| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 24th February (3pm) | Swansea City | Away | Won 1-0 |
Reading goal: Cureton
Gamebreaker: Final whistle
Attendance: 5,073
Reading line-up: Whitehead, Murty,
Robinson, Parkinson, Viveash, Whitbread, Jones, Caskey, Butler,
Cureton (Hodges), McIntyre
Subs not used: Howie, Gurney, Hunter, Igoe
Apparently, this game was in some doubt on Saturday morning. An overnight frost had left half of the pitch unplayable - however, the morning sunshine thawed it sufficiently for the game to go ahead. You could see that the pitch near the Main Stand was bumpy and hard, particularly in the second half when Darren Caskey and Graeme Murty had difficulty controlling the ball during our attacks down that side.
It was excellent news for Reading that the match was played because we totally dominated throughout and were able to maintain our good run of results with the victory. We should have won by many more goals, but at this stage of the season the only thing that really matters is coming away with the three points.
The Reading line-up showed one forced change, with Matthew Robinson replacing the suspended Ricky Newman, and one other change with Adi Viveash returning in place of Barry Hunter. Hunter has every right to be annoyed with this - he has played well in recent games and is clearly now not as well favoured as Viveash, regardless of his performance. That's the reason why Andy Gurney has asked to go on the transfer list, and it suggests some favouritism among the squad that our management need to put an end to immediately. Viveash has not let us down, I hasten to say, but he will be suspended for our next game - if Hunter returns, plays well, and is again dropped then it sends out the message to the rest of the players that performance is not the important thing.
Right, rant over, and let's get onto the game or at least, just before the game. The teams had to change ends, but no-one told Phil Whitehead. After the pre-match huddle all the other Reading players shot off to the far end whilst Phil jogged slowly back to the goal in front of the Reading fans! When he turned round you could tell that he felt rather foolish, and the Swansea keeper was laughing his head off when they met after Phil had headed off to the correct end.
In the opening minutes, Swansea looked the more lively team, but this really was just a false dawn and Reading soon took over. We had so many good chances in the game that I am never going to remember them all or get them in necessarily the right order, but the first one definitely came after Keith Jones released Jim McIntyre down the left. His first cross was blocked, but the ball came straight back to him and he volleyed it first time across the face of the goal. Incredibly two Swansea defenders let the ball bounce over their heads and it came to Darren Caskey at the far post. His well-hit shot beat the goalkeeper but unfortunately one of the defenders redeemed himself by clearing the ball off the line.
In one of their rare attacks, Swansea had what looked like a good shout for a penalty. Viveash tried to shepherd a ball over the top back to Phil Whitehead, but then at the last minute decided to pass it back instead. Whitehead had come out and the ball went past him. A Swansea player then went sprawling in the penalty area but the referee didn't give a spot kick.
After that interlude it was back to the normal service of Reading attacking but not scoring. From a ball played over the top of the Swansea defence, Jamie Cureton hit a first time volley that went just over the bar. Soon after that, Cureton tried to lob the goalkeeper and this also went just over the bar. However, in the second chance it looked like Cureton had to be offside (writing as I do from my perfect viewpoint behind the goal!).
Darren Caskey tried a shot that the keeper managed to tip just over the bar. Well, it might have been a shot - judging by the way Martin Butler and the Swansea goalkeeper were laughing about it as they prepared for the corner, they seemed to think that Caskey had instead been trying to cross the ball.
Swansea had a couple of long range shots but neither were on target.
A few minutes before half-time we finally took the lead. Again it was McIntyre attacking down the left. We had three players in the area, which was good to see, and he picked out the unmarked Jamie Cureton at the far post. Cureton had the easy job of knocking the ball into an empty net, and then just stood there in front of the Reading fans, whilst we all held our hands to our ears and "did the Jamie".
At the start of the second half, Reading again looked sluggish. Being slow out of the blocks cost us two points in the Peterborough home game, and I was worried that the same thing might happen. Fortunately Swansea are not a good side and failed to take whatever chance they had to get back into the game. After a nervy few minutes, Reading seemed to step up a gear, and the game reverted back to the pattern of constant Reading attacking play.
We came close to a goal when Cureton managed to get the ball into the net. However a defender kicked the ball onto Cureton's hand and the referee gave handball instead. In another attack, Butler and the keeper had a race to see who first reached yet another ball played over the top of the defence - the keeper just won but only cleared the ball as far as Caskey. Caskey waited a moment until we had two attackers in the area and then crossed the ball. Unfortunately his normally accurate passing style let him down on this occasions and he picked out a defender instead. "The Bloke Behind Me" moaned about Caskey not getting the ball in quickly enough, showing yet again that some fans just do not appreciate subtle play. Caskey knew that we had no forwards in the box, and that waiting a few moments would not allow the keeper to get back - it was just a shame that his execution wasn't good enough to shut the bloke up.
Not long after, Graeme Murty got the ball in a similar situation and a similar position. With the keeper out of goal and this time no Reading players in a decent positiom, Murty tried a first time shot. It was heading near the corner flag but in the end didn't even have enough power to go off for a throw-in.
Another Swansea attack ended with a shot from the edge of the area that beat Whitehead but hit the bar. The ball went almost straight up after hitting the woodwork but fortunately came down behind the goal.
Reading then produced our best move of the match. McIntyre got the ball wide on the left, and played it forwards to Matthew Robinson who was on an overlapping run. He got to the byline and crossed to the middle where Lee Hodges (on as a substitute for Cureton) headed over the bar when he really should have done better.
We had one last good chance when Martin Butler found himself with the ball at his feet about 15 yards out and no defender anywhere close. He shot first time and didn't really get any power behind it allowing the goalkeeper to dive and make the save. The move that had led up to that point appeared to include a foul by one of our players but whilst the defence appealed Reading played on and the goal would have counted.
Swansea's last chance (or chances) came during a mad goalmouth scramble a few minutes before the end. We had several chances to clear and failed, Whitehead had several opportunites to catch the ball and failed to do so (by staying on his line rather than by dropping the ball), and in a bizarre moment one of our players headed the ball back towards our goal from the edge of the penalty area! However, this passage of play ended when the referee got in the way of a Swansea player looking to shoot, and we were then able to play the ball up to safety and towards the other end.
There were three minutes of time added on but by now we were controlling the game and easily able to run out the clock to seal the win. Our finishing in this game was quite poor but we made so many chances that one of them had to go in, and so it proved. We've played a series of poor teams recently and have come away with good points in those games. The next group of matches includes some tough home games, which may well decide how this season ends.
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