level football. The fact that Armstrong battled back through not just MS, but a serious knee injury, to play seven times for the Royals this season is a testament to the character, determination and strength of the man.  Below the jump we’ll be doing our best to honour the former Bury, Oldham, Blackpool, Sheffield United and Reading fullback, we liked to call Stretch.