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2000/01 Reports

Reading goals: None
Gamebreaker: Final whistle
Attendance: 12,638

Reading line-up: Whitehead, Gurney, Robinson, Jones (Caskey), Viveash, Hunter, Parkinson, Igoe, Butler, Cureton (Forster), McIntyre
Subs not used: Howie, A Williams, Harper

Well, "Orange" day was a huge success. Thousands of Reading fans made the trip to Wigan, taking over a whole side of their stadium, and most of us were dressed in orange. Add to that hundreds of mostly orange balloons, plus streamers and torn newspaper, and it was certainly an impressive sight as the players took to the field.

The Reading side showed a number of changes - Graeme Murty apparently picked up a head injury in training during the week (and it was serious enough to require an air ambulance to be present), and so Andy Gurney came into the side. Adrian Whitbread was not eligible so Barry Hunter took his place. Jim McIntyre also returned to the starting line-up. There was also a "new" face on the bench, as Adie Williams got his first recall to the first team squad since recovering from injury.

From early on in the game, it appeared that our plan was to play for a 0-0 draw. I still believe that this was a huge mistake, but as we got away with it, it does at least mean that we have reduced the play-off semi-final to a one-off game at our ground.

Wigan, on the other hand, attacked from the start. Fortunately, they're just not very good at it. By the end of the match they had tried six different forward players in various combinations, and not one of them managed to get the ball into the net legally. Their first attack came in the first minute but we easily saw off the danger.

However, a few minutes later, the Wigan fans really thought they had scored. A close-range header was directed to Phil Whitehead's right, and he did very well to get any sort of contact on it. In fact, his first touch just slowed the ball down, and he had to claw it away at the second attempt. Based on his position at the start of the move, it's difficult to believe that the ball had crossed the line, but it certainly was not far off. The Wigan fans complained to the linesman but then they would, wouldn't they?

We got some play early on from set-pieces. From a free-kick on the left, Sammy Igoe picked out Adi Viveash at the far post. His header back across goal was met powerfully by Barry Hunter and the Wigan goalkeeper had to make a very good save to keep the scores level. From the resulting corner, Parkinson completely lost his markers and sent in a bullet header that the keeper tipped over the bar. These two chances proved to be the only occasions in the entire game that we troubled their keeper.

Other Wigan attacks early on showed their intent, but did not seriously threaten our goal. When the game settled down, it was clear that we were winning nothing in the air. This problem was exaggerated by the hard pitch - the ball bounced sufficiently high that there was more need to win aerial challenges than normal. Furthermore, although we occasionally won the ball on the ground through either Phil Parkinson or Keith Jones, we almost always seemed to give it away immediately afterwards. This left us defending far more of the time than we should have had to.

Wigan had two more good chances towards the end of the half. The first came from a move down the left. They had pulled our defence around so that when the ball broke to a player on the edge of the six-yard box, Phil Whitehead was not able to make the save. We were lucky that the shot was straight at Viveash, standing on the line, who was able to block it with either chest or head.

Just before half-time they managed to play a ball over the top of our defence leaving a forward a chance to lob Whitehead. Our keeper came off his line a little slowly I thought, but Hunter was also able to put pressure on the attacker, and between them they put him off enough that the shot landed on the top of the net.

The second half was more cagey - I think that we had if anything got less adventurous and were concentrating even more on keeping a clean sheet. We were also defending quite deeply - too deeply for my liking. Although Wigan got some shots in they were all off target. None looked particularly dangerous apart from an angled drive that just kept rising enough to go over the bar.

Ironically, the first decent move of the half came our way with about 20 minutes to go. Nicky Forster had come on for Jamie Cureton. Martin Butler had got the ball in midfield and played it through the defence for Forster to run on to. His angle was too tight to shoot so he tried to cross it for Butler in the middle. However, there were at least three defenders there covering our lone attacker, and they were able to clear the ball away.

Whitehead was called on to make another excellent save, knocking a header over the bar. It was a slightly odd save, as he looked as if he almost paddled it over. At the other end, Butler got a chance to shoot when Sammy Igoe played him in, but he hit it well over.

In injury time, Wigan actually got the ball into the net. As Whitehead prepared to punt the ball upfield from his hands, a Wigan forward knocked it out and tapped the ball into the goal. Fortunately the referee disallowed it for the foul on Whitehead, but he could easily have been looking the other way.

The final whistle went, and Wigan fans went in for their annual pitch invasion. Most of the Reading players ran off quickly but Phil Whitehead calmly walked towards the Reading fans and applauded us whilst surrounded by home fans. He then walked off the pitch, whilst several home fans bizarrely shook his hand and seemed to be congratulating him. After some while, the pitch was cleared and the Reading players came out to salute the travelling support and begin their warm-down exercises.

I have to say that this was not the satisfying game I had been looking forward to. I firmly believe that we could have won this game comfortably had we attempted to do so. The style we adopted could easily have seen us concede a goal or two, and we are a little fortunate to start the second leg on level terms. Wigan will come to Madejski Stadium looking to defend, something which they are pretty good at, and hope to either sneak a goal or win the penalty shoot-out.

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