| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Division 2 | Wednesday, 22nd March | Bristol Rovers | Home | Won 2-0 |
Match facts:
Reading goals:
Assists:
Opposition goals:
Half-time:
Gamebreaker:
Attendance:
Weather:
Referee: Eddie
Wolstenholme (Blackburn)
Reading line-up:
Subs not used:
Starting formation:
Reading yellow cards:
Reading red cards:
Match report:
We all know what happened in this fixture last season. Our makeshift defence succumbed to wave after wave of attacks from nippy Bristol forwards. And what have we learnt in just over a year? Well, quite a lot it appears. For a start, nipping out and bringing Adrian Williams back on loan rather than playing Polston who was clearly not fit.
When the match began, it looked like we were in for another rough ride from the officials. The referee turned down a good penalty appeal after Butler was bundled over, and then booked Neil Smith when a free kick would have sufficed. He then booked Forster for kicking the ball away before a Bristol free-kick, despite three Bristol players pointing out that Forster was merely removing a duff ball from the field of play. (Well done to those players for being so sporting, although I hope that we never do the same!)
When we did get a free-kick just outside the area and in prime Caskey range, the ref took the wall back all of six yards and refused to make them go any further. Caskey's shot needed such a steep angle to get over the wall that he got no real power on the ball, and the keeper saved easily.
However, after that the referee was at least fair to us, starting by booking a Bristol player for a similar offence to that of Smith. Partly this was because Bristol consistently fouled our players throughout the game and so gave away many free-kicks.
The opening exchanges were slightly in our favour, and we took advantage of that with the opening goal. We got a free-kick on the right-hand side. I was surprised to see Lee Hodges trot over to take it, but this was so that he could whip over a curling left-foot cross. Nicky Forster rose unchallenged to flick the ball into the net. That's yet another goal from a set-piece!
In the remainder of the half, we were under an awful lot of pressure and had few more chances ourselves. In one passage of play, Bristol had a series of corners and Howie made two fantastic saves to keep them out. For the first he dived to his left and had to stick a fist up to get the ball over the bar. The second was even more spectacular, needing incredible agility to dive to his right and knock the ball over the bar. In between though he dropped an easy catch, so the second save should never really have happened. That period of play ended with a tame header well wide of the goal, and as it turned out was the closest we came to conceding all night.
In the second half, Bristol were attacking the South Stand filled with their fans. It is to the referee's great credit that despite huge appeals he failed to award them a penalty for any of a series of dives in this half. It would have been even better if he had booked the culprit for trying to con him, but you can't have everything.
As the game moved on, it looked more and more like we would get a second, and it came in exactly the same way as against Bournemouth the other week. We got an indirect free-kick on the edge of the area. Our players made lots of dummy runs to confuse the defence whilst the ball was in fact tipped to Caskey who planted the ball just inside the post with the keeper nowhere.
Amusingly, there was a similar opportunity at the other end a few minutes later. The Bristol player had the advantage of watching the master at work but still put his strike way over the bar and into the away fans (cueing a mass rush for the exits!).
Just before this, the Bristol Rovers manager got sent from the dugout. He plus others of his staff had had a running battle with Mad Dog all evening, and finally the patience of the officials snapped. The linesman called the referee over, and the ref went straight to the away dugout. Whilst he did this, Mad Dog disappeared to the back of our dugout, took off his trademark bright red top, and replaced it with the one that everyone else on the bench wears. As it happened the referee made no move to talk to him, but you could just imagine it. "It wasn't me, ref, you want that guy in the red. Now, let's see, where has he gone?"
At the final whistle less than half of the away support was still in the stadium, a nice reversal to what happened last season. As the Reading players stood in the centre circle and took our plaudits, the tannoy announcer got into the act. "The first time Bristol Rovers have lost by two goals since September", he said, plus various other statistics to show what a good result it was. This may count as winding up the away fans, but I love it! Keep it up, whoever you are!
Comments by Bristol Rovers fans on their mailing list:
"Just got home, from my nearest home game, bad tempered match both on and off the pitch. Referee Wolstenholme seamed to lose the plot at times, booking Rovers players left right and centre. All stemmed from incidence in the first half when Challis was caught by a very late elbow, which incensed Ollie and the team and you guessed it went unpunished.
We lost concentration and let Reading intimidated us, however, their goalie pulled off three good saves in the first half, especially unlucky was Thomson with goal bound header which was deflected.
In terms of the Red card for Ollie, I was sat behind the bench and to me it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity your honour, honest. "Mad Dog" Allan the Reading number 2, had been mouthing off all match and generally winding up the Rovers Bench. Penrice went up to him and threatened to lay one on him, which lead to a bit of handbags at 5 paces. Ref turns around consults with the Assistant and like all his decisions tonight got it wrong and sent Ollie off. The return fight, sorry I think it was susposed to be football ,at the Memorial Stadium should be better than the recent Tyson fight, might make it pay to view.
A very bad night all round, Jason spent to much time complaining, bright sparks were Ellington who showed some good touches as a second half substitute and Zamora who came on late and looked full of potential."
"Totally agree with Jeff's points, think the ref must have had a nice surprise waiting for him in the changing rooms when he turned up tonight. That can be the only reason to explain some of his decisions tonight as I can't think of anything else. Saying that though we didn't really get into the game and it was just one of those ones where you knew we wouldn't score."
"Forget the officials, if we would have played for ten years we still wouldn't have scored against Reading."
"It was all very strange - the referee, Mr Ed Wolstenholme, booked about 12 players in total, and actually booked one of the Reading lot for kicking a football that had gone flat to one of the ball boys to get a replacement! Ollie seemed to be sent off for abuse of the official - I presume he was only repeating the sort of things we were saying about him. We were hustled out of our game very effectively tonight - every pass we made had to be hurried, and usually didn't come off. Even the miracle switch to 4-4-2 didn't work. Robbo (especially) and Curo were invisible."
"Why build a state of the art 30,000 all seated stadium and include car parks that can't support a 11,000 gate?"
"Why build a 30,000 seater stadium if you can only get an 11,000 gate?"
"Despite the final score, Rovers should have at least achieved a draw. There are going to be many nerve racking moments as the season draws to an exciting close, I just hope not too many disappointments. It was quite clear that Jason was jaded, not surprising after a tough match at the weekend plus travelling and perhaps with hindsight it might have been better if he had been rested or kept as sub. His booking was as a result of frustration and being over-tired I would suspect. It is quite interesting noticing the difference between Nathan and Jason and perhaps the elder statesman could learn something from his young upstart. Regardless of decisions that do not go Rovers way, the players must try and stay focussed on the game. Lack of concentration partly as a result of querying the reef's decision to award the free kick which led to their second goal, proved decisive. There were some tactical decisions which again surprised me, although at the beginning of the second half, one thought it would only be a matter of time before Rovers got back into the match."
"The car park was full by the time we arrived at 6.45, so we parked outside the ground, no yellow lines or warning signs but still ended up with a £20 parking fine along with 20 or so other cars parked in the same street. Onto the game itself, I thought Reading had us sussed, they were first to the ball everytime and didn't give us the room to play. Jason wasn't given a kick by their centre half. Jones was flapping all night and was at fault for the first goal, his confidence is really shot."
And finally (punctuation as per original):
"Not the best of matches ive seen this season, reading were very poor and we were not much better, it has to be said the ref was the worst ive seen this season, possibly ever although there was a certain Mr G Singh who would give him a run for that title. We had 3 or 4 shots blocked on or around the goaline one header from tomson that seemed destined for the net, but apart from that we did not get the ball in the business area enough especially in the 2nd half. The first goal was Jones fault, but these things happen occasionally, his decision making on when or when not to come for crosses is the main problem, this should have resulted in a penalty for reading in the first half, when Jones just pushed a reading player in the back, and was nowhere near the ball, also Jason was constantly being pulled and pushed, even more than usual. We were always going to loose at least one game before the end of the season, and better it was against reading than millwall, i think we will get at least a point Saturday, at this stage of the season its about results rather than performances, nerves creep in and play a big part in the run in, I think we will lose once more, and will go up 2nd to Preston, beating the Sh*t in the process.
One thing i thought was funny last night was the bloke on the pa, saying "were home again Saturday lets hope for a full house " FAT CHANCE !!!!!"
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