| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 2nd September (3pm) | Port Vale | Away | Won 1-0 |
Reading goal: Cureton
Gamebreaker: Bringing on Gurney and Gamble 10 minutes from the
end to firm up the midfield
Attendance: 4,701
Reading line-up: Whitehead,
Newman, Robinson, Parkinson, Viveash, Hunter, Igoe (Gurney),
Caskey (Gamble), Butler, Cureton (McIntyre), Hodges
Subs not used: Ashdown, Mackie
This match belonged to Sammy Igoe. Rejoicing in the new nickname of "Ratboy" and a new pronounciation of his surname ("call him Eee-go because his head's bigger than his body"), Sammy proceed to run rings around what passed for a Port Vale defence at the start of this match, and set up the victory. It's not often that a player's performance stands out so much in a single game.
Alan Pardew had made some changes to the line-up for this game - Andy Gurney was dropped to the bench with Ricky Newman switching to right-back and Lee Hodges taking over Newman's central midfield role. Darren Caskey switched to wide left midfield in place of the injured Tony Rougier, allowing Sammy Igoe to play wide right.
In the opening exchanges Reading were always looking to attack and we scored after five minutes. Darren Caskey picked up the ball and played a 70-yard pass across the full width of the pitch to Igoe. Igoe took the ball forward, went round the left-back like he wasn't there (wingplay!), took the ball to the byline (yes, the byline!) and crossed. Jamie Cureton ran towards the near post to mett the ball and headed it goalwards. It looked like the keeper ought to be able to save it, but the ball just went in under the bar.
Within the next ten minutes, we could have had another three fairly similar goals. Another lofted Igoe cross found the head of Phil Parkinson and this time the keeper made a really good save (we wasted the resulting corner, though). The next Igoe cross was along the ground, and although it looked like Butler could just knock the ball home, a defender managed to toe-end it away first. Finally, a cross from the right eluded everyone when it looked like one of our players must get on the end of it.
After this good start in the opening 15 minutes, that was pretty much the end of Reading as an attacking threat. For the next 70 minutes or so of the game, the pattern went like this:
Reading have the ball, Reading lose the ball, Port Vale build an attack, the attack ends either with Port Vale losing the ball or it going out for a goal-kick, Reading have the ball, Reading lose the ball, Port Vale build an attack, .....
We were perhaps fortunate that Port Vale have only two attackers in their squad, and neither of them are particularly good. (Of course, they used to have this pretty good left winger....) Despite all the pressure they had, they really only threatened our goal once, which was in the first half. Reading lost the ball in midfield, Port Vale picked it up and went forward. Their player got to the edge of the area, cut inside and put in a curling, dipping shot that Phil Whitehead did really well to tip over the bar, just as it was about to drop in the net.
In the second half, Rading were really pretty ragged in midfield. Every time we got the ball (instead of trying to construct a decent passing move that helped run out the clock) we tried a hopeful ball towards one of the forwards, which they were usually unable to pick up. Port Vale constructed moves well, but they often broke down before they got into the area, allowing the whole cycle to begin again. I don't remember either keeper having to make a save, and I don't remember us having any shots at all until the end.
We were also trying to slow the game down and break it up. We made three second-half substitutions - the first was to replace Cureton with McIntyre. Presumably the idea was that McIntyre would be more easily able to win the aerial balls that we were always playing forwards. I don't think it made a great deal of difference although he did at least get a shot in towards the end of the game, which went wide.
The other substitutions were to bring on Gurney and Gamble to play in midfield in place of Caskey and Igoe. This really did have an effect - once both of them were on the pitch (so only for the last ten minutes or so) we managed to keep hold of the ball much better and reduce the amount of defending needed. Gamble in particular lived up to his billing - he was taking the ball forward in exactly the same way that Sean Evers was supposed to do.
The fourth official signalled four extra minutes at the end of the game. Many fans were annoyed by this, given that neither trainer had been on the pitch, but there were five substitutions in total so if the referee allows 30 seconds for each of those plus some allowance for our timewasting, it's not unreasonable. In any event, Port Vale had ceased to be much of a threat and we held on comfortably for the win.
I guess the defence must have played well in this game - they held out under a lot of pressure and I don't recall any of the serious lapses in concentration that have cost us dear in previous matches. I can't pick out any of them and say that they played well individually but I think they worked together as a unit for the 90 minutes, which is good.
At the end of the game, the difference between the sides was that we had a predator who took the only chance that he got.
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