1871 - the ultimate Reading FC website

2000/01 Reports

Reading goals: Butler, Caskey (pen), Cureton
Gamebreaker: Late Reading equaliser
Attendance: 10,688

Reading line-up: Whitehead, Gurney (Hodges), Robinson, Parkinson, Viveash, Hunter, Newman (Igoe), Caskey, Butler, Cureton, Rougier (McIntyre)
Subs not used: Ashdown, Mackie

At the start of the season, you'd have put this down as one of the big matches for the division this year. Personally, I had expected these two teams to take the two automatic promotion places come May. So all in all you have to say that the quality of football shown in this match was absolutely appalling. In keeping with the importance of the fixture, the Football League had managed to drag out their absolute worst officiating team. Some of the decisions (particularly those where no action was taken) were quite astounding, and we can only hope that all three of them met with some accident after the game ensuring that no other sets of fans ever have to put up with them.

After Saturday's showing, Pardew rang the changes. Well, he replaced Hodges with Cureton, anyway. I imagine Murty would have started in place of Gurney were it not for the fact that he has managed to get injured again. Rougier played on the wing from the start of the game, and was less effective than in his first few games for the club. I think this was more down to the tackling he received from the Stoke players. He was always quickly surrounded by three defenders every time he got the ball (which is fair enough), and normally fouled (which isn't). Although these fouls were obviously premeditated the referee saw fit not to book anyone for them until the second half.

Reading actually started quite brightly. We almost took the lead from a Darren Caskey free-kick, although not in the normal style. The foul was on the wrong side of the goal and quite a long way out. Caskey took it with his left foot and din't hit it particularly hard, but every player either missed or left it, until at the last moment the keeper put the ball out for a corner. The idea had obviously been for one of our players to head it in, though. We wasted the corner, another recurring feature of the match.

Stoke gradually took control of the game, picking up all of the loose balls, and quite easily regaining it every time we used our hit-and-hope tactics (or should that be tactic). Their midfield and attacking players were always closing us down at all times, meaning that we also quite often ended up putting the ball out of play whilst under pressure. It looked like Reading were hoping to hit Stoke on the break, but for that to happen we have to actually win the ball when they've got it, and that wasn't happening. Instead Stoke caught us on the break for two goals midway through the first half.

For the first, Newman passed the ball to Robinson in midfield. It wasn't a great pass but Robinson should still have got it. Instead he seemed to turn the wrong way allowing a Stoke player to nick the ball and head for goal. Although one of our defenders managed to get back, the ball ended up in the net after a cross. I thought that the Stoke player got on the end of it (although I know from later that it was a Barry Hunter own goal).

The second goal showed that we had learnt nothing. We lost the ball in the centre of the pitch and Stoke found themselves with a three-on-one break. They took the ball down the left channel and crossed for an unmarked player to head home at the far post. Not one of our midfielders had managed to get anywhere near the goal, whilst at least six Stoke attackers were bearing down by the time the ball hit the net.

Soon after that, they should have had a third. Yet again, we lost the ball on the halfway line and were on the wrong end of a three-on-one break. This time the Stoke players took too long sorting out what to do and Robinson, chasing back well, just managed to toe the ball away from a player as he prepared to score.

In all this time, Reading had had only two more chances. A Caskey free-kick from a long way out went wide, and Butler took too long to get a shot in and found it blocked by the time he did. Fortunately, Stoke had decided to sit on their lead and this let us back into the game. We had more of the possession and a few scrambled attacks. Easily our best chance came following a set-piece when the ball fell to Caskey on the edge of the area. He took aim and fired a low shot through a crowd of players. It went through them all, but unfortunately hit the post. The rebound fell straight to a Stoke defender on the six-yard box who smashed the ball as hard as he could towards the centre of the goal. Well, that's what it looked like to me - I have no idea what he was really trying to do. He was lucky - the ball was right at the keeper who knocked it over for a corner (which we wasted).

Just before half-time we got a free-kick in a deep position. The ball came high into the Stoke area, and after a touch or two endd up at Martin Butler's feet. He hammered it home. The tannoy announcer stated that Jamie Cureton had scored - am I the only one who thinks that it's quite poor that our own P.A. can't recognise our players? I mean, it's not as if they look similar, or anything.

It was half-time soon after, which was a shame because it would have been nice to build on the momentum that goal should have give us. Still, all was forgotten as the footballshirts.com model, Natalie, displayed the new kit around the side of the pitch. After the expected request from the less morally upright members of the East Stand she lifted the shirt briefly to reveal ... that she was wearing a bra.

You might have thought that the team would come out at the start of the second half really fired up, but it was nothing like that at all. Instead the game just settled down into a pattern where neither team looked like scoring. Our most dangerous attack was when Rougier was released down the left wing and a Stoke player just hacked him to the ground. At least the culprit got booked for that one ("and I would like 13 other offences to be taken into account, m'lud"). Pardew tried to shake things up a bit by replacing Gurney with Hodges, with Newman dropping to right-back. If this made a difference in midfield or upfront then I didn't see it, but I certainly felt more comfortable with Newman at right-back.

We then lost Rougier. The final incident looked pretty innocuous, compared to what had gone before, but he was badly enough injured for the stretcher to be called. At this point, the motorised buggy decides to break down and so Rougier hobbles off the pitch, no doubt doing further damage to whatever part of him is injured. And we wonder why we have so many players out? McIntyre replaced him, and went upfront. At times McIntyre played in the middle with Butler out wide left, and at times they swapped around. None of the formations seemed to be any good, though.

Just when we had begun to resign ourselves to a 2-1 defeat, Stoke got a third. They played a long ball over the top of our defence which Hunter and Whitehead should have been easily able to cope with. Instead Hunter heads it over Whitehead and it hits the post (Whitehead may have got a touch - I couldn't tell from my angle). One Stoke attacker who had been harrying Hunter chased after the ball and tapped it home. If Hunter had chased it with as much vigour he might have been able to get a block in, but of course he had just stood there blaming Whitehead.

The Stoke fans started singing, "You might as well go home" but compared to the exodus you might have expected, not too many Reading fans were leaving early. Which was just as well, given the end to the match.

Stoke tried a couple of shots from free-kicks but didn't trouble the keeper, which was probably just as well. Whitehead compounded his goalkeeping errors by kicking appallingly. He hooked three in a row out on the left touchline - and if you remember kicking ability is meant to be one of his strengths. On this performance it's worse than Howie's.

We did keep pumping the ball into the Stoke area without looking too dangerous. However, one one occasion, we got lucky. As the ball came in from the right, Cureton went flying after a push and the referee awarded a penalty. It was the right decision but I think Cureton was rather looking for it. Caskey stepped up and made no mistake from the spot. Now we could expect a grandstand finish.

Almost immediately after the kick-off, a Stoke player smashed Newman in the head and Newman stayed down (presumably having fallen awkwardly or onto the Stoke player's boot). It was a clear sending-off offence but needless to say neither referee nor linesman had seen it. The ref had an excuse - it was off-the-ball and he can't be expected to see everything. The linesman was looking straight at the incident however, and probably just bottled out of making the decision. To be fair, I must mention that this was just the latest action in a feud that had continued since Newman had moved to right-back, and had the officials been more alert then both players would already have been at least booked for those incidents.

Newman was stretchered off (manually - buggy still broken) and Igoe replaced him. Stoke took off the player involved in the incident just in case the referee decided to punish him for something else later on (referees deny that they do this, but if they know they've missed something, they sometimes try to make up for it with subsequent decisions). Play was stopped for over four minutes to deal with Newman's injury, and I was concerned that the ref would not allow for this in his calculation in stoppage time. Fortunately, that was one decision he did get right, as there were seven extra minutes displayed on the board.

And we only needed two of them to get the equaliser! From a free-kick, Cureton got his head onto the ball and nodded it in. That's 3-3 and Cureton goes absolutely mental. A small group of Reading players form a pile near the corner flag. Now, hang on a minute. We're still only drawing at home - that's not worth those sort of celebrations. And there were still five minutes left to get a winner.

We only really had one decent chance to do so, though. Cureton took the ball down the left, cut inside and shot high and wide whilst we had two players unmarked at the far post for just about the first time all evening. Whitehead also had to make one save, diving low to his right to smother a shot.

So the game ends 3-3. We didn't deserve a point and if Stoke hadn't eased off, this could have ended up at 5-1 or something worse. Very few of the Reading team come out of the game with any credit at all. The defence were hopeless, the midfield were non-existent and even the forwards didn't do much (although obviously if Butler and Cureton keep scoring then that's not such a big concern). There was no teamwork in evidence at all, and the really worrying thing is that the only way I can see things changing is when Adie Williams and Keith Jones return from injury.

Home . First Team Index

News . Opposition . Reserves . Academy . Where Are They Now? . Columns . Kingsley . MadStad . Interactive . Links . Site Map