Sport First asked me to do the Fan's View from the Reading perspective for the home game against Rotherham United on Saturday, 3rd March, 2001. All season they have been publishing fan's views (one from each side) with their Premiership match reports, but have recently started doing the same for one game each week in the other divisions.
They asked me for 200 words to be phoned through about 30 minutes after the final whistle. I gave them rather more than that, and in a completely justifiable show of revenge they heavily edited what I had written! Incidentally the woman I spoke to had just dealt with the Rotherham fan and said that he had "lost the will to live". Below are the two versions of the Reading view.
Fan's View by Ray Curry of the website www.1871.cx
It's on days like this that Madejski Stadium comes alive. A full Maurice Evans stand, plus a decent turnout in the other parts of the ground, for an important match gives us a taste of why we have such a fine venue in Reading.
Unfortunately in the past we have had a nasty habit of blowing the result on these big occasions. Perhaps this is now behind us, as a victory over Rotherham continues our push for an automatic promotion spot.
Our win was obviously helped enormously by the Rotherham player who decided to elbow Matthew Robinson in the head, and then, even after being shown the red card, tried to head-butt Martin Butler and pick fights with most of the other Reading players on his way off the field.
But even allowing for that Rotherham gave us no clue as to why they are so high up the table. They had three shots to Reading's 14 and seemed more interested in wasting time and fouling our players, even after we had taken the lead.
Which brings me to 20-year-old James Harper, probably only in the side because of a flu bug in the Reading camp, who on his debut scored the first goal and showed enough class to suggest that he could go down as one of the club legends if he continues to work hard.
Barry Hunter's record deserves a mention - in the last 490 minutes Barry's been on the pitch we haven't conceded a goal. And there was no way that a team as poor as Rotherham were going to dent that statistic.
Man of the Match: James Harper
Fan's View by Ray Curry Reading Fan
It's on days like this that Madejski Stadium comes alive. A full Maurice Evans stand plus a decent turnout in the other parts of the ground gives a taste of why we have such a fine venue.
Unfortunately in the past we have had a nasty habit of blowing these big occasions. Perhaps this is now behind us as this victory continues our push for an automatic promotion spot.
Our win was obviously helped enormously by the Rotherham player who was shown the red card. But even allowing for that Rotherham gave us no clue as to why they are so high up the table. They had three shots to Reading's 14 and seemed more interested in wasting time.
Which brings me to 20-year-old James Harper, who on his debut showed enough class to suggest that he could go down as a club legend if he continues to work hard.
Man of the Match: James Harper
I assume that Sport First will continue to have a fan's view for one Division 2 game each week, and that therefore they will be looking for a Reading fan to comment on a few more games this season. Obviously, I hope that they ask me every time, in which case I'll do a similar page like this to compare the two versions.
However, if they ask you I suggest that you contact me as I think I can give you a couple of hints as to how to make the best of this particular job.
And finally, they really wanted a photo of the person doing the piece. I persuaded them that it would be of no benefit to the paper at all to have a photo of me, and I trust you're all grateful.
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