Tonight's
friendly game against Chesham United has been called off due to
too much rain.Tonight's
friendly game against Chesham United has been called off due to
too much rain.
Reading
have confirmed that there will be a friendly match played
tomorrow. It is away to Chesham United and billed as a reserve
game for those players not expected to start on Friday night.
Kick-off is at 7.45pm, and the match is open to the public.
The
Reading Evening Post quotes Alan Pardew as saying that he is
trying to arrange a friendly with Queens Park Rangers this
Wednesday, either at Rangers Stadium or Didcot Town's ground.
Given that the first home friendly is against Charlton Athletic
on Friday night, any extra game is likely to be more for the
players not in his starting line-up. (Later news: The proposed
game against QPR has fallen through, but there may yet be a
behind-closed-doors friendly on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons.)
Some
belated news about the 2002 Milk Cup, which has taken place this
week in the Northern Ireland. Chris Davies was in the Wales squad
for the Elite competition for Under-19s. Wales lost their first
game to Paraguay on Monday, and I think that Chris played. He was
a non-playing substitute for the second game on Wednesday, as
Wales used squad rotation. That game against Northern Ireland was
a draw, meaning that Wales finished second in the three-team
group and took part in the 3rd - 4th place game against Scotland.
Chris played in this match, but Wales lost 4-1 and so finished
fourth of the six teams.
The tournament was opened by Wales national team manager Mark Hughes, who was also planning to watch the Under-19 games.
Reading
ended the week-long trip to Germany with a 0-0 draw against
Bundesliga 2 club SSV Reutlingen tonight. Jamie Ashdown saved a
penalty on 27 minutes. This ends the 100% record for pre-season,
but we remain unbeaten. Click here for
match details.
Reading
beat TSV 1863 Krumbach 6-0 in Germany this evening to continue
our 100% record for pre-season. Click here for
match details.
In
Round 1 of the Worthington Cup, Reading are drawn away to
Cambridge United. The game will be played in the week beginning
Monday, 9th September, probably on the Tuesday.
The
draw for Round 1 of the Worthington Cup will be announced at 10am
tomorrow. The draw has been delayed whilst the Football League
tried to work out how to accommodate Ipswich Town's entry to the
UEFA Cup, which means that they should be exempt to either Round
2 or Round 3. Normally, there would be eight sides exempt to
Round 3 and 12 to Round 2 (all of whom would come from the
Premiership). However, if Ipswich were one of those 20 sides,
there would need to be one Premiership club starting the
competition in Round 1.
The League's solution is that this year there will be eight sides exempt to Round 3 and 13 to Round 2, the 21 clubs being made up of the 20 in the Premiership plus Ipswich Town. (Which side takes the eighth exemption in Round 3 depends on the progress of Aston Villa and Fulham in the Inter Toto Cup, as well as Ipswich's performance in their first UEFA Cup round.) To make up for the extra exemption, there will now be a Preliminary Round for the two lowest placed sides, Bristol Rovers and Boston United. Round 1 will then consist of the winner of that game and the remaining 69 Football League clubs, including of course Reading. Our round 1 game will still take place in the week beginning Monday, 9th September.
Reading's
Academy teams at younger age groups have again entered a pre-season
tournament played at Parmiter's School near Watford, which takes
place at the end of next week. For this year the tournament has
been renamed as The Graham Taylor International Festival of
Football (although apparently this does not mean that the
participants are encouraged to hoof the ball upfield at all
opportunities or to lose important games due to incompetent team
selection). Full details of fixtures appear on the Academy results page,
results will appear once games have taken place, and I might
manage a report on part of the tournament this season.
Last
night Wales lost 2-1 to Paraguay in the Elite Group of the
Northern Ireland Milk Cup. Reading's Chris Davies is in the squad
- given that he has shirt number 7 he is likely to have played in
the game, but I cannot confirm this yet. Wales' next game is on
Wednesday against Northern Ireland, who have former Reading
Academy players Declan O'Hara and Ryan Maxwell in their squad.
Another former Reading player, Simon Cox, is in the Republic of
Ireland squad in the other group of the tournament.
The
trial of Dider Angan has been cancelled following revelations
that he was suspended for drug abuse a couple of years ago. Alan
Pardew seemed annoyed mostly at the fact that Angan's agent had
concealed this information rather than at the actual offence (for
which Angan has already served a punishment).
(added
Monday, 22nd July) Reading lost 1-0 to Queens Park Rangers at
Bisham Abbey in a friendly game for our Academy scholars. Click here for a
match report. Andre Fashanu came on as a second-half substitute
to play his first football for almost a year since suffering a
serious knee injury last pre-season.
Reading
have announced a surprise trialist addition to the squad for the
week in Germany - defender Didier Angan, recently released by
Nice. Angan has played international football for Côte d'Ivoire
(Ivory Coast) but was not in their squad for the Africa Cup of
Nations earlier this year. He is apparently already in Germany
having had a trial there with a local club. I believe that he has
a French passport - if that is true and if we do want to sign
him, then there will be no work permit delay. He has played at
both centre-back and right-back for Nice, and initially came to
France on the books of Paris St Germain in 1994.
Another
pre-season win as Reading beat Kidderminster Harriers 4-2 away
from home in pouring rain this evening. Click here
for a match report. Adi Viveash picked up an injury early in the
game, and was replaced at half-time by Phil Parkinson.
Today's
picket outside the London offices of Granada was a success. Alan
Pardew and Kevin Dillon attended, alongside a team of 11 Reading
players and about 30 supporters. Martin Salter, MP for Reading
West, was there towards the end. A coachload of 40 Hull City fans
had also made a major diversion from their trip to Bradford Park
Avenue this evening to join in, and finally there were also a few
Football League officials present.
Sky Sports interviewed two Reading fans and filmed the protest for a while, whilst the Reading FC website also conducted interviews. Martin Salter said that he had written to the Sports Minister pledging to try to wreck any part of the forthcoming Communications Bill that would benefit Carlton or Granada, in order to persuade the two companies to honour the agreement they had entered into with Football League clubs.
Madejski
Stadium has been chosen to host the England v Macedonia European
Championship Under-21 qualifying game on Tuesday, 15th October.
Just a
reminder that tomorrow sees the turn of Reading fans to protest
against Carlton and Granada's failure to keep their word over the
TV payment for the next two seasons. It starts at noon at the
Granada offices at The London Television Centre, Upper Ground,
London, SE1 9LT. It's very close to Waterloo Station and the
nearest underground station is the one at Waterloo. Officials and
some first team players from Reading will be there too.
Four
wins from four! And two clean sheets today, as Reading beat
Banbury United 1-0 and
Whyteleafe 2-0.
Click on the Banbury result for a match report and the Whyteleafe
result for basic match details (hopefully more to follow). Alan
Pardew saw his first game of the season, taking charge at
Whyteleafe, whilst Kevin Dillon led the team at Banbury.
Chris
Davies has been selected in the Wales squad for the Elite
tournament of the 20th annual Milk Cup international youth
football tournament, which will be played later this month. Wales
are in a group of three teams, and will compete against Paraguay
and Northern Ireland before a play-off game against one side from
the other group. The Elite tournament is for Under-19s so this is
one age-group higher than Chris would normally expect to play.
Full details of the fixtures can be found on the internationals page.
Reading
have named starting line-ups for tomorrow's games, which can be
found on the match preview pages - Banbury United here and
Whyteleafe here.
Sammy Igoe and Bas Savage are named in the teams, so are clearly
now fit.
The first team squad members not named in either line-up are Adrian Whitbread, Nathan Tyson, Kevin Watson, John Mackie, Darius Henderson and Ricky Allaway. However, there is a centre-back missing from the Banbury line-up so that is presumably Whitbread. Tyson is probably not recovered from the injury he picked up on Tuesday, whilst Mackie, Henderson and Allaway missed those games with slight injuries. So the only mystery is why Kevin Watson does not appear in either line-up.
Anyone travelling to Banbury by train should note that there is a rail replacement bus between Oxford and Banbury due to scheduled engineering work.
Details
of the supporters' protest against Carlton and Granada have now
been sorted out. As previously mentioned, Reading fans are asked
to attend on Wednesday 17th July. The demonstration is at the
Granada offices on the south bank of the Thames starting at 12
noon. The exact address is The London Television Centre, Upper
Ground, London, SE1 9LT. It's very close to Waterloo Station and
the nearest underground station is the one at Waterloo.
In the
two games this evening, Reading beat Basingstoke Town 3-1 and
Oxford City 3-2.
Click on the scores for a match report from Basingstoke or scorer
details from Oxford. Ricky Newman and Adrian Whitbread made
returns from injury at Basingstoke, with no apparent ill-effects.
Reading's
first Division 1 home game for over four years, against Sheffield
Wednesday on Tuesday, August 13th, has been selected for live TV
coverage by Sky. Ironically, this means that the kick-off will be
at 7.45pm instead of the new standard time of 8pm.
There
had been some possibility of an India v Jamaica international
game taking place at Madejski Stadium, but unfortunately this
will not now happen. Hopefully, the trend of certain countries to
play "home" internationals in Europe will see some
potentially interesting clashes in Reading in the future.
Some
information about the course Alan Pardew is currently attending -
it lasts for a year and is called the UEFA Pro-Licence coaching
course. It begins with a residential week in Warwick, which is
where our manager is at the moment. There are sixteen invited
students, including David Platt, Stuart Pearce, Peter Withe and
the England women's team coach Hope Powell. Also attending is a
former Reading manager and Judas Iscariot-type figure, which
might make for some interesting viewing. Despite my suggestion in
the next section that Pardew might get down to Oxford City for
our game tomorrow night, that would mean missing some of the
course as sessions go on until 10pm. The course covers a wide
range of coaching theory and practice, and will continue
throughout the next 12 months by various distance learning
methods and occasional meetings of the group of students.
Expected
squads for tomorrow night's games have been decided and can be
found on the match preview pages - Basingstoke Town here and
Oxford City here.
Apparently, Kevin Dillon will take charge at Basingstoke and
Brian McDermott in Oxford because Alan Pardew is on a course in
Warwick. Given the location of Warwick, it might not be too
surprising if Pardew also turns up in Oxford, though. The squad
at the Oxford City game looks a little the stronger, but 1871
will be reporting on the Basingstoke Town game.
As far as the players go, roughly speaking each game has ten first team squad members and eleven youth team players attending. Notable names missing from either squad are John Mackie, Sammy Igoe, Bas Savage, Darius Henderson and Ricky Allaway, all of whom have slight knocks.
New
Academy scholar Darren Campbell has been selected in the England
Under-16 squad for the Nordic tournament in Sweden starting at
the end of this month. Campbell has been in England squads before
but has not yet played for the side. Full details of the
tournament appear on the internationals page.
(The tournament is for players born in 1986 or later, and is
officially Under-16 although it is being called Under-17 in some
places.)
Apparently,
a Reading team had a run-out against an Army side at Arborfield
on Saturday. Reading won 3-1 - for match details, click here.
More
details have emerged regarding payments for the TV deal announced
yesterday. Reading will receive £364,000 plus a further £60,000
for each live game that we feature in. With 50 Division 1 games
to be shown, each club will be on an average of about four times
leading to a payment of about £600,000 as I suggested yesterday.
However, history tells us that Reading can expect to be featured
less than this even if we have an exceptional season.
The numbers also suggest that Division 1 clubs are getting at least 75% of the £20m payable for the first year of the deal, and rather more if they feature heavily in the cup matches chosen.
What doesn't appear to have been stated clearly yet is whether Division 1 games will be on the standard Sky Sports channels or on Sky Sports Extra. However, the deal definitely does not include be pay-per-view.
The
Nationwide League have signed a deal with Sky Sports for
television coverage of live matches next season. Sky will show 50
Division 1 games, 10 games from the other two divisions, the LDV
Vans Trophy final, the three play-off finals, up to six other
play-off games, and two games from each round of the Worthington
Cup. I would say that Reading could expect to have one or two
League games covered. Sky will pay £20m for next season, so if
that is divided up the same way as the originally expected money
from ITV Digital Reading might get £600,000. If instead it is
skewed more in favour of the clubs actually shown, we would
expect rather less. In any event it's difficult to see that the
TV money would cover the costs of more than one decent free
transfer player, especially as the financial demands have
presumably just gone up!
Sky Sports will show games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Without being clear at this stage, it looks as though their main time slot will be early Saturday evening (5.35pm or 6pm) with other games being played on Friday evenings or Sunday afternoons. Allowing for Cup weekends, 60 games would probably mean two televised games most weekends.
There is also talk about a highlights package being on the table, but this is apparently not part of the deal announced today. Reports earlier in the week suggested that the BBC and Sky Sports were putting in a joint bid for Nationwide League coverage, so there may still be a chance of highlights being on terrestrial television.
Finally, today's announcement in no way affects the court case against the evil empires of Carlton and Granada, and the planned protests should continue. John Madejski and other chairman will be protesting outside the companies' offices next Wednesday, whilst Reading fans will be joining the protest the following Wednesday. Other clubs have announced the times of their protests as being between 12noon and 2pm, so it's quite likely that ours will be the same.
The
first friendlies are next Tuesday, away to both Basingstoke Town
(7.30pm) and Oxford City (7.45pm). Reading currently have 26
professionals (the 25 who have shirt numbers plus Steve Warren)
and have said that the squad will be split down the middle. The
plan is to take 18 players to each game, so presumably that will
mean 13 professionals plus five from the Academy at each game.
Alan Pardew is expected to manage the team at Oxford, whilst
Kevin Dillon will be in charge at Basingstoke.
Reading's
players returned to training today. For the time being, this is
taking place at Bradfield College and is not open to the public.
It appears that Reading will this season again be training at the
Reading Cricket and Hockey Club at Sonning once that facility is
available again.
The
lack of updates to this site in recent weeks has mostly been due
to the fact that very little was happening. However, the other
reason is that I have been working on a transfer of the "Where
Are They Now?" information from www.13inarow.com to this
website. Although it's not completely finished yet, you can now
access the new index featuring well over 2,000 ex-Reading players
by clicking here. The section
includes a new feature so that you can easily see which ex-Reading
players are at any particular club, whether they are still
playing senior football or local park football.
Reading
have announced provisional squad numbers for the new season. With
three players leaving the club, John Mackie (6) and Nicky Shorey
(3) claim single digit shirt numbers (with Kevin Watson moving
from 6 to 4), whilst John Salako takes over the number 17.
Perhaps the only surprise is that Steve Warren, signed on a
professional contract at the end of last season, does not yet get
a number.
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