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2000/01 Reports

Reading goals: Viveash, Parkinson, Gurney
Gamebreaker: Reading's second goal
Attendance: 9,601

Reading line-up: Whitehead, Gurney, Robinson, Parkinson, Mackie, Viveash, Jones (Caskey), Igoe (Rougier), Butler, Cureton, Hodges (N Smith)
Subs not used: Howie, Hunter

Alan Pardew announced the predicted line-up for this game, with Matthew Robinson making an extremely welcome return from injury, and Andy Gurney switching to right-back in place of the suspended Ricky Newman. After a few games where the bench contained only attacking players, both Neil Smith and Barry Hunter made it into the substitutes line-up, as did Darren Caskey and Tony Rougier, meaning that there was no place at all for Jim McIntyre.

Before the game, there were presentations to John Madejski in recognition of his ten years (and one day!) as club chairman, and to the Supporters Club on its 70th birthday. I can't tell you what was said about this because the public address system in the East Stand is rubbish.

Reading started off the game pretty well - in fact we were a goal up after 36 seconds! (And anyone that says it was after 40 seconds is just copying their information from the official site.) We won a soft free-kick on the left-hand side, and from the cross Adi Viveash completely lost his marker at the far post and was easily able to head the ball home. In games this season where we have had a good start, we have normally gone on to a big win, so this was extremely encouraging.

With the benefit of the lead, Reading continued to control the game from the second kick-off, and Cambridge never really recovered from the set-back. In the early stages, Martin Butler (against his old club) managed to miss a chance when he couldn't get good contact on a low cross, whilst several other attacking moves didn't manage to get a good ball into the box.

Although Reading had most of the possession, we were being caught offside very frequently. Most of the decisions were rigfht, but one or two looked a little dubious. The strange thing is that Cambridge weren't really playing an offside trap. We were making our forward runs too early, rather than being caught out as their defence moved forward.

Cambridge meanwhile looked like an average team without really threatening our goal in this period of the match. When they did get forward our two centre-backs held firm, with John Mackie in particular making several good challenges that broke down Cambridge moves.

We also by this stage hadn't seen any of the trademark galloping attacking runs from Robinson (making me wonder whether he was fully fit), but he then did get into a forward position ten minutes before the break and crossed the ball for Phil Parkinson to head home at the near post. Even if Parkinson had not headed the ball, we had another unmarked player in the box showing that Cambridge's marking was one of their major failings.

Before half-time we had several more attacks, but they all ended with either a blocked or wide shot.

Soon after the start of the second half, the ref awarded Reading a penalty after the linesman flagged for a foul on Cureton. It was certainly a foul but it looked to me as if it was outside the box. With Darren Caskey still on the bench, Butler and Cureton had a discussion about who was going to take the kick (both having been regular penalty takers at previous clubs) and Cureton obviously won the argument. He sent the keeper the wrong way, but pulled the shot just wide of the post.

Hang on, that means we're 2-0 up and we've missed a penalty - when did that happen before?

Cambridge had also read that particular script, as they started to push forward and looked to profit from a swing in momentum. After a goalmouth scramble and a shot into the side-netting, they managed two shots on target, but that only led to two superb saves from Phil Whitehead. Cambridge then had a long shot that hit the foot of the post and went out for a goal-kick (but I'm sure Phil had it covered!). That was the end of the danger, and after this short spell Reading got back into the game.

The next incident of note was that Martin Butler got booked for not retreating ten yards from a Cambridge free-kick. He was actually walking back slowly when the player deliberately took the kick and kicked it at Butler. Although we gave the Cambridge player stick for the rest of the game, he only did what I've often wanted to see Reading players do to stop time-wasting. And Butler can't complain about the booking because he was deliberately trying to slow the game down.

Soon after we were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box in perfect Caskey range. As he was still on the bench, it looked like Lee Hodges was going to curl one over the wall, but instead he played a little tap into the path of Andy Gurney, who fired the ball home just inside the post. Gurney sprinted to the halfway line near the East Stand and was undoubtedly trying to make the point to some of the moaners that he had just scored a great goal.

This meant that all of our players were now in our own half, on the touchline, celebrating the goal. Cambridge wanted to take the kick-off quickly to take advantage of this, but fortunately the referee wouldn't let them. I think that was a mistake on his part, and we must make sure that our future celebrations take place in the opposition's half of the field.

Reading made a double substitution, bringing on Tony Rougier and Neil Smith. Smith managed to get booked with minutes for a "foul" where he clearly played the ball, whilst Rougier added some skill to the game. It was obvious that the Cambridge players had no idea how to get the ball off him, but it also looked like Rougier was not prepared to run around very much. In fact, he looked far too much like Mass Sarr for my liking.

Caskey got on for the last few minutes of the game, but had little chance to make an impact. We had one more chance after Rougier went past a defender near the byline as if he wasn't there, and fired a low cross into the goal area. The ball came out to Parkinson but his shot was blocked.

At the end of the game, we had another decent victory by the sort of scoreline we could only have dreamed of last season, and we still hadn't played particularly well.

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