Plymouth
Argyle have been admitted to the Avon Insurance Combination
League for next season. They, along with Exeter City, Swansea
City and Torquay United, were refused admission at the start of
last season for geographical reasons (with Norwich City not too
surprisingly being among those most vocal about it!). As far as I
know, Torquay, Exeter and Swansea did not re-apply.
Barnet were supposed to be removed from the reserve league for next season, as the rules stated that clubs losing Football League status could only remain for one year. However, the Combination has allowed them to stay after changing the rules - Barnet will now have to apply for annual re-election unless they can get promotion back into the Football League. Presumably this means there will be 26 teams next season instead of 25.
Finally on reserve news, Wycombe Wanderers are in discussion with Aylesbury United over the possibility of playing their reserve games at Buckingham Road for one season.
In
something of a surprise move, Reading have announced that reserve
games next season will be played at Madejski Stadium. I have
previously commented on the state of the pitch in Newbury (although
it did improve during the season), but might have expected a move
to Didcot Town given that we had decided to go elsewhere. As last
season, matches will typically be played at 2pm on a Wednesday.
Hopefully this announcement is simply a forerunner of the one
when the squatters announce that they are returning to London in
order to play their boring old rubbish in front of pitifully
small crowds there.
Sammy
Igoe has signed a new one-year contract with Reading, after being
given an ultimatum to make a decision this week. With potentially
many footballers without clubs for next season, it is not really
a surprise that he accepted.
The
Football League have announced a campaign against Carlton and
Granada in advance of the forthcoming court case over TV rights
due from ITV Digital. As a first step, they are asking fans to
watch the England game on Saturday on BBC1 instead of ITV1.
Official TV viewing figures are based on a sample of the
population with specific set top boxes in their homes - if you're
one of those people, or know someone else who is, then make sure
you take part in the boycott. Given that the ITV1 coverage of the
World Cup has been nothing short of appalling, then this
particular aspect of the campaign might just work.
Future events will include demonstrations outside the London offices of the two companies, both by chairmen and fans. There will be a designated day for fans of Reading to join the protest.
Fixtures
for the season have been published. In time, the reports page
will include information about each of our games this season.
The
Division 1 fixture list comes out tomorrow - as I stated last
year, do not expect the first news to be on this website. In
fact, last year I did manage to get hold of the two Swindon Town
fixtures before the official announcement, but that's not going
to happen this year! Some things to look out for before filling
in diaries and booking time off work:
(a) Any home game over the August Bank Holiday weekend is likely
to be moved by the Thames Valley Police.
(b) The away game at Millwall may have kick-off time and / or
date changed, based on yesterday's announcement.
(c) There is usually a high level of incompetence from the
Football League when issuing fixtures (for example, last season
all midweek games in one particular week in January were put down
as a Wednesday rather than Tuesday simply because the Worthington
Cup semi-final was on the Wednesday in the same week - some clubs
failed to correct this until the week before the game in their
programmes or websites!!!!). If something looks odd, they may
just have screwed up again.
(d) There may be no TV deal at the moment, but it's likely that
one channel or another will secure Division 1 rights and insist
on playing matches on stupid days of the week or at stupid times.
At our new higher level, we are more likely to be featured in
live games, although still not that likely.
(e) It would be good to get the visit to Withdean out the way
early in the season whilst the pitch still vaguely resembles an (under-sized)
football pitch.
Millwall
have announced some restrictions on away fans following their
continuing inability to stop their own fans causing trouble at
games (although unlike Cardiff City, you do get the feeling that
the club does want to solve the problem). Six clubs have seen
their supporters banned from the New Den, whilst Reading are one
of four sides for whom the game will be all-ticket. Furthermore,
the kick-off time for our game will be such that there is at
least one hour of daylight remaining at the final whistle.
Millwall have also planned to build a walkway running directly
between South Bermondsey station and the away end, but this does
not yet have planning permission.
Reading
have announced that home games next season, including the two pre-season
friendlies, will kick off at 8pm instead of 7.45pm.
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