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Archived News - May 2003

Friday, 30th May

Marcus Hahnemann has been named in the United States of America squad for the forthcoming FIFA Confederations Cup in France. Marcus has previously made three international appearances, but those were all in 1994 and this is his first appearance in their squad for a long time. The other two goalkeepers are Tim Howard from the New York / New Jersey Metrostars and the uncapped Joe Cannon who plays for Lens so Marcus must be in with a good chance of getting into the side. We might better know how likely this is next weekend when USA play a friendly against New Zealand.

The tournament starts on 18th June, with the squad in training camp by tomorrow, so this does mean that there is practically no summer break for our keeper. Full details of USA fixtures are now on the international dates page.

Wednesday, 28th May

Following a spell at a training camp, Steve Sidwell has made the squad for the two forthcoming England Under-21 matches. The games are a friendly at Hull next Monday and a UEFA Under-21 Championship qualifier at Sunderland on Tuesday, 10th June. This is the first time that an England Under-21 squad has contained a Reading player.

Tuesday, 27th May

Adie Williams gained his 13th cap for Wales as they lost 2-0 in a friendly away to the United States of America. Adie played the whole game.

Season tickets go on sale today, for those who did not take up the offer to renew at the end of last season. Prices are the same as last season, and existing season ticket holders have until Sunday, 28th June to reclaim their seats before they go on general sale. Reading have said that 6,500 season tickets were renewed before today, which I think means about 1,500 who did not.

Friday, 23rd May

Reading have this week made some announcements about the squad for next season. Of the players out-of-contract, new one-year deals have been offered to Jamie Cureton, Ricky Newman and Adi Viveash. In the case of Viveash, he would be kept on partly to coach our young up-and-coming centre-backs. Other players whose contracts expire on 30th June will be released - this means Sammy Igoe, Anthony Rougier, Alex Smith, Phil Whitehead and Steve Warren. Technically, all these will remain Reading players until the contract expiry date. The other player who had a playing contract running up to this summer was Adrian Whitbread but he had announced his retirement through injury earlier in the season and may yet remain at the club in a coaching capacity.

Also, James Harper and Andy Hughes have been offered extensions to their current contracts (which expire in two years and one year, respectively). Alan Pardew has told John Mackie that his first team chances are sufficiently limited that he should look for another club, although Mackie does have one year left at Reading and could choose to stay. And finally, Joe Gamble has arranged to spend three months on loan at Barnet in the Nationwide Conference at the start of next season, with a view to a season-long loan.

Friday, 16th May

Wales have named a revised 20-man squad for their friendly match against the USA later this month. Adie Williams is one of those who has made the cut from the 29 names initially listed. As the game is on Monday week, this is of course extremely disappointing.....

Thursday, 15th May

Steve Sidwell has been called into an England Under-21 training squad next week. There are two games coming up - a friendly at home to Serbia & Montenegor at Hull on Monday, 2nd June, and a European Championship qualifier at home to Slovakia at Sunderland the following Tuesday. Sidwell has previously played for England Under-20 but this is his first call-up at this level and he'll obviously hope to get named in the squads for one or both games. I can't help thinking, though, that if we'd signed him from Leyton Orient and Nicky Shorey from Arsenal that it would be Shorey in the squad instead.

Wednesday, 14th May

The Premiership dream is over for another season as Reading lose 1-0 at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers to go out of the play-offs on an aggregate score of 3-1. The game was watched by a new stadium record crowd of 24,060. Click here for match details. Despite dominating this game, and most of the first leg, we did not have a cutting edge in front of goal in the last two hours of the tie once Nicky Forster was injured. So essentially, it was the lack of depth in our squad in one key position that has let us down.

A couple of side-effects of the result are that Nathan Tyson will now be suspended for the first two games of next season, whilst we will play West Ham United in the League for the first time ever.

Tuesday, 13th May

Glen Little is available again for the home match with Wolves tomorrow after recovering from flu, but Nicky Forster is definitely out with damaged ankle ligaments after a Wolves player landed on his ankle during a challenge on Saturday.

The Football League have clarified the rules about suspensions in the play-offs - what I had previously stated about two yellow cards in the semi-finals leading to a ban in the final was wrong, and so it is not possible for any Reading player to pick up a suspension for the final due to yellow cards. However, suspensions for red cards really do take effect immediately and so as stated on Sunday Nathan Tyson is suspended for both tomorrow night's game and our next two matches. Any player sent off tomorrow would miss the final, and any ban for a red card that is unserved at the end of this season will carry over the the start of next.

Sunday, 11th May

Just to clear something up - when a player receives a red card in a play-off game, the suspension starts immediately. Nathan Tyson's red card from yesterday will give him a three-game ban which means that he will miss the rest of this season. Also, red card suspensions carry over to the next season, so he will also still be suspended at the start of our next campaign.

Saturday, 10th May

Today saw Reading's first ever defeat in a play-off semi-final game as this evening's trip to Wolverhampton ended with a 2-1 win for the home side. A Nicky Forster goal had given us a half-time lead but we conceded two late goals, and then had Nathan Tyson sent off. Click here for match details. Obviously this means that we need a win in the sell-out second leg on Wednesday. This tie is by no means over and history is on our side - in their three previous Division 1 play-off semi-finals Wolves have won their home game by one goal but have never reached the final.

Friday, 9th May

Bournemouth have today announced a pre-season friendly at home to Reading in July.

Wednesday, 7th May

Radio 5 Live have a special play-off preview programme tomorrow - I assume it's the programme between 7pm and 10pm, although not completely certain about that. Among the guests is Reading chairman John Madejski.

The reserves lost 2-1 away to Cardiff City this afternoon - click here for match details. This means that we will finish fifth in the Combination league.

Tuesday, 6th May

Dates have now been released for all cup rounds for next season. You can find any that could conceivably apply to Reading on the results page. One change is that the play-off finals will be in the opposite order to normal so that players needed for Euro 2004 (who would obviously be more likely to play for Division 1 clubs) can be released to their national squads a couple of days earlier.

Sunday, 4th May

In our last league game of what I suppose we have to call the "regular" season (although if anyone has a better term, please let me know), Reading lose 1-0 away to Stoke City. Click here for match details. This means that we finish fourth in the table, and will play fifth-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers in the play-off semi-final. Our League finish equals the best in the club's history if you allow for the fact that there are two less teams in the Premiership now than there were when we finished second in Division 1 in 1994/95.

Now that the league programme is complete, it turns out that our opening day capitulation at Derby County was the Division 1 game with the highest crowd this season. 33,016 watched our 3-0 defeat.

Friday, 2nd May

Wales have named a provisional 29-man squad for the friendly away to the United States of America on 26th May. They have included Adie Williams, although obviously we'll be looking for him to pull out as the game is on the same day as the play-off final.

Thursday, 1st May (published Friday, 2nd May)

The reserve team beat champions Crystal Palace 3-0 this afternoon in the Avon Insurance Combination league. Click here for match details. We are currently third in the table with one game remaining - a trip to Cardiff City next Wednesday.

We've now learnt another benefit of finishing in the top four - both Sheffield United and Reading now know the dates and times of their play-off games. Reading will play the away leg at 5.35pm on Saturday, 10th May and the home leg at 7.45pm on Wednesday, 14th May. Details of ticket arrangements and other play-off news can be found on The Play-off Page.

FOR NEWS FROM APRIL 2003, CLICK HERE

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