| Name | Base |
| Howard Webb | Rotherham |
Reading games he has refereed:
| Date | Result | Comments |
| 4/11/2000 | Walsall 2 Reading 1 | Disallowed a good Reading goal, failed to award us a clear penalty |
| 5/10/2002 | Grimsby Town 0 Reading 3 | Useless again |
| 14/5/2003 | Reading 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 | Hopelessly inconsistent, with a bias towards big name players on the away side |
| 27/9/2003 | Sunderland 2 Reading 0 | Still inept, but not to blame for the result |
Other comments:
On the basis of "anger created for Reading fans per match in charge", Howard Webb must have the highest rating of all referees with the possible exception of Clive Wilkes. The Reading-Walsall clash in November 2000 saw the Division 2 leaders take on the team in second place, and incredibly the Football League chose to award this match to a 29-year-old who had only previously refereed eight League games, seven of which were in Division 3. It was clear from fairly early on that he lacked anything like the composure to take control of such a match.
I don't think that he was biased against Reading, but unfortunately the key decisions that he got wrong were against us. When the score was 0-0 he disallowed a goal for a foul that only he had seen, whilst later when we were 1-0 down he failed to award an absolutely clear-cut penalty for a foul on Anthony Rougier. In fact that tackle left Rougier injured for the remainder of the season (although he did continue to play and only had an operation eight months later).
In 2003 he was awarded the home leg of our play-off semi-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers, much to the disappointment of Reading fans. He showed definite improvement since the game two seasons before (as you would hope), but handled the game poorly.
Promoted to the full-time list for 2003/04 - either a case of mistaken identity or the state of refereeing in this country has hit an all-time low. At least it means that there is much less chance of him being given a Reading game for that season.
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