| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 19th August (3pm) | Swindon Town | Home | Won 2-0 |
Reading goals: Butler, Caskey
Gamebreaker: Difficult to judge, but somewhere around 10 minutes
from time when Swindon stopped pressing
Attendance: 14,134
Reading line-up: Whitehead,
Gurney, Robinson, Parkinson, Viveash, Hunter, Newman, Caskey (Henderson),
Butler (Igoe), Rougier, Hodges
Subs not used: Ashdown, Mackie, Evers
Comfortable home win over local rivals, sir? Yes thankyou, that will do very nicely.
The game started with a minute's silence for Maurice Evans, who died the day before. I didn't even hear the announcement before it started because there was so much noise in the area I sit in. The period of silence itself was almost observed by the away fans, but there are always a few idiots.
The team line-up saw the home debut of Tony Rougier, played up front alongside the returning Martin Butler. Andy Gurney also returned allowing Ricky Newman to move to centre midfield. On the bench, there was a surprise as Jamie Ashdown was named instead of Scott Howie.
The games started just like local derbies should, fast and furious with a great atmosphere in the stands. I thought that Swindon settled first and looked quite dangerous in some of their initial attacks. On one of these they got the ball in the net, but the linesman had flagged for offside. About 90 seconds later, their fans realised this. Quicker on the uptake than usual, then....
Reading then eased into the game and started creating good chances. Rougier was looking exceptionally dangerous but his shooting let him down twice. Firstly he pulled the ball well wide after making a good run from the right. Then after showing superb skill to make himself space in the area, he volleyed just over with his left foot.
Swindon forced a good save from Whitehead, who pushed the ball over the bar for a corner, but the corner came to nothing and led to a Reading break. Let's pause for refelction for a second. How many times last season did we break dangerously from defence? How many goals came from those breaks? I think the answers are "very few" and "none". This season we've already shown in the friendlies that this is an element we've added to the game, and at this point in the first home match, Rougier showed that he will help us enormously in this respect.
Back to the game. Swindon's corner went to the near post where Butler cleared it. The ball fell for Rougier who raced downfield. Two defenders closed on him, but he kept away from them until just outside the penalty area. He could have gone on and looked for a shot himself but Butler had also kept running and was unmarked to his left. Rougier played a perfect ball across the defenders and Butler knocked it past the keeper and just inside the post for the opening goal. Butler headed straight for the East Stand to celebrate. The fact that he was involved at the beginning and end of the move shows that, like all predators, when he senses a goal he can find that extra turn of pace.
This settled Reading and we began to control the game, with only occasional Swindon attacks. Our best chance came from a free-kick on the left. The Swindon defender kicked the ball away after committing the foul, and got booked for doing so. Interestingly, the referee also interpreted this as dissent and so moved the free kick forward ten yards and into the area. The angle was too narrow for a shot, so Lee Hodges touched it to Darren Caskey. Caskey shaped as if to shoot but instead skipped past the onrushing defender. This left Caskey in acres of space and he fired a low shot towards the bottom corner. The keeper was rooted to the spot but instead of finding the net, the ball hit a Swindon-born defender and was cleared. Unfortunately the defender concerned was Reading's Adi Viveash.
Every time that Swindon did get forward they were called up for offside which allowed Reading to continue mounting attacks. Butler's movement didn't quite seem up to the standards of last season but he was still far too mobile for the Swindon players. They resorted to fouling him frequently. On one occasion this was with a truly awful studs-up challenge which led to a booking but might well have been a sending-off. Butler got up gingerly but looked OK. That free-kick came to nothing but two minutes later Butler was down again. This time it was after a challenge by the keeper as they both chased a through-ball. Butler got caught on the shin, stayed down and Hodges headed the ball out so he could get treatment.
While the ref was over with Butler and our physio, Swindon decided to take the throw! Ricky Newman was having none of that and put in a ferocious sliding tackle on the guy with the ball. This was followed by some pushing and shoving before the players stopped. I don't think the ref saw any of this and the linesman a few yards away didn't bother to tell him!
When the game did start again properly, Butler was still off the pitch getting treatment with all Reading fans casting anxious glances in his direction. However, he returned to the action and looked OK. Swindon turned their attentions to Rougier instead, and consistently fouled him every time he had the ball (well, every time that they could get near him!). From one of our many free-kicks, Hunter met the cross with his head and hit the post. It really was all Reading at this stage.
However, in the last minute of the half, Swindon came close to an equaliser. From a break, they got a shot in from a tight angle, and Whitehead parried it over the bar. Our inability to turn attacks into goals had nearly cost us.
At the start of the second half, Swindon again came close to an equaliser. This time Whitehead caught a shot right on the line - his feet landed behind the line but he held the ball away from his body. From this we attacked immediately. Rougier took the ball down the left, avoided several defenders and still got a good cross over. The ball came to Caskey who picked up from last season by shooting home off the keeper. 2-0 but the game still doesn't feel safe.
You might have thought that out of every club in England, we would be the most conscious of the dangers of sitting on a 2-0 lead, but that's what we did yet again. This is why we've failed to score more than two goals at home in the League since January 1999, and it will find us out again this year unless we change now. In this game, we sat back and allowed Swindon to dominate possession. Fortunately they were still constantly offside and not particularly dangerous at any time, but they still had the ball. We seemed to give the ball away every time that we got it, with only Rougier ever hanging onto it for any length of time.
Butler was obviously tired and was substituted. He got wild applause as he left the pitch. He was replaced by Igoe, with Caskey going upfront. This failed to work at all - Caskey's lack of pace at this stage of the season meant that he could never close down the defenders, and often couldn't get to our own hurried clearances. Not so long afterwards, Caskey was replaced by Henderson, which didn't seem to change things much. In fact, I don't think Henderson touched the ball more than once in his five minutes or so on the pitch.
We did get the ball in the net once - Hodges crossed the ball from the left wing tpwards Rougier in the centre. Rougier shoved a defender in the direction of the ball. It was a damned good push as the ball went off the defender and into the goal. Not surprisingly the referee disallowed it.
Anyway, our own deficiencies really didn't matter against such limited opponents and I don't think there were any occasions when Swindon really threatened. As the match neared the end, they seemed to give up trying and it looked as though both sides were just trying to play out time. In the last few minutes, we really were just going through the motions, even holding the ball near the corner-flag.
Swindon had one last chance with a free-kick just outside the area but they put it well over the bar. Super Darren Caskey it was not! Reading forced one last save from the Swindon keeper from, of all things, a Sammy Igoe header.
Rougier showed some great skill with a backheel and when the final whistle went, it was his name we were singing. The players got a great send-off and we can now look forward to the rest of the season a bit more easily.
So it only remains for me to scream the following wildly:
MELINDA MESSENGER, DIANA DORS, JULIAN WILSON,
HONDA CIVIC, BILLIE PIPER, A LOAD OF SHEEP, JULIAN CLARY.
DIANA DORS, CAN YOU HEAR ME? YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING.
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