Stevenage 1 Tranmere Rovers 1; Stalemate at Home Again (A guest blog)

Since I wasn’t able to travel up to Wigan to see Reading for numerous reasons, I decided to take the next best option and nip up to Broadhall Way (or The Lamex in modern parlance) for this League 1 clash between the leaders (Rovers) and playoff hopefuls Boro. It’s a couple of years now since I first visited Broadhall Way, encouraged by one of their special offers on a day when there was no Championship programme (so no Reading match) and also by one of my erstwhile work colleagues Paul. In the parlance of Victor KIam, I liked it so much…………well I didn’t buy the club but I go back whenever I can. Boro is a well-run, friendly club which welcomes all football supporters and I commend it as a place to go and watch some real English League football.

So to the match. The weather was absolutely foul, with torrential rain most of the day and it is a real testament to modern league pitches that the match was never in any doubt (Sunderland, please take note!). Boro, with a recent poor run of form, made a couple of changes with Bondz N’Gala in at centre back, resulting in Darius Charles moving back to his favoured left back position in place of Lee Hills, and the previously suspended Filipe Morais returning at number ten in a 4-5-1 formation. Tranmere had a similar set up with the prolific Jake Cassidy leading the line for them. Both teams had clearly decided that the weather would preclude any football on the ground and so the first half was simply a series of hopeful hoofs, several of which resulted in the ball leaving the stadium. Neither team had a chance of note in the first half and the game had 0-0 written all over it. The second half was marginally improved but it wasn’t until almost 80 minutes that the first decent cross went I, resulting in the aforementioned Jake Cassidy notching his 11th of the season – Boro 0 Tranmere 1. Cue frantic substitution with James Dunne, replaced by Robin Shroot, joining Pat Agyemang (Angryman) up front who had previously replaced the ineffective Marcus Haber, much to the same effect though. The substitution resulted in Boro’s customary last ten minute charge during which Shroot hit the post when clean through on the keeper, Akins blasted over from 18 yards when easier to hit the target (although to be fair there were probably 20 players between him and goal) and with virtually the last kick Greg Tansey equalised with a delightful chip from the edge of the box. Ronnie Moore said afterwards that the shot could have gone anywhere – well clearly Ronnie you haven’t been watching Tansey this year as he is a demon with the ball when shooting from outside the box.

Honours even in a rather poor match! Boro notched yet another home draw, a problem which cost them automatic promotion last year and which I fear will see them fail to make the play offs this if not sorted out quickly. I prefer to look at it as another point gained towards the 50 required for safety (only 16 more to go Paul) since Boro really are punching above their weight even in League 1 and promotion to the Championship at this point would probably do more harm than good to the club. And if Tranmere are top of the league then it’s either a really poor league, or they had an off day. I suspect actually their luck is starting to run out and I don’t think they’ll be promoted come May 2013.

For me, it’s off to San Francisco this week for business before returning on Friday to make sure I’m ready for Reading vs Manchester United next Saturday. Urzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Barnet 2 Oxford 2 and Wigan 3 Reading 2

Once again, last week I found myself at two football matches and again they were pretty varied in both their settings and the action.

Barnet FC – Underhill Stadium

First off, I headed down to another local club which I was yet to visit; Barnet FC at Underhill Stadium. Barnet are a club who have been struggling near the bottom of league two for quite a few years now, and have recently been overtaken by Stevenage as Hertfordshire’s second club. However, they have evidently been trying to turn their fortunes around with money, having recently bought Dutch legend Edgar Davids as both assistant manager and player, alongside former Premiership star Collins John. Over the summer they also recruited former Royals Graham Stack and John Oster, and on paper they look like a decent side, with ex-Daggers striker Jon Nurse also on their books.

Whilst I’d been trying to get down to Underhill for a while, what really attracted me to this game was the opposition; Reading’s big local rivals Oxford United. Because, quite frankly, they’re rubbish, they rarely play Reading and so I’d only ever seen them play once before (when they inevitably lost against Stevenage). This time they also had a few former Reading players on their books (as is the norm when two clubs are nearby), including Michael Duberry from our Premiership days. Another connection was also there – Jake Forster-Caskey was the son of ex-Royal Darren Caskey and adopted by legend Nicky Forster.

We parked up at High Barnet tube station and embarked on the short walk down the hill to the ground, and at the turnstiles we encountered our first surprise of the evening – they don’t do concession or child tickets on the day! For a lower league club this was a huge shock, but we couldn’t do anything about it so we paid £16 each and went inside and away from the rain. For what it’s worth, I think the club do charge quite a lot anyway, given that it cost £21 to sit down – Wigan charge less than that for Premier League games!

We’d opted to stand on the East terrace, which was split into two – whilst the Barnet fans were in the southern section; a piece of netting separated them from the Oxford fans in the other half. This meant there was a decent atmosphere, especially considering my vehement dislike of the Us and the inventiveness of chants in the lower leagues.

To the right of me was the north terrace, which was uncovered and thus the cheapest area of the ground (although I counted just 18 fans there at this match due to the torrential downpour) although to the eastern side of it there’s a covered stand for away supporters. Opposite me were 3 more stands – on the northern side was another small uncovered terrace, whilst to the south end was a small makeshift stand again. In the centre was an interesting stand due to the slope of the pitch – whilst it was at pitch level at one end, it had to be propped up by a food stand at the other giving it a very slanted look. To my right was perhaps the least interesting part of the stadium, with only one stand – a newly built family stand which did offer concession tickets on the gate (2 adults and 2 children for £30, which I suppose is decent value for a family ticket). That meant Underhill has a total of 8 stands, which must be some sort of record.

Underhill

The match was also fairly interesting too – only five minutes on Barnet put in a dangerous corner from the right hand side which was met by Jake Hyde’s looping header, putting the Bees in the lead, but within a minute Oxford levelled through Sean Rigg’s volley after Constable chested it back to him. It was quite sloppy from Barnet and perhaps something they need to work on. However, they did have chances to get back in the lead before half time and some last ditch Oxford defending denied two very good chances from Barnet’s right flank again.

However, the visitors took the lead within a minute of the second half with an effort quite similar to Barnet’s first – except this time it was a free-kick instead of a corner. Andy Whing was the scorer with his first for the club, leading to some great chants from the Oxford fans (and leading to some decent banter between the fans alongside some slagging off of Swindon, which I always heartily condone). Luckily, my record of never seeing Oxford win remained intact when Hyde back heeled a centre in with 20 minutes to go. In fairness, they probably should have gone on to win it after that but there was a lack of clinical finishing and fitness to finish the game off, and it dwindled out as a 2-2 draw as we trudged up the hill (it’s much worse after the game, uphill and tired).

The following weekend, I found myself going up to Wigan to watch Reading play another away game in the feint hope of a win. It meant an early start and getting there at half 10 for cheap train tickets, but it was nice arriving there early (even if it was cold) as it meant I could sample the delights of the north….including a pub called the “Wigan Pier” miles inland, a giant Asda and a Poundworld. However, I eventually dragged myself away from these attractions and got myself to the ground in time to see our kit get delivered (exciting, I know) and then went for a walk around the ground; being at the edge of an industrial park it was almost as exciting as the time I did the same at Colchester. Two edges backed onto gates (behind which were grasslands and canals), whilst the third was against a chip shop car park and the fourth faced the retail park.

However, it is quite a nice ground from the outside, with a modern front and a couple of supporter facilities inset into the exterior (an Italian restaurant and a club for away fans, as well as the obligatory club shop, where the girl on the counter was moaning about Gangnam style being played repeatedly).

The DW Stadium

Inside, it was quite basic though – four pretty similar stands, all of which were pretty empty at kick off. I went and put my obligatory bet on for us to win 2-1 with Sean Morrison scoring first (at a very tasty 155/1) and after that it was time for the match to start. It was a pretty even first spell, with Reading unusually looking decent, and it was even more surprising when, 35 minutes in, Sean Morrison headed home and put me closer to winning a small fortune. Not long after that, the rain kicked in and we all rushed up a few rows before half time. 1-0 at half time usually means a 2-1 win and I was hoping that would be the case for my own sake.

A mug’s game

However, the second half was positively traumatising. After Federici spilled a shot and allowed Jordi Gomez to equalise, I was hoping we could grab a late winner and all would be good, but this hope was lost ten minutes later when Gomez headed in again to put the Latics ahead. At this point I was grumpy to say the least but this feeling disappeared after Hal Robson-Kanu’s high shot was palmed into the net by Ali Al-Habsi, giving the away fans a mix of confusion and hilarity, and drawing us level again.

But anyone following Reading recently should know we’re not good at holding onto results, and when Arouna Kone broke into our box in injury time, it was inevitable that his passback would find Gomez to smash home for his hat-trick. With the gutting late blow, I realised I had booked my train back over an hour after full time in case of big crowds and that I’d have to stay at the ground for quite some time.

Eventually, I found the Reading bus and asked Alex Pearce why McDermott wouldn’t play him, who just said it was the gaffer’s choice. In all fairness, he couldn’t really say anything about a reported contract dispute to a random fan, but I hope he does get some game time soon. It was nice to see Pearcey and Fedders thank me for travelling all this distance, but next time I’d rather be rewarded with a win or at least a positive performance.

The DW Stadium

St Albans 2 Bedford 2 and Reading 2 Everton 1 – Worlds apart

Once again, I’d arranged to watch two games last week and they were in very different settings. First off, I went to Clarence Park again to watch the mighty Saints take on (fairly) local rivals Bedford Town. Bedford used to be managed by Reading legend Adrian Williams before he became a pundit for local radio but other than that I’d struggle to name anyone else connected with the club. St Albans, on the other hand, named a decent squad including Micah Hyde starting and Barry Hayles on the bench. Whilst City had made a strong start to the season, it was rapidly deteriorating and with Lewis Toomey out injured, it was starting to look bleak.

The match started with St Albans looking the stronger side however, and knocking it about fairly well. As I’d seen a few times this season, they were getting it forward well and not resorting to the hoofball that had epitomised them in previous seasons. However, as per usual, they struggled to keep their tempo up and became slightly sloppy and it was only a quarter of an hour in when the ball bounced a couple of times in the box and City allowed Callum Lewis to tap home a simple goal.

Whilst the Saints tried to bounce back from this they struggled somewhat, and they went in at the break behind perhaps unfairly. I always love half time at St Albans though; they’re always entertaining in one way or another. This time we had an incredibly prize draw where the prizes ranged from a box of jelly babies to a bottle of vodka. Luckily, I didn’t enter so there was no risk of having to walk around the stadium to get them.

When the second half started, the terrace became increasingly frustrated, even after young striker Chris Henry skipped past a couple of defenders and put home a decent finish (leading to an old bloke behind me informing someone on the phone that “we’re playing atrocious”). After that, the Saints began to grow into the game and play more stylish football up front but in typical St Albans fashion they couldn’t make it count and after just ten minutes the visitors regained the lead. Callum Lewis once again provided the finish and this was more a case of skill than luck as he put home a decent shot. Things began to look bleak again for City and manager David Howell made all 3 changes with just 5 minutes to go.

That, though, was the masterstroke. One of those subs was Barry Hayles and with his only touch of the match after a Sean Shields cross fell for him to score off the woodwork, the former Fulham and Stevenage striker still showing his class at this stage of his career. After this, injury time proved somewhat unremarkable and the match ended 2-2, City once again dropping valuable points after a strong start to the season.

By contrast with this, the match I went to on Saturday featured a team who have had anything but a strong start – Reading had played 10 Premiership matches and failed to win a single one of them whereas the visitors Everton came into the game fourth and on great form, having beaten Manchester United at the start of the season and drawing in the Merseyside derby. Marouane Fellaini had been in great form and Jelavic was amongst the goals in a huge way, so the match seemed a huge ask for a Reading side who struggled against Norwich last week.

Whilst Reading started pretty strongly, it took another comedy amongst the defence for Everton to take the lead on only 9 minutes – after Jobi McAnuff sliced a clearance and managed to cross it into his own box, Kaspars Gorkss headed it to Jelavic. His cross fell next to Gorkss, who let it go past him and instead of playing it looked gormlessly at Fellaini, allowing Steven Naismith time and space to score from all of two yards against Adam Federici (who, in all fairness to him, had no chance whatsoever). The Premiership is difficult enough without self-destructing, but Reading like doing things the hard way.

To be fair, the Royals did have another chance quite soon after this when Adam le Fondre managed to round Tim Howard about 18 yards out after Federici’s kick fell kindly. As is so often the Reading way though, after doing the hard work he managed to miss an open goal and that provided the end of Reading’s attacks for the first half.

Before half time came, Everton could have had two penalties (when Gorkss put in a reckless challenge in the area and when Morrison supposedly handled it) and they should have been 4 or 5 up at the break, with Leon Osman shooting way over and a few more chances stopped only at the last. Whatever McDermott said at half time, however, obviously worked.

Just 5 minutes into the second half, a period of play where Reading usually struggle, Nicky Shorey fizzed a free kick into the box and Adam le Fondre made up for his previous error with a bullet header past Tim Howard to equalise. Everton did then try to even the game up but the Royals were in inspired form, with Jay Tabb in particular bossing the midfield and Sean Morrison winning some key tackles at the back in only his third ever Premier League game.

It’s probably fair to say that Reading did get their reward with just over ten minutes to go when le Fondre was clumsily pushed over in the box and referee Martin Atkinson pointed to the spot. Although we had a shocking penalty record last season, Alfie had scored in the opener against Stoke and once again put it away from 12 yards to gain a brace, sending the Reading fans into delirium. Somehow, we managed to hold onto our lead (despite the referee once again playing way over the 3 minutes indicated) and we won our first game of the season. Now we have to kick on, and with Wigan away the next game it’s a good a chance as any to get more points on the board.

 

QPR V Reading and Reading V Norwich

Section 1: QPR V Reading (the rematch)

Loftus Road Stadium

You know the season starts getting serious when a November game gets billed as a relegation 6-pointer, and even more so when you haven’t won a game by that point either. Although this was my 31^st match of the season, it was probably the most important one so far even though it was the second time I’d seen these two teams clash head-to-head so far this term. Yes, I was on my way once again to Loftus Road to watch Reading play QPR, this time in the league.

Despite the torrential rain I arrived at the ground about midday for a 1:30 kick off and was shown round to the other side of the ground to go into the away end again, this time in the top tier. I’d paid for “gold” rather than silver and as such I had a seat which was pretty central, which allowed for a fairly good view of the pitch. It meant there wasn’t much visibility behind the goal, but that’s hardly important anyway.

Both teams fielded pretty strong sides, which was probably to be expected given this was such a big game. The only real surprise for me was that the entire back 4 was retained from the 7-5 defeat to Arsenal, which meant giving a debut to the young Sean Morrison. To be fair, however, Reading were probably the better side at the start but I’ve seen that so much this season that I wasn’t expecting much.

This was shown about a quarter of an hour in when a corner from Nicky Shorey spent a while in the box before falling to Kaspars Gorkss from a pretty tight angle. Nonetheless, the ex-QPR centre half managed to get enough on it to put it past Julio Cesar and make it 1-0 to the Royals (and remaining particularly classy by not celebrating in front of his old side). After this, Reading were surprising in that they held on to the lead until the break, managing to go in 1-0 up.

Even after half time, the side looked pretty promising – at least until McDermott made a change. It’s been a recurring theme of late that the manager isn’t particularly adept at making the right changes at the right time, and this was certainly an example. 60 minutes in and winning our first game of the season, he took of Garath McCleary – a winger who can track back and defend well – and put on Jimmy Kebe, who has no concept of being defensive.

True to form, it took QPR about 5 minutes after this to score, after Sean Morrison (who had been excellent until that point) slipped and allowed Djibril Cisse to score from short range. You could tell from that point it was game over and whilst both sides showed some threat after that it struggled to become a real danger to the defences. With injury time in swing, Adam le Fondre was booked for diving after contact was clearly made (and after Jason Roberts had got away with a much more theatrical effort) which summed up Reading’s luck all season so far.

 

Part II: Reading V Norwich

[This section is intentionally left blank. It was that bad.]

Reading 5 Arsenal 7 – Just Crazy

Unlike most of my reports here, this match is probably one which you’ll know quite a bit about – not just the score, but the manner in which it was obtained. It’s already been bandied about as one of the greatest games of all time and one of the best comebacks ever, and certainly as a Reading fan it put me through the motions like no other match I can remember.

As I mentioned in a post before, I’m quite a big fan of cup competitions and whilst many teams devalue the league cup, I enjoy watching some of the little teams get far. Given we’re now a Premiership side I’m not sure if we still qualify as a small team but the draw for the fourth round pitched us against a true giant in Arsenal (although they’re one of the biggest offenders in devaluing the competition, frequently fielding youngsters).

As it was, Arsene Wenger made 11 changes from the team that started their last Premier League match, although Reading also made 7 changes to their side from the 3-3 draw against Fulham. However, from the off the match was pretty even, at least until the twelfth minute. Hal Robson-Kanu, drafted into the side after a goal and an assist at the weekend, played in a cross which Jason Roberts converted from not particularly far out. The result was delirium; no matter how weak the sides were, Reading were beating Arsenal!

And it got better; only five minutes after that Chris Gunter, another change from the weekend, played in a cross which Laurent Koscielny could do nothing about other than put it into his own net. Only two minutes after that, Leigertwood picked up a pass from the excellent Jay Tabb and smashed home another one of his piledrivers (or, as Reading call it, the LedgeHammer) to, somewhat unbelievably, put Reading 3 up against the Gunners.

Reading, at this point, understandably looked in control and were dominating possession, and as a result it was only a matter of time before a fourth was to be scored. Noel Hunt had had a shot saved by the dodgy Damien Martinez a little over the half hour mark, but the Irishman won the next time when, 4 minutes later, he headed home a cross from another player who came in after Saturday’s game after scoring a goal; Garath McCleary. However, even at that stage it didn’t feel comfortable and just before the break Walcott managed to break clear and fire home a tidy finish past Adam Federici to pull it back to 4-1 at half time.

In comparison, the second half started a little slowly – whilst Reading could well have had a penalty, there was little else of mention in the first fifteen minutes. With Arsenal getting a corner, Giroud headed home the ball from Theo Walcott. After conceding a corner goal from Chris Baird at the weekend, it was a little sickening and really made the last half hour nervous.

This was unfounded, however, until just over a minute from time (despite countless Arsenal attacks), when Walcott put in a cross from another corner. Koscielny made up for his own goal by firing home, and with 4 minutes added on it looked like it was very much game on. Those 4 minutes, however, passed, and Kevin Friend decided he’d give Arsenal another chance by sticking on another couple of minutes. This gave Walcott the chance to fire home after it was cleared off the line and, sickeningly, the referee had given Arsenal the equaliser to force the game to extra time. Jason Roberts understandably went berserk after the referee had given decisions to Arsenal all match, and with Simon Church of all people on as a substitute, things looked bleak.

Extra time began with Arsenal understandably in the ascendancy, having just scored 2 goals in 5 minutes and so they looked more likely to score. That it took them 12 minutes is a testament to the resolve with which Reading kept fighting, however, and it required Marouane Chamakh to shoot from outside the box at the helpless (and, under recent form, hopeless) Adam Federici to put Arsenal in the lead, and at the mini-break Arsenal were 5-4 up. Already a crazy scoreline and it was about to get even higher…

Arsenal set about protecting their lead, bringing on Jernade Meade coming on for Miquel, but Reading pressed them hard. 10 minutes in, this proved fruitful, when Hal Robson-Kanu’s heavy cross was put back in by Chris Gunter and headed home powerfully by Pavel Pogrebnyak for his fifth of the season. Whilst Arsenal pressed again, it took until more injury time by the Gunners’ (Kevin) friend for Theo Walcott to complete his hat-trick and put Arsenal 6-5 up.

Reading understandably pressed hard for the remainder of injury time, despite Adam Federici opting to stand in the middle of nowhere. As a result, once McAnuff’s cross proved ineffective, the Gunners broke away and Chamakh easily went past Gunter after the Welshman decided to let the ball bounce past him before firing a 25 yard chip past Federici.

And that was that. 7-5. 12 goals. I’ll probably never see a bigger scoreline in my life, or see Reading throw away a bigger lead than that. On the way home all the radio stations were talking about us and we were on all the back pages, albeit as a result of losing in such a spectacular fashion. At the end of the day, some of the signs were worrying, such as bottling a lead and conceding 7 at home, but part of it has to be written off as a mad game. Onwards and upwards now, with QPR away tomorrow – let’s hope we get our season back on track. URZ!