If you check back a few days, you will spot that 1871 (unlike other websites) referred to the signing of Guilliaume Norbert as something that was planned rather than something that had happened. Well, I was right to be circumspect because his arrival has now been postponed because he has flu.
Wigan's Bruce Rioch takes the Manager of the Month award. With a record of two league defeats and an FA Cup win over Grays Athletic, Alan Pardew probably didn't expect to figure too highly in the voting.
On Wednesday afternoon, Reading's reserve team beat Gillingham 1-0 at Palmer Park to move up to fifth in the table, which has a rather surprising (and distressing) leader. For a match report, click here. (After Thursday evening's victory for Norwich over Cheltenham, Reading fall back to sixth position.)
On Wednesday evening, the Under18s lost 1-0 in front of nearly 9,000 fans at Madejski Stadium at home to Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup. For match details (report to follow), click here.
Tonight there's a chance to see some of the stars of the future at Madejski Stadium in the 3rd round of the FA Youth Challenge Cup (or the FA Cup Youth Cup as the club's board on Basingstoke Road says). On show will be the likes of Scott Williams, Ricky Allaway, Declan O'Hara, Joey Alcott, and other heroes wearing the blue-and-white hoops. And the opposition players might be worth watching as well, but frankly who gives a toss about them? In the last three seasons, Manchester United have lost in their first tie of this competition, so it would be a shame to break with tradition (and over the last five years, they have only won three FA Youth Cup games!).
You may have read about the Notts County pitch needing to be relaid due to contamination with bacteria following recent floods. Ironically, the even more recent heavy rain has cleared the pitch up quite a bit, so the current situation is that they only need to relay 20% of it. They are sying that it will be ready for use during the week commencing December 4th, so hopefully all will be well by the time of our scheduled League game there on 16th December. The other problem Notts County have is that their FA Cup 1st round tie at Gravesend is still to be played. If it's called off next week (or if they play it and need a replay) then they'll be delaying their 2nd round game. It's unlikely that this will have an impact on our League match.
According to the FA Premier Academy League, Reading's Under-19 home game against Fulham has been moved forward 23 hours to Friday, 1st December. Kick-off is at 12 noon and the venue is still Cantley. The Under-17s home game with Arsenal at Cantley remains at 11am on Saturday, 2nd December.
Meanwhile the reserve game against Gillingham on Wednesday will now be at Palmer Park with a 1pm kick-off.
Reading are looking to take a 20-year-old Arsenal player, Guilliaume Norbert, on a month's trial contract. He's French and plays on the right wing. Arsenal will let him go on a free transfer.
Queens Park Rangers have just announced some appalling financial results (entirely their own fault for merging with an egg-chasing outfit that thinks 3,000 is a big crowd, rather than concentrating on proper football), and one option they are apparently considering to save money is to close down their Football Academy. Apart from the fact that this may release some players they had poached from our catchment area, one of their age group coaches last season was none other than our very own Keith Scott. There is a wider issue apart from damaging Scott's first step on the coaching ladder - part of QPR's problem is that they do not have the funds to pump into the facilities required for an Academy. I assume that Reading do have the money for this, but apparently there are a number of other clubs who have already decided to downgrade their youth operations in the near future, and I don't know which ones they are.
As an aside, at the QPR AGM last week, their Chairman held up Reading as a good example of how a club moving into a new stadium could expect to get increased crowds. He then started going on about how stadiums needed to bring in revenue on a daily basis, with facilities such as hotels. I think he's been stealing some of our ideas - they might even be playing "Terry and June" by this time next week.
Reading's game at Bournemouth is called off at 1.07pm (just one hour after Bournemouth had stated it was definitely on!), due to a waterlogged pitch. Overall, this probably favours Reading as the conditions would have suited our opponents more than us. However, whilst there was some very heavy rain between noon and 1pm, there was no rain at all in Bournemouth between 1.15pm and 5pm (meaning that we would not have got wet on the open terrace), and there was also a strong wind which would surely have helped to dry out the pitch. It's also worthy of note that Southampton's game was played, Dorchester Town managed to provide a playable pitch, and the youth of Bournemouth were able to play football in the local park on Saturday afternoon. Admittedly Havant & Waterlooville had to call their game off - is that the sort of club with which Bournemouth wish to be compared?
In case you don't know there were posters outside Dean Court stating that there would be no ticket refunds until a date had been arranged to play the game. Presumably that means that Bournemouth get to sit on thousands of pounds for a few months, and then sell a load more tickets to Reading fans because we're in the home stretch of our promotion run when the game is actually played. Coincidence? Seems unlikely.
The Under-19s game at Bristol City is also postponed, which is bad news as other results mean that Reading drop to last place in their ten-team group. Meanwhile, the Under-17s probably wish that their game had also fallen foul of the weather as they lose 1-4 at home to West Ham. Click on the score for match details.
Tomorrow sees the trip to the uncovered terrace of not-so-sunny-or-so-dry-Bournemouth and a chance to get our first league points for almost a month. Darren Caskey and Andy Gurney are available again after suspension, but Ricky Newman has a one-match ban. Our full-backs could be any two from Gurney, Gray, Robinson, Haddow, Murty and Hodges! Assuming that Matthew Robinson is not yet fully fit and that Graeme Murty is unavailable (he's missed training for at least some of this week), then the likely combination is Gray on the left and Gurney on the right. An alternative would be to play Caskey on the left of midfield and drop Hodges to left-back, but that leaves too many players out of position for my liking.
Caskey may find that he does not walk back into the midfield, as I would expect Alan Pardew to stick with Sammy Igoe on the right. Based on recent matches, the midfielder who should be most worried about retaining his place is Keith Jones. On the other hand, we could go with five in midfield, meaning that Pardew could adopt his favourite tactic of leaving Jamie Cureton on the bench! Cureton actually spent a month on loan at Bournemouth five years ago, but only ever played for them as a substitute (6 appearances, no goals).
Let's be honest about this - there are so many permutations with our current set of players, and (relatively) so few out injured at the moment, that I have little clue about what side we're going to put out this weekend.
One other point will be that we get to see Reading reject Peter Grant for the first time since he left to join Bournemouth as player-coach. Grant scored a fine goal for Bournemouth in last season's encounter - unfortunately whilst he was playing for Reading - but he won't get a chance to redress the balance as he is currently injured. Hopefully he will be coaching Bournemouth as badly as he was playing for us at this point of last season.
Don't forget that you should be able to listen to
commentary of the game (provided by BBC Radio Solent, I think) at:
AFC Bournemouth
official site
Now there may well be more than one George Cain living in Seaforth, but those Reading fans with memories that go back as far as the Coca-Cola Cup quarter-final against Middlesbrough will find this excerpt from my local paper of interest: "George Cain, of Rawson Road, Seaforth, was charged with failing to provide information subject to a Council Tax Liability Order requested on August 15. Cain was convicted in his absence by North Sefton magistrates, fined £50 and ordered to pay £20 costs."
Something to look out for next season - the 2002 Spring Bank Holiday (which under normal circumstances would fall on Monday, 27th May) has been moved to Tuesday, 4th June, with an extra bank holiday slotted in on Monday, 3rd June. The change is to allow us to "celebrate" the Queen's Golden Jubilee, although I don't know what happens if she dies between now and then. So what happens to the Division 1 play-off final date? The obvious alternative is to hold the Division 3 game on the evening of Friday, 24th May, Division 2 on the Saturday and Division 1 on the Sunday, but be careful about what advance holiday plans you make!
Some FA Cup news - the 3rd round draw will take place on Sunday, 10th December, 2000 between 5:45pm and 6:15pm. It is live on ITV. Reading (OK, or York) should be ball number 51.
It looks as though Keith Scott might be on the move soon. He's started training again after recovering from the knee injury he picked up whilst on loan at Colchester and will be going back there to train with them this week. Alan Pardew has told Scott that he does not form part of his plans for the future of Reading FC, and so Scott will start talking to Colchester about a permanent move. He may have been a lot better than Paul Brayson, but good riddance, I say.
The draw for the Final Round of the 2002 World
Cup qualifying tournament in the CONCACAF region has taken place.
Trinidad & Tobago have the following fixtures:
27/28th February, 2001 - Jamaica (away)
24/28th March, 2001 - Mexico (away)
24/25th April, 2001 - Honduras (home)
This means that Tony Rougier is likely to miss the games against
Swansea (away, on 24th February), Bristol City (home, on 24th
March) and Walsall (home, on 21st April). T&T then have three
matches over the summer which will not affect any Reading games,
and four further matches between September and November 2001.
ITV's Nationwide League Extra manages to show the goals from Reading's win over Grays Athletic, something that BBC's Match of the Day and Sky Sports' Soccer Extra failed to do.
Sky decide that Blackpool - Yeovil and (incredibly) Walsall - Barnet are the two best ties in the FA Cup 2nd round, so will yet again not be showing Reading. Those four clubs will each receive £75,000 for the privilege.
York City comprehensively beat Radcliffe Borough 4-1, and so face Reading at home in the FA Cup 2nd round. Looking at the rest of the draw, this really does look like a candidate for a Sky live game.
Reading beat Grays Athletic 4-0 to progress into the second round of the FA Cup, where we are drawn away to Radcliffe Borough or York City. Lee Hodges, Jamie Cureton, Martin Butler and Keith Jones get the goals. Jones will be particularly pleased to get his first goal for the club (excluding friendlies and the perfectly good one he scored against Walsall that the idiot referee disallowed). The match sees a runout as a substitute in the second half for Joe Gamble, and a first game of the season for Stuart Gray. Click here for a match report.
In the LDV Vans Trophy Reading get the perfect draw, with a bye into the second round!
In the FA Premier Academy League the Under-19s lose 2-4 at home to Tottenham, whilst the Under-17s also lose, away to Fulham by the same score of 2-4. Click on the results for match details. The League tables will be updated on Sunday.
Meanwhile Reading announce that the FA Youth Cup 3rd round game at home to Manchester United will be on Wednesday, 29th November at Madejski Stadium, kick-off at 7:45pm.
Some news on the "Football League Trophy" - this season it will be called the LDV Vans Trophy, it will include eight clubs from the Nationwide Conference as well as the 48 teams from Divisions 2 and 3, and the first round draw (which is regionalised) takes place tomorrow live on Soccer AM on Sky Sports. You can see which eight Conference clubs by looking at the news from Saturday, 4th November below.
Tomorrow also sees Reading begin their FA Cup campaign, at home to Grays Athletic who currently occupy last place in Ryman League Premier Division with only one League win all season. Away from home, they have managed just one draw in eight games. In last year's 1st round game, Reading comfortably saw off Yeovil Town, despite the fact that Yeovil were towards the top of the Conference and Reading were playing appallingly badly at the time. So you'd expect that this season's game will be much much easier - as long as our players really do go out and play properly, there should be no problem at all. In fact, if Reading's players really perform to the level we know they're capable of, then both Reading's record victory (10-2) and Grays' record defeat (0-12) will be under threat. But of course no-one expects that.
Alan Pardew has said that he will not field a weakened team, although he will have to find replacements for the suspended Darren Caskey and Andy Gurney. I would expect Sammy Igoe to start wide on the right, and either Alex Haddow or Stuart Gray at left-back - personally I'd choose Haddow without having to give it a second thought (although the presence of Gray against Grays might help the headline writers!). Pardew has also said that Joe Gamble is likely to be on the bench - he may find space by giving Tony Rougier a further week to rest his ankle injury. The other obvious possibilities are to give either Barry Hunter or Scott Howie run-outs from the start - playing either of these two would not really count as weakening the team.
The scheduled referee is Paul Alcock, who is sure to be no pushover. He hasn't been in charge of a Reading game in the last few years.
Should there be a replay it will be on Tuesday, 28th November. Grays' ground holds 4,500 so there is a fair chance that it would be the venue.
Not that it really affects Reading directly, but Trinidad & Tobago beat Panama 1-0 away in the last World Cup qualifier of their semi-final round. Their next qualifying games will be in the CONCACAF final round, which starts in March. Tony Rougier did not travel for this match because he has a slight ankle injury, and in any event T&T might not have called him up because they had already qualified. They'll finish second in the group, unless Mexico fail to beat Canada in the early hours of Thursday morning (Greenwich Mean Time).
Reading's reserves beat Millwall 1-0 at Farnborough this afternoon. Click here for an exclusive match report.
Alan Pardew states that he really did have an interest in young Arsenal midfielder Graham Barrett and that he wanted to bring him to Reading on loan. He adds that it's not going to happen. The surprising thing about this is that the story first appeared on Teamtalk who appear to have got something right for once. Meanwhile Peterborough state that they will not be pursuing their attempt to take two Reading youngsters (Darius Henderson and Chris Smith) on loan. Don't you think that there's a nice symmetry about these two stories? - whilst it reminds us that we're a long way behind Arsenal, it shows where Peterborough stand in the football pecking order.
In the second round of the FA Youth Cup, Reading beat Bristol Rovers 6-0 with a superb performance. Ricky Allaway scores four goals, with Matthew Birnie and Joey Alcott getting the other two. To see a match report and a scan of the programme, follow this link. Reading are at home to Manchester United in Round 3, and 1871 are proud to say that we have shown an interest in this competition before a "glory boy" draw happened. If you go to the Academy index you can see which players are eligible for this tournament (in the Under-18 section of the squads page), and check out how the FA Youth Cup works (in the Under-18 section of the reports page).
Some more news on the competition formerly known as the Auto Windscreens Shield and apparently now called the Football League Trophy. Nothing will happen until a new sponsor comes forward. When (well, if!) that does happen, the draw will take place the following Saturday, and will be live on Sky Sports' Soccer AM programme (between 8am and 12 noon). Presumably this also calls into question the scheduled dates for the first round (week beginning Monday, 4th December), and the new name implies that the mooted inclusion of eight teams from the Nationwide Conference will not take place.
In The Times Football Handbook Monthly, there's a short look at the England Under-21 players from the 1994/95 season to see how they progressed subsequently. The list of players includes one Nicky Forster who won four caps that season, the same number as David Beckham, one more than Sol Campbell and Nicky Butt, and two more than Jamie Redknapp and Nick Barmby. The sooner Nicky is properly fit, the better. (And I know the newspaper came out on Saturday, but I didn't read this bit of it until today!)
In a truly awful performance, Reading lose 1-0 at home to Colchester and drop down to fifth in the table. For a match report, click here. Mates Day certainly had some effect, as there were quite a few people around who didn't know our songs or our players. However, appalling weather conditions kept the size of the crowd down. In any event, this game wasn't a great advert to encourage new fans to return to watch us play.
I assume that both our FA Premier Academy League games were called off, as the results do not feature in the official list. Either that or Reading forgot to phone them through. Your call as to which is more likely.
Rumour had it that the draw for the competition previously known as the Auto Windscreens Shield would take place today, and would be live on Sky Sports (which presumably meant on Soccer AM like last season), although another rumour stated that the competition would be scrapped unless a new sponsor was found before the draw was due to take place! The draw was originally scheduled for Thursday, 26th October, but when the old sponsor pulled out, the draw was cancelled late on. It was then scheduled for Saturday, 4th November, but nothing happened. And today, again, nothing happened. If the competition does happen, the first round is meant to be in the week commencing Monday, 4th December. If you think you've read all this before, you're probably right.
Tomorrow sees the home game against Colchester. Reading have won our last six home games whilst Colchester have lost their last three away (and not against quality opponents), so yet again we might expect a victory. Fortunately the fact that we needed a late winner to overcome Oxford should have removed any complacency from either players or spectators. Colchester's main problem has been scoring goals. It's tempting to say that that is obvious given that they took Keith Scott on loan! They have brought in another player now that Scott's injuries have forced him to return to Reading - in any event the loan agreement stated that he was not going to be playing against us in this game.
Alan Pardew has said that Jamie Cureton will start the match, presumably in place of Tony Rougier who is still has a slight injury from that late illegal challenge at Walsall. Expect to see Rougier on the bench, and that may well be the only change from the line-up last Saturday. Matthew Robinson is still unfit so Andy Gurney will no doubt continue at left-back. Another possible change is Neil Smith for Keith Jones in the centre of midfield. Smith played 90 minutes in the reserve friendly on Tuesday whilst Jones has looked out of sorts in the last few games, after making a good initial return from injury. However I would expect Pardew to stick with Jones.
The referee is Matt D Messias of York, according to both soccerbase and Sport First. This of course assumes that he has a boat to allow him to get out of York, I guess. He is considerably more experienced than the pillock we had to put up with last week, and last took charge of a Reading game in the 5-0 defeat at Millwall last season. I don't recall anyone blaming him for that fiasco! He also did the away games at Notts County (1-1) and Preston (4-0 defeat) the previous season.
The game has been designated as Mates Day, so come along and bring your mates. A Reading victory might see us return to the top of the table, although it would need both Walsall and Wigan to fail to win their games.
Martin Butler fails to make the top three in the award for the Nationwide Footballer of the Month for October. The winner was a Millwall player - vote-rigging suspected and unfortunately no chance of a recount. (I've nothing against vote-rigging as long as it produces the correct result.)
Alan Pardew says that the reason he has been dropping Jamie Cureton for certain games is due to his lack of fitness. He also blames Bristol Rovers for letting Cureton get to such a stage! Whilst this sounds like it makes sense, and also fits in with the fact that in the last two months Cureton has failed to complete the games that he has started, I can't say that I have seen any real evidence of lack of fitness from the way he's been playing. Although the Colchester game is two days away, Pardew has said that Cureton will start that match. The Cube has written a piece, covering the wider Jamie Cureton story.
At 9:30am Wigan announce that their trip to Madejski Stadium next March has been moved to the Friday night for live coverage on Sky. At 4pm Reading say this has yet to be confirmed! It would be good if that particular game was on Sky because it might reduce the opportunity for the cheating pie-eaters to bribe the referee in their normal fashion - bear in mind that they have benefited from a ludicrous penalty decision in both of their previous trips to the MadStad.
The 3rd round draw for the FA Youth Cup has taken place. After completely ignoring the early rounds the club has suddenly taken an interest as the draw gives us a potential home tie against Manchester United. Before we can look forward to that, there's a second round clash away to Bristol Rovers on Monday, 13th November which we need to win.
Just to prove that cheats sometimes do prosper, Ceefax are reporting that referee Clive Wilkes has been promoted to the Premiership panel after his "good performances" in the Nationwide League. Obviously the ten out of ten that Barry Fry no doubt gave him after our match away to Peterborough will have enormously helped Wilkes get this undeserved promotion.
Reading beat Slough Town 3-1 in the hastily arranged friendly this evening. Meanwhile the Royals drop to third in the league table after Wigan beat Millwall 1-0.
Reading have arranged a friendly with Slough Town tonight, kick off 7:30pm at Wexham Park, the home of Slough. Admission is £3 for adults, £1.50 for children. Reading have taken this match on because of the postponement of the scheduled reserve fixture for this week, and have promised to include players like Jim McIntyre, Tony Rougier, Barry Hunter, Scott Howie and Sammy Igoe. Slough have a whole host of ex-Royals on their books - Keith McPherson, Dylan Kerr, Paul Holsgrove, Jamie Lambert and Steve Mautone - and say that most of these will play. (Thanks to Chris, the webmaster of the official Slough Town website for e-mailing me these details.)
Soccer Extra on Sky Sports analyses Reading's disallowed goal from the Walsall game, and the panel unanimously decide that it was fair. Butler had already made his jump before either the defender or goalkeeper reached him and so he couldn't possibly have fouled either of them. On the same programme Phil Whitehead tops a poll of Goalkeepers' Gaffes - I'm sure you don't need me to tell you which particular incident they showed. The Rotherham keeper's error allowing Jamie Cureton to score at the end of September made the shortlist of seven, but attracted little support.
I've done some checking on the referee, Mr Howard M Webb of Rotherham, who mishandled the Walsall game on Saturday - as it said in the programme, this is his first season as a Football League referee. Yesterday was only his ninth game in charge - the first seven were in Division 3, and last week he did Stoke against Bournemouth. Although referees have to learn at some point, it really seems quite staggering that a match of this importance was put in the hands of one so inexperienced.
The draw for whatever the Auto Windscreens Shield is going to be called this season has been put back seven days, to Saturday, 11th November. This is the third quoted date for the draw, so don't hold your breath. The draw is supposedly live on Sky Sports, and the Football League expect to name a new sponsor at the same time.
In the top of the table, second v first clash at Walsall's Bescot Stadium, it's Walsall that come out on top with a 2-1 victory to take temporary possession of our top spot in the table. Reading drop to second. Jim McIntyre gets the Reading goal, although Keith Jones had a perfectly good one disallowed early on in the game. Neil Smith made an appearance as a late sub wearing his new scary mask. For a match report, click here.
Rumour had it that the draw for the competition previously known as the Auto Windscreens Shield would take place today, and would be live on Sky Sports (which presumably meant on Soccer AM like last season), although another rumour stated that the competition will be scrapped unless a new sponsor is found before the draw was due to take place! The draw was originally scheduled for Thursday, 26th October, but when the sponsor pulled out, the draw was cancelled late on. If the competition does happen, the first round is meant to be in the week commencing Monday, 4th December.
In order to remove the need for byes in the first round, eight clubs from the Nationwide Conference were invited to take part in this year's competition - these are Chester City (as the team relegated from the Nationwide League), Doncaster Rovers (as winners of the Nationwide Macmillan Trophy - their League Cup), plus Rushden and Diamonds, Morecambe, Scarborough, Dover Athletic, Yeovil Town and Kingstonian based on last season's League positions. However, because Kingstonian's ground was not up to standard, they were then replaced by Hereford United. This may all be academic, because a Football League spokesman has cast doubt on the entry of any Conference clubs by saying, "Although the inclusion of the eight Conference teams has not been announced publicly we would expect them to be part of the first round draw". It may well be that any new sponsor has the right to veto the Conference sides. The thing I don't understand is how having 56 teams (instead of 48) can remove the need for byes. Surely we need a further eight to get it up to 64?
The Evening Post report that Jamie Ashdown has suffered medial ligament damage to his right knee whilst training (with Reading) and that therefore his loan spell at Bishop Stortford has ended. That's two of our three recent loanees out injured - Sean Evers had better look out. Ashdown suggests that he might return to Bishops Stortford when he has recovered, though. A kock-on effect is that Charlton's attempt to take Scott Howie on loan has had to be blocked. Premiership clubs aren't allowed to take players on loan from other Premiership clubs (although this rule sometimes gets waived for goalkeepers) but it's still quite impressive that they want our second-choice keeper to act as their back-up.
Some ticket news - FA Cup tickets are now on sale for the 1st round tie at home to Grays Athletic on Saturday, 18th November. Reading have sensibly cut the advance ticket prices to £10 (£5 for concessions), but have also closed the Upper West Stand for the match. The Millwall home game, scheduled for Saturday, 6th January (but only if neither club is involvd in the FA Cup 3rd round, of course), is all-ticket and wholly reserved seating. And don't forget that tickets for the away game at Bournemouth on Saturday 25th November are still on sale. Buy now to avoid the rush.
Well, I described last Saturday's game as "eagerly awaited", but for different reasons the trip to Walsall is even more enticing. It's second against first, with the winners guaranteed top spot on Saturday night. A draw would see Reading stay top, bar a freakish result in the game between the third and fourth placed teams, Wigan and Rotherham. The last time I can remember Reading in a top two clash was when we played Stockport in December 1993 and the previous time was probably in the 1985/86 season, so you can see that this is a fairly rare event.
The match sees the return of Martin Butler and Adi Viveash to Walsall - Butler was generally booed whilst playing for Walsall and can expect the same tomorrow, whilst Viveash should get a warm welcome (before the game, at least) with Walsall fans blaming the board for him leaving their club. It will be Reading's first sighting of Tony Barrass since he left us - he can probably expect to get ignored by most Royals fans.
Although last Saturday's performance was nothing special for most of the game, Alan Pardew may well name the same line-up, assuming that Phil Whitehead has recovered from his slight knock. Tony Rougier managed 75 minutes on Wednesday but there is a world of difference between Luton reserves and Walsall's first team, so I expect to see him on the bench. Neil Smith (plus mask) and Barry Hunter may also feature on a bench that is likely to be more defensive than that seen against Oxford. Finally, Matthew Robinson was suggesting he might be available, but I would be surprised to see him play in this game.
Walsall may be second in the table, but they had a great start to the season, so the fact that they're not still in the lead means that they are on something of a bad run. They've only won one of their last five games, although that was against Stoke. Reading of course are still in a run of good form, with only the trip to Bristol City providing a blip.
Once we've got the Walsall game out of the way, we'll have played away to all our main rivals apart from Stoke, so we can look forward to a series of important home games later in the season.
The club announce that the reserves' trip to Barnet, originally scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon, has been postponed due to fixture congestion. They also state that the Under-17s' game away to Crystal Palace this Saturday is off due to a waterlogged pitch. Given that the Under-19s are also due to play Crystal Palace this Saturday at the same venue (the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in Upper Norwood) then I would strongly recommend checking that the fixture is going ahead before travelling.
Tickets for the away end at the Walsall game on Saturday are now sold out. Make sure that you get your tickets for the next trip, to Bournemouth, NOW! (Any Walsall fans reading this page might like to note that the game is not all-ticket for home fans but that you should arrive early.)
Martin Butler is one of the shortlisted eight players for the Nationwide Footballer of the Month for October (as shown on Sky Sports' Football League Review). The attempts of 1871 to get the vote up for Jamie Cureton last month didn't appear to work, but let's try again, particularly as one of the opponents is a Millwall player and you just know that the thug followers of that club will be fixing the vote. The number to ring is 09009 100 562 - making a call registers a vote, and you then have the option of hanging on to register your details for a prize of a VIP day out for two with the winner. Results will undoubtedly be on the Football League Review programme shown on Thursday, 9th November and repeated the following day.
Reading's reserves play a behind-closed-doors game at home to Luton. But that didn't stop our intrepid match reporter making the fixture. To read about Reading's 2-0 win, click here. Neil Smith returned from injury, wearing a mask to protect his cheek-bone, and Tony Rougier also started the game.
The FA Youth Cup 2nd round tie away to Bristol Rovers is fixed for Monday, 13th November (two days after the closing date for the round!) at 7:30pm.
Alan Pardew fails to take the manager of the month award for October, after Reading gained 13 points from six games in the month. Instead it goes to Rotherham who managed 16 points from their six games - unfortunately Reading's comprehensive victory at Rotherham was on the last day of September.
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