| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 4th November (3pm) | Walsall | Away | Lost 1-2 |
Reading goal: McIntyre
Gamebreaker: Walsall's second goal
Attendance: 7,772
Reading line-up: Whitehead,
Newman, Gurney (McIntyre), Parkinson, Viveash, Mackie, Jones (N
Smith), Caskey, Butler, Rougier, Hodges (Cureton)
Subs not used: Howie, Murty
I was hoping to begin this report with something like "the fireworks were one day early at the Bescot Stadium" but instead I'm afraid we have to discuss "treason and plot", as an incompetent official managed to get a series of crucial decisions wrong, all benefiting the home team. (To digress for a moment, you may be aware that Sunday night sees the final of the Royal Institute of British Architects awards - there are seven buildings shortlisted for the honour. Of those seven, there is only one building in Britain outside London, and there have been loud complaints that the panel is too London-centric. The thing is that the one building is the Walsall Art Gallery, and I have been wondering how the panel managed to choose it. Well, after seeing Saturday's game, it's obvious - someone in Walsall has perfected the art of the bung!)
Actually, as far as the football goes, I'm being pretty unfair to Walsall here. I don't think the referee was biased towards them at all - I just think he was unable to cope with the pressure of handling a top of the table clash in front of nearly 8,000 fans (yes, what a big crowd!). The real criminals are those who put him in charge for this game.
Reading's line-up showed a slightly odd change from the Oxford match. Jamie Cureton had dropped to the bench, to be replaced by Tony Rougier. I'm most definitely not in favour of Cureton sitting on the bench at the start of away games, but when it's Rougier coming in to replace him it is a bit more understandable. Or at least it would have been had Rougier been 100% fit. Neil Smith also came into the squad, taking a place on the bench.
The opening moments of the game were fairly fast and furious with neither side showing obvious quality. However Reading settled first and started to look more threatening. The Walsall keeper had to deal with a long-range shot and another one went wide, whilst the home team produced nothing much at all. Then a long ball from midfield found Martin Butler's head. The goalkeeper had come out and tried to claim it, but got nowhere near, so when the ball fell to Keith Jones's feet all he had to do was pass it into an empty net from 25 yards out. This was where the refere started to make a name for himself - this was the first time in the game that Butler had won a header so he blew up for a free-kick to Walsall. A truly awful decision.
Not too much later in the game, Walsall had an attack that led to a corner which brought the referee down to the end filled by the Reading fans. He understandably had to listen to shouts of "Cheat" and "You're not fit to referee" from the Reading fans, but what was amazing was his reaction. You could see the colour drain from his face, and he looked positively nervous. For the rest of the game, whenever I looked at him, it seemed that he was almost shaking. How can someone with such a temperament look to become a Football League referee. And bear in mind that this wasn't even a situation where he was threatened with violence.
Anyway, back to the game, and I don't remember what came of the corner, but it was nothing important, that's for sure. Walsall had recovered to make an even game of it, but as half-time approached Reading stepped up a gear and totally dominated the last fifteen minutes. The fact that we didn't score during this period was the reason why we didn't win the game. Our best chance came when the Walsall keeper dropped a cross under a bit of pressure. This time the referee didn't blow up and the ball pinged around the six-yard box for a short while before a defender put it out. His decision? Goal kick.
In another attack we had a corner which we worked to Andy Gurney on the edge of the box. He let fly with a screamer which flew just over the bar with the keeper watching it. The ball was still rising as it hit the back of the stand and would probably still be going up even now.
It wasn't entirely one-way traffic though, as Walsall hit us once on the break and really should have scored. A right-wing cross found one of their players unmarked and on the six yard box, but he couldn't hit the ball cleanly and it spun away (and didn't even go out for a goal-kick).
That meant that at half-time it was still 0-0. Walsall had spotted one obvious weakness in their game, and their substitute keeper spent 10 minutes warming up, obviously in readiness for coming on at the start of the second half. A quick look in the programme showed that he had played every game this season until the last couple, so I assume that this was their real first-choice keeper returning from injury.
Also, a few minutes before the second half Martin Allen came out of the tunnel, carrying his half-time cuppa and walked to the edge of the penalty area. He carefully put the drink on the ground and then spent two minutes gesturing to the Reading fans. The message was clearly, "Sing for the whole of the second half". Meanwhile the bemused Walsall keeper smiled and then turned round and said to the nearby Reading fans, "He's a nutter, isn't he?"
There is no doubt that Walsall had changed things in the second half, as they played much better than they had done previously. Perhaps it was just the confidence of having a keeper behind them who knew how to catch a cross, or perhaps there was something more. In any event they matched us for most of the half, although it was still Reading who had the best early chances. First we were denied a clear penalty when a ball was played into Butler - Butler failed to win the header because the defender was pulling his shirt to hold him down. To be fair to the referee (and I have no idea why I should take such an even-handed attitude), this sort of incident probably happens 20 times in a game, but this one was just a bit more obvious and meant that our attack broke down.
Later we did get a free-kick awarded on the edge of the box, something of a shock because the ref's ability to let scything tackles go was very clear. Personally, I think he was just bottling making any decisions at all - the worst incident was when three successive Walsall challenges left Reading players down on the ground injured, and he didn't give a foul for any of them! Anyway, back to the one we did get. Darren Caskey curved the ball around the wall, but it just didn't get far enough around to hit the back of the net, instead catching the top of the stanchion where it is attached to the top of the post.
After all this pressure and chances, it was obviously disappointing that Walsall took the lead. The goal came from a good shot from the edge of the area leaving Whitehead with no chance. Reading reacted by pushing up more, and bringing on Jamie Cureton for Lee Hodges. That was a bit of a shame, because Hodges had had a very good game. The obvious choice would have been to take off Rougier, who was clearly not properly fit, but that was not an easy decision for Alan Pardew, and I don't really want to complain about it. Later, Neil Smith also came on, wearing his mask.
Cureton came close to pulling us back twice within minutes. One was a hooked shot that sailed just wide but the other was our best opportunity. We played the ball over the top of the defence - Jamie ran onto it, was pushed a little wide by a recovering defender, but still got a good shot in. The keeper got a slight touch which was enough to knock it onto the foot of the right-hand post. The ball stayed in play, but when we were able to cross it back in a defender cleared just as Butler was pulling the trigger.
Pushing forward was leaving us open to counter-attacks, and both Ricky Newman and John Mackie saved us from going further behind with superb covering tackles. Newman's was particularly impressive - he had been tracking a forward who went to the penalty spot area and received a cross from the right. Although Newman had been a yard behind the player he still managed to get his foot to the ball first and play it away to safety. The one from Mackie was further up the pitch but he was defending against two players - in fact you have to say that he is a fine addition to our group of central defenders.
At the other end, we had one really good oportunity to equalise. Tony Rougier received the ball on the left, took it past two defenders and headed for the byline to put a cross in. We had three players waiting for it, but a defender came over and just hacked Rougier to the ground. An absolutely clear penalty, right in front of the Reading fans, but the referee waved play on. To add injury to insult, Rougier stayed down and needed treatment. He only hobbled around for the rest of the match, but surprisingly McIntyre came on for Andy Gurney at this point so Rougier had to stay on as well.
A couple of minutes later Walsall extended their lead, with a move that started with a break. Although we stopped the first attack, they were able to retain possession and scored with a header from a right-wing cross. At least we were pushing forward for an equaliser, and letting in another goal is the price that you sometimes pay for being adventurous.
Although the game was pretty well over, Reading continued to go forward, and Jim McIntyre scored an excellent goal after about two of the three minutes of time added on. He won the ball outside the area, made a bit of space and curled it around the keeper and into the right-hand side of the net. Our only remaining attack was ended by the offside flag, and we had therefore lost the game.
The only really positive thing I can take out of this day is that if that is the best Walsall can manage, then we really are not going to have to worry about them being in the frame at the end of the season. Their pitch is cutting up dreadfully as well, so the couple of skilful players that they do have will soon find it impossible to play to their strengths.
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