| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Saturday, 18th December | Wrexham | Home | Drew 2-2 |
Match facts:
Reading goals:
Assists:
Opposition goals:
Half-time:
Gamebreaker:
Attendance:
Weather:
Referee: Mike
Ryan (Preston)
Reading line-up:
Subs not used:
Starting formation:
Reading yellow cards:
Reading red cards:
Match report:
Saturday morning. Before leaving home, I stuff a pair of pants into my coat pocket, confident that they will not see the light of day until I return home. This is a Reading FC protest - we all know that hundreds of people will just sit there waiting for everyone else to start something, and that in the end nothing will happen. As a good start for people failing to deliver what they promise, the free pair of pants in the Whiff turned out to just be a centre-page spread with the words PANTS printed on it. And even that was just an idea ripped off from Junction 11.
Before the match, the results of the Player of the Millennium were announced. Goalkeepers Steve Death and Shaka Hislop were joint third, but according to the announcer "unable to be here with us today". Trevor Senior made a welcome return appearance to mark his second place, and to no-one's surprise Robin Friday was the worthy winner. Fittingly two of his relatives were present as well.
The pre-match build-up went as normal. The tannoy system played the Royals Anthem, then we had to listen to an interminable safety announcement, and then they played "Whatever You Want" by Status Quo. During this song, a few people started swinging their pants in the air, until incredibly what seemed like the whole of the East Stand, plus large numbers in the other stands, were joining in. It actually happened!!!!! A protest organised by Reading people for Reading people, involving a small degree of embarrassment, and it didn't fizzle out into nothing! This is one of those moments of revelation that happen only a few times during your life. Most people were laughing their heads off rather than considering these philosophical matters, though.
The club officials obviously had a standby plan - they played a Hot Chocolate song, and said that it was "for all you pants lovers out there". But did they play it because it is called "You Sexy Thing" or because the first line is "I believe in miracles"? (Given the state of some of the items of underwear on display, I think it has to be the latter.)
So with the important bits of the day all over, what was next? Oh yes, we played a match as well. Let's just put this in context - Wrexham's last 12 league games had seen them win three and draw nine. They are an extremely poor team and nothing less than three points would be acceptable.
Our difficulties with injured strikers are well known but it was still a surprise that Pardew decided to play with only Martin Williams up front. I was certain that this would be an opportunity for deadly centre forward Paul Brayson (45 games, 1 goal) to try and improve on his record but apparently not. Let's face it, if he can't get into the starting line-up when every other forward at the club is injured, he's not going to be starting ever again. We should just terminate his existence now. (Sorry, I meant "terminate his contract". Really.)
So with one up front, we were playing that well known, tried and trusted 3-6-1 formation. It would have been typical Reading if we were overrun in midfield, but fortunately this did not happen. I think the idea was that Evers and Gurney were meant to be attacking midfielders, giving Williams support. Gurney did get into attacking positions, and had one shot that went just wide. The Wrexham keeper had fumbled our two previous attempts on goal - he had a nightmare start to the game, but we were unable to make the most of it. One of his fumbles led to a corner - the corner came over, and the keeper made an easy catch with absolutely no pressure. In fact, the ref had blown his whistle to delay the kick, but it was impossible to distinguish from one of our normal corners (when the aim appears to be to see how easy you can make it for the goalkeeper to catch the ball).
Unfortunately our overall formation failed to work properly because Sean Evers proceeded to have an absolute stinker. However much money this guy takes home this week it is way way too much.
On one occasion Caskey played a beautiful through-ball so that Evers was clear on goal. He hesitated, in a very Brayson-esque manner, so that the defenders had time to come back, and then failed to play the ball to Potter who had taken up an excellent unmarked position. A clear opportunity wasted because of one man. On another occasion on the East Stand touchline he passed the ball out of play when he had time and space to pick out his man. This incident prompted the second serious bout of pants-waving. Evers can have no complaints about this - his performance deserved it, and he should be happy that our "abuse" took such a mild form. Two minutes later and under no pressure at all he gave the ball away again. This led to the third appearance of the gathered pants. A few minutes later, Pardew replaced Evers with Keith Scott. Now we know that Scott will give his all, but he is clearly not fully fit. Even so, this was obviously a tactical substitution, and equally obviously it was the right decision.
Let's just pause for a moment, and think about Evers' "performance". He wasn't playing out of position - after all, he's supposed to be a box-to-box midfielder. He's going to claim that he was put off by the pants protest, but if he can't handle a situation like that, how is he going to perform away to Cardiff or Preston, or hopefully in the not too distant future, Nottingham Forest or Manchester City? Are we really trying to say that a half-million pound player (and that fee was reduced due to Luton's financial difficulties at the time) is unable to cope with the fact that fans don't like him wasting good opportunities and giving the ball away?
Soon after the waste of space formerly known as Sean Evers had left the pitch we scored, and it was another goal from open play. The move came from midfield, and a Wrexham defender tried to stop it with a crude challenge. Whilst everyone screamed for a foul, the ref played the advantage, and Peter Grant was able to follow up and place the ball past the keeper. Grant did well here - he was up with the play, alert to the opportunity and took his chance well. The referee also did well to let us have the chance.
As usual, Reading sat back after the goal and Wrexham came back into the game a bit. Towards the half-time break, they had a number of attacks and corners. In one attack, Primus had three chances to clear the ball and each time just gave it away to a Wrexham player. It was no great surprise that we failed to clear a cross from the right properly, and there was a Wrexham player waiting on the edge of the box for it to fall. He powered a shot past Howie quite reminiscent of the goal Plymouth had scored the previous Saturday. About 20 seconds later, the ref blew for half-time.
The second half continued with Wrexham attacking - clearly the players had either not had or not responded to the half-time rollicking that they should have received from Pardew. Brian Flynn on the other hand had managed to fire up Wrexham, who started the half the way they finished the first. Again a cross from the right wing with the Reading defence standing like statues led to a goal, this time a flicked header.
Perhaps not too surprisingly this led to the next pants demonstration. Many fans' first reaction was to have a go at our players - there was some booing and mass pants-waving. There were also a few pairs of pants thrown towards the pitch, but none of them actually made it on. However within a few minutes we had got behind the team again. This time I think it was more righteous indignation than support - when a player appeared not to be putting the effort in, there was a much louder roar from the East Stand.
Gradually we came back into the game, and Keith Scott scored an equaliser. He nearly missed, as his shot from one yard out incredibly hit the bar! I don't know if it then went in or came back and went in off the defender, but it was definitely in the back of the net. (The tannoy announcer stated that Potter had scored, but I know for a fact that it did not ricochet 30 yards off the bar, and then back into the net.)
Scott ran straight to the southern end of the East Stand, and was gesturing at the fans, clearly unhappy about the whole Pants day thing. If all the players had his attitude, then of course it would never have happened and we would also be nearer the top of the table than the bottom.
In the last quarter of the match, we had a lot of attacks, with Scott in particular having half-chances to score. He had two shots that went tamely to the keeper and a header where he just made too little contact. Murty had a 30-yard left-foot shot that was a reasonable effort, and it always looked as if we were more likely to get a winner than not. As it turned out we only managed the draw, and against this Wrexham side that can never be enough.
Other entertainment towards the end of the game consisted of trying to hit the linesman with rolled up pairs of pants. Only a couple made it, and he appeared to be taking it in good spirit.
Overall, I have to say that this was the most enjoyable game
at the MadStad since the opening day of the season. There is no
doubt that this was due to the Pants party, and as far as I am
concerned the party had four significant effects on the game:
Congratulations to the organisers, and to the Royals fans.
Match notes:
Match preview:
None.
Ticket information:
None.
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