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2002/03 Reports

Match facts:

Reading goals: None
Assists: None
Opposition goal: After 61 minutes
Half-time: Reading 0 Southampton 0
Gamebreaker: Final whistle
Attendance: 83, including Alan Pardew, Kevin Dillon, Nicky Hammond, Phil Parkinson and a Wales Under-19 squad scout
Weather: Sunny spells with a few spots of rain, windy
Referee:

Reading line-up: 1 Jamie Young; 2 Mark Boddy, 5 Peter Castle, 6 Adam Theo, 3 Alex Stanley; 7 Steve Warren, 8 Simieon Howell, 4 Andre Boucaud, 11 Louie Soares; 10 Andre Fashanu, 9 Jermaine Beckford (15 Darren Campbell, 65 minutes)
Subs not used: Gary Middleton, Callum Earl
Reading yellow cards: Steve Warren (dissent, 82 minutes)
Reading red cards: None

Match report:

The lack of a first team game meant that a few Reading supporters took the opportunity to watch the Under-19s at Bisham Abbey, also with most of the club's management team in attendance.

The FA Premier Academy League is divided into four groups, and up to this stage of the season, most of the games have been against opponents from other groups. With the exception of West Ham United, every team in our group has struggled to get results, and there have been several weekends when not one of the nine teams (other than the East Londoners) has managed a victory. Now that we have reached the autumn, the fixtures change so that our opponents are from our own group, including Southampton. Our Under-19 team have had a history of playing well against other teams for most of the game, before conceding late goals, and the measure of real progress will be when that stops happening. The evidence of this match is that we are not there yet.

The first half was fairly even with neither side able to make a breakthrough. Reading had the best of the chances, with the closest being a fierce long shot from Alex Stanley midway through the half that the visiting goalkeeper tipped away for a corner. We also threatened from set-pieces, with Adam Theo earlier heading narrowly wide from a corner. The best skill shown was when Andre Fashanu took the ball down the left wing and used some neat trickery to beat the full-back. However, Southampon were able to clear his cross.

At the other end, Jamie Young had a couple of shaky moments with crosses but despite a couple of corners Southampton never looked like scoring. In the first half, Reading had had the advantage of the slight slope and the wind, so a scoreless half was probably not what we needed.

We did however nearly take the lead a few minutes into the second half when a left wing run from the lively Louie Soares ended with a perfect cross. Trialist centre-forward Jermaine Beckford got really good contact on the ball with his header, but sent it wide. That was his best chance to make an impression on the watching coaches.

Ten minutes later, Southampton took the lead following a long clearance from their keeper, which made the most of the conditions. The ball went over the top of our defence and the Southampton forward was able to outpace our last man to reach the ball first. His shot past the onrushing Young was weak but trickled into the net off the far post.

What proved to be our best chance to equalise came ten minutes from the end when a good passing move set up Simieon Howell, but the goalkeeper made a brilliant save.

The referee had allowed hard challenges to go unpunished all game, and it was credit to the players of both sides that in general the match was played in a decent spirit, but towards the end Steve Warren picked up a booking for complaining too hard about the lack of a free-kick for a clear foul on him right in front of one linesman. The referee's policy meant that there were quite a lot of stoppages and five minutes of injury time, but we were unable to press hard enough to get a goal.

Beckford had been substituted by Darren Campbell shortly after the Southampton goal, and I suspect that the trialist will need some more matches if he is to get a contract offer. Campbell himself had few chances to get into the game, but did manage to show his talent on the odd occasion.

Rightly, it is the performances that are most important for the Under-19 side, but we really do need to show the ability to pick up a few points as well, or else this set of players are not going to progress the way the club would want.

Match notes:

Jermaine Beckford is a trialist from Wealdstone.

Match preview:

None.

Ticket information:

None.

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