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2000/01 Reports

Reading goals: Butler, Igoe (2), Hodges, McIntyre
Gamebreaker: Reading's third goal
Attendance: 7,768

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

Ah, at last. Not only a superb result but also a performance worthy of the players that we have at Reading. Oldham weren't much cop (although significantly better than Brentford the previous Saturday), but Reading still deserve the credit for an excellent performance. Oddly enough, the one area where we failed to perform to standard was finishing!

Pardew named exactly the same line-up and subs as on Saturday, a rare event in itself, and the formation was also identical. Before the game had really even settled down we were two up! I've been trying to remember any other game where we scored two goals so early on, and I've failed to come up with one.

Lee Hodges even had a shot go just past the post before the opening goal. The first goal came after a Sammy Igoe cross from the right was knocked down and swept home by Martin Butler. Jamie Cureton was right in the danger area but with the possible exception of Cureton himself and some misguided souls who had wrongly predicted the first goalscorer, everyone was happy that Butler got on the end of this one.

A minute later we got a throw-in on the right. Ricky Newman threw it to Butler who tapped it on to Igoe. Sammy took it inside and then fired a beautiful right-foot shot over the keeper's head which dipped down under the bar. This meant we had to stop the rather tuneless Martin Butler Tom Hark song and switch to "Ooooooh, Sammy Igoe" instead. Added to the East Stand repertoire was "What a waste of petrol!", aimed at the Oldham fans.

Reading continued to attack and Phil Parkinson shot over from a long way out, but Oldham also made some chances. Gradually they began to get more into the game but still only forced Phil Whitehead into one decent save. There were a couple of other shots from Oldham that went only just wide, though. Oldham were playing three at the back now -whether this is their normal tactics or just a shuffle following the two early goals I don't know. However, it's looking as if our formation works well against 3-5-2.

Meanwhile, Reading were getting down the other end but not keeping the ball for any length of time. We had a free-kick on the edge of the area, which Darren Caskey took and was just saved by the keeper. A second Caskey free-kick from further out was a few yards over. Hodges had a 20-yard shot that hit the back stanchion but on the outside of the goal.

Yet again, though, as half-time approached we seemed to step up a gear. I'm getting more and more convinced that this is because the players start to worry about getting a tongue-lashing during the interval. This time we created our best move of the whole match to score a third goal. Lee Hodges had the ball on the left-hand side with Butler outside him. Butler made a diagonal run to get behind the defence and Hodges slotted the ball through the gap to him. Butler took the ball to the byline and then pulled it back for Jamie Cureton. Guaranteed goal, we all thought, but Cureton hit it straight at a defender on the line. Fortunately Igoe was also lurking and reacted quickest to prod the ball home.

Ige had a shot soon after, looking for his hat-trick, but it went over the bar. It was 3-0 at half-time and the game was essentially over.

At half-time we brought on Jim McIntyre for Butler. Butler had had treatment in the first half and been limping on occasions, so this was almost certainly the reason for the change. At the same time, Oldham brought on their subsititute keeper - the starting keeper might have been blamed for our second goal, but otherwise didn't seem to have done too much wrong.

In any event, the new keeper's first task was to pick the ball out of the net after a goal very similar to our second! A Reading cross was headed away by the defence but only as far as Lee Hodges, 25 yards from goal. He volleyed it back over the keeper (slightly off his line) and into the net. One of the best goals we've seen at the MadStad, and yet another occasion where having a player loitering around the edge of the area brings its rewards.

Not too surprisingly we didn't see much more of Oldham in the game. Reading continued to press and there's no way I can remember every chance and in the right order. Probably the best chance while it was still 4-0 was when Caskey headed the ball after a McIntyre cross. Caskey had got into the area unmarked but the keeper made a good save to tip it over the bar.

Also Cureton had a shot deflected and then one saved, Ricky Newman had a long shot following a well-worked corner that went just wide, Igoe fired in a volley that was just tipped over. To prove that it was not to be Cureton's night, he then got into a one-on-one with the keeper. He tried to lift the ball over the keeper, but the keeper just got a touch to send it over.

With 20 minutes to go, there was a bit of a surprise. Jamie Ashdown finally got his first team debut. I'm not sure if this was simply for experience but Whitehead had looked like he took a slight knock a little earlier. Ashdown stopped everything that Oldham fired at him, but didn't seem to catch the ball cleanly on most occasions. Being out there will have been good for him, though, especially if we suddenly find out that Whitehead is seriously injured and we need Jamie on Saturday.

After one Ashdown save, we broke down the right with Cureton. He crossed it in for McIntyre. It seemed that McIntyre's first touch didn't work but the ball fell nicely, allowing him to turn and shoot for the fifth goal.

There was time for Cureton to force yet another save from the Oldham keeper, and also for Oldham to miss a clear chance. Their player had the ball in the area in space but to the side of the goal. Ashdown came rushing out to narrow the angle and the shot went just wide.

So the game ended 5-0. The players took an extended and richly deserved curtain call in front of the East Stand. Apart from a period halfway through the first half, we had dominated the game, playing some good football, and created a lot of chances. Most of the songs from the crowd were about the team going up, and Kingsley Royal finally managed to display his new T-shirt properly so that we could all see that it said, "We Are Going UP!".

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