James
Harper and Luke Chadwick are both in the Nationwide Division 1
Team of the Week.James
Harper and Luke Chadwick are both in the Nationwide Division 1
Team of the Week.
John
Mackie has been found guilty of whatever the FA charged him with
relating to the Sheffield United home game in December - he has
been given a three-game ban starting from Monday, 17th March plus
a £1,500 fine. Furthermore, if he re-offends before the end of
next season he will get another five-match ban and another £1,500
fine.
Sky
have announced some more live games, including our home game with
Brighton & Hove Albion, which will now be played on Friday, 4th
April. Kick-off still at 8pm, apparently.
The
life of a football manager is undoubtedly a busy one, and Phil
Parkinson has probably found that out in the last day or so. Last
night he attended the Port Vale v Cardiff City game (Vale being
Colchester United's next opponents) and this afternoon he took
charge of a reserve side that beat Brighton & Hove Albion 3-1.
Somewhere along the line, he has also given an interview stating
that he will be attempting to take some players from Reading and
has already spoken to Alan Pardew on the matter. He also said
that Reading had the best reserve side in the Avon Insurance
Combination, which doesn't fit too well with the fact that
Colchester are several places ahead of us!
Phil
Parkinson is the new Colchester United manager. This season,
Parky hasn't started a League game, although he did play in the
Worthington Cup and has made six substitute appearances. He has
however appeared regularly for the reserves and also acted as
reserve team manager on a couple of occasions. The fact that he
has played over 400 games for Reading speaks for itself, and his
two Player of the Season awards during particularly poor years
for the club emphasise the effort that he always put in to his
performances. It's quite possible that this will be the last time
ever that Reading lose a player after ten seasons as a
professional. Parkinson takes over a team dangerously close to
the Division 2 relegation zone.
Following the appointment earlier in the day of Gary Peters as manager at Exeter City, there are now six former Reading players managing in the Football League - Parkinson, Peters, Lawrie Sanchez (Wycombe Wanderers), Keith Curle (Mansfield Town), Mick Tait (caretaker-manager at Darlington) and for a short while longer Mark McGhee at Millwall. In addition, Peter Shreeve and Jimmy Quinn are the managers at Nationwide Conference clubs Barnet and Northwich Victoria, whilst Ian Porterfield manages Busan Icons in the K-League in South Korea. There are quite a few other former players managing teams at lower levels of football.
Results
from the home Academy schoolboys' games today - the Under-10s won
7-2, the Under-12s won 2-1 thanks to a tremendous late penalty
save and the Under-14s drew 0-0. It's worth keeping an eye on the
current Under-10 side - although results are not the most
important thing at that age, the fact that they win almost every
game must count for something.
With
only 13 League games left, it's time to start up the remaining
fixtures page. Click here
to see what the main promotion contenders have to face for the
remainder of the season. As in the last two years, the run-in
page uses all the colours that I don't bother to use on any other
page of the website!
Marcus
Hahnemann and Nicky Forster were both in the Nationwide Division
1 Team of the Week for the week that ended last Friday.
Reading
beat Rotherham United 3-0. Click here for
match details. We stay third in the table. After five straight
wins, Alan Pardew is certain to win the Manager of the Month
award.
Incompetent
refereeing has cost us the use of Adie Williams in the home game
against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 12th March. He received his
fifth yellow card today and so will serve a one-match ban. Of the
five yellow cards he has been shown this season, three were for
relatively minor fouls, one was for absolutely nothing (referee
conned by a player's dive) and I had no idea what the other one
was given for when it was shown. As we aren't a Premiership club,
we're probably not allowed to appeal.
On the other hand, our other players who had four yellow cards before today (Kevin Watson, Steve Sidwell, Andy Hughes and Martin Butler) will now avoid a suspension should they reach five yellow cards. This is because the penalty for a fifth yellow card is only a warning if it is received after the end of February (and of course our next match is in March).
In the
FA Premier Academy League, Reading's Under-19s drew 3-3 away to
Wimbledon whilst the Under-17s lost 2-1 at home to Arsenal.
Today's
Football Focus on BBC1 included a feature on Reading. I thought
it was a bit less condescending than their previous visits, but
Tony Gubba still seems to think that when fourth beats third it's
a shock result.
Ahmet
Rifat was a substitute for England Under-17s today away to Greece.
The game was played in the city of Drama and England won 1-0. I'm
not sure yet if Ahmet got on to the pitch. (Later news: Ahmet
played the second half.)
Russell
Lucas is in the 18-man Wales Under-17 squad for their UEFA
Championship second qualifying round games in Spain next month.
Ryan Crockford is not named in the squad - for their two recent
friendly games he was in the stand-by squad and called up later.
Reading's
reserve team drew 2-2 away to Leyton Orient this afternoon. Click
here
for basic match details.
Anthony
Rougier has joined Zamora FC on loan. This is to help the
struggling club because their entire list of decent player has to
serve a suspension soon. I assume that the loan officially begins
on Friday and will run up to Saturday, March 22nd.
Also, I've just found out that last week Alex Smith's loan at Shrewsbury Town was further extended, and now runs until Saturday, 15th March. It is now a maximum length short-term loan, and if Shrewsbury wish to keep Smith any longer, they will have to buy him outright.
History
is made in Sheffield tonight. Reading's 3-1 win over Sheffield
United is the first time that we have ever won a game in
Sheffield. The result also takes us into third place in Division
1, or 23rd place in the English pyramid of clubs, the highest in
the club's history. Click here
for match details.
Another
of our Saturday games will now be moved, because Wolverhampton
Wanderers have reached the FA Cup quarter-finals, which are
scheduled for the weekend they were due to visit Madejski Stadium.
Also Watford, our opponents on FA Cup semi-final weekend, are
still in the competition, which may force yet another alteration.
For
the first time ever, Reading come away from the New Den with
three points, after beating a very poor Millwall side 2-0. Click here for
match details. Our third win on the trot means that we move up to
fourth in the table.
In the
FA Premier Academy League, Reading's Under-19 side drew 1-1 away
to Tottenham Hotspur but the Under-17s lost 4-0 away to
Nottingham Forest.
Following
on from Wednesday's news, Luton Town are now saying that Martin
Butler has turned down a loan move to Kenilworth Road. Manager
Joe Kinnear said that Butler had also turned down Stoke City,
Preston North End and Bristol City because he was looking for a
two-year deal without taking a drop in wages.
Also, Reading have circulated clubs to say that Sammy Igoe is currently available for transfer at a small fee.
Luton
Town manager Joe Kinnear said last night that Martin Butler is
thinking over a move on loan to Kenilworth Road. Kinnear, who has
a habit of giving out more information than just about any other
manager in the country, also mentioned that he was hoping to make
the move permanent and that Butler had already turned down such a
move to Bristol City.
Sky
have decided to show Reading's home game against Nottingham
Forest live. This will be on Friday, 18th April at 7.45pm. I
reckon that three live home games in a season equals the previous
club record. Incidentally, this won't give us an advantage for
the game at Portsmouth the following Monday because their
scheduled Saturday game has also been moved forward by Sky and
will now kick off two hours before our game does.
Darren
Campbell, Russell Lucas and Ryan Crockford were all involved in
the Wales v Scotland Under-17 friendly game that took place at
Rhyl on Monday night. Crockford was on the bench but the other
two definitely started the game, which Scotland won 1-0 with a
goal in the last minute. The second game of the series was played
in Bethesda this morning (later news - Wales won 4-0, but I don't
know if any of the three Reading players took part).
A late
John Salako goal gave Reading a 2-1 win at home to Gillingham and
moved us back into fifth place. Luke Chadwick scored on his
debut, although may yet lose the goal as it took a large
deflection. Steve Sidwell becomes the latest Reading player to
fail from the penalty spot, with a very tame shot saved by the
Gillingham goalkeeper. For match details, click here.
Alan
Pardew has been handed a three-game touchline ban for comments
made to the referee over the amount of stoppage time added in the
home win against Watford on 23/11/2002. The whole affair seems to
have had no publicity, and I certainly can't remember the Watford
referee Frazer Stretton being particularly worthy of abuse (especially
considering he disallowed a perfectly good goal for the away side
and instead gave them a penalty that Marcus Hahnemann saved). For
tonight's game Pardew was in the directors box.
Under-18
centre-back Adam Theo is on trial with Queens Park Rangers this
week. This may lead to a permanent move.
With
no Reading first team game today, other results mean that we drop
one place to sixth in the League. A win on Monday will put us
back into fifth.
Reading's
Under-19 side drew 0-0 away to Charlton Athletic in the FA
Premier Academy League, but the Under-17s went down to a 3-0 home
defeat against league leaders Southampton.
(Published
Sunday, 9th February) Reading have signed Luke Chadwick on loan
from Manchester United. His appearances in their first team are
limited by the fact that he is understudy to David Beckham, but
despite this he has made 25 appearances in the Premiership and
has appeared (briefly) in a European Cup quarter-final. He has
played at Madejski Stadium before, in the 5-0 England Under-21
win over Luxembourg on 3/9/1999. It seems likely that he will go
straight into the starting line-up on the right side of midfield.
Chadwick has squad number 30 and his loan is for a month (presumably
running up to Saturday, 8th March) although both sides seem keen
to extend the duration if things work out well.
I did
say a while back that I would list all TV stations worldwide that
would be showing the Reading v Gillingham match. This was after I
had discovered a few far-flung countries that did show Nationwide
League football. Unfortunately it seems that the Monday night
kick-off has reduced the opportunity for viewing and the only
station I know of that is showing the game is Sky Sports 1. With
our next live TV appearance away to Norwich City being on a
Wednesday evening, there will hopefully be a little wider
coverage.
A bit
of a blow as it turns out that Nathan Tyson is not eligible to
play in the World Youth Cup next month, despite Alan Pardew
stating last week that he would make him available! The
tournament is for players born on or after 1/1/1983, whilst Tyson
was born on 4/5/1982, so it wasn't even a close-run thing.
Nathan
Tyson made a sensational England debut at Madejski Stadium this
evening with both the goals as the Under-20 side beat Germany 2-1.
Both goals were poweful left-foot shots across the goalkeeper,
the first in the eighth minute and the second after about an hour.
Tyson was substituted after 67 minutes, presumably due to injury
because he received treatment on the bench after going off and
was missing from the England side's warm-down lap of honour.
Tyson's achievement this evening ranks very highly amongst all Reading players. As far as I know, we have never had a player in an England Under-23 or Under-21 side. We have had two full internationals, Johnny Holt (one appearance in 1900) and Herbert Smith (four appearances in 1905 and 1906) but neither scored a goal. So tonight we saw the highest-ranked England goalscorer in club history!
Last
night's FA Cup results mean that Reading's trip to Millwall on
Saturday, 15th February is now on. Also it confirms that the two
games Ricky Newman will miss due to suspension are the trip to
his old club Millwall and the away game at Sheffield United (weather
permitting!). With regard to the Millwall game, don't forget that
it is a 1pm kick-off and that all tickets must be bought in
advance by either season ticket holders or Supporters Trust
members.
Two
late-ish goals gave Reading's reserves a 2-0 win away to
Portsmouth this evening. Click here for
match details. Phil Parkinson took charge of the side, with
normal reserve team manager Brian McDermott on scouting duty at
Millwall. Perhaps it's coincidence but Parkinson also confirmed
today that he is in the running for the vacant management job at
Colchester United.
England
Under-20 manager Les Reed has confirmed that all players in his
squad for the game against Germany on Thursday at Madejski
Stadium will definitely get on the pitch at some stage.
Obviously, this includes Nathan Tyson, currently training with
England at Bisham Abbey.
England
Under-18s drew 0-0 with Nigeria yesterday in their final game of
the UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup and so finished fourth in the
tournament. It's likely that Jamie Young played in the game, but
I've yet to find out the line-up. (Later news added 3rd February
- Jamie did play the whole of the game against Nigeria.) For full
details of the tournament, go to the current internationals
page.
No
weather problems in Lancashire as Reading beat Burnley 5-2 -
click here
for match details. This is enough to put us back in a play-off
position, in fifth place. Steve Sidwell scored his first goals
for the club.
The
big showdown between Alex Smith and Adrian Whitbread, on loan at
Shrewsbury Town and Exeter City respectively, ended in a 1-1 draw
with both Reading players completing the 90 minutes. The
Shrewsbury goal came from a penalty after Whitbread handled the
ball, whilst Smith was booked for dissent. Meanwhile Alex Stanley
played what should be the last game of his loan spell (or
technically work experience, I believe) for Aylesbury United, as
they won 1-0 away to Altrincham in the fourth round of the FA
Trophy.
There
were no games in the FA Premier Academy league for our teams
today, because this weekend was set aside for "In-Service
Training".
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