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2003/04 Reports

Match facts:

Reading goal: Nicky Forster (25 minutes)
Assists: Nicky Forster (because it was an individual effort)
Opposition goals: After 16 and 87 minutes
Half-time: Norwich City 1 Reading 1
Gamebreaker: Final whistle
Attendance: 16,387
Weather: Dry, cool
Referee: Keith Hill (Royston)

Reading line-up: 1 Marcus Hahnemann; 2 Graeme Murty, 6 John Mackie, 8 Adie Williams, 3 Nicky Shorey; 7 Scott Murray, 14 Steve Sidwell (4 Kevin Watson, 74 minutes), 25 Ricky Newman (30 Omar Daley, 90 minutes), 11 Andy Hughes; 10 Nicky Forster, 9 Shaun Goater
Subs not used: 21 Jamie Ashdown, 20 Bas Savage, 15 James Harper
Starting formation:

Reading yellow cards: None
Reading red cards: None

Match report:

As submitted to the Norwich football paper, the PinkUn:

Well, we all know what happened at the game - Norwich took the lead, we equalised and then the home team got a flukey deflection for a late winner. And we all know about the two rows of seats for away fans this season that every report in this section of the website will harp on about, so I'll ignore all that.

The thing that really struck me about this match was just how incredibly stupid people in Norwich are. The pre-match comments I overhead outside the ground, the conduct of the stewards, the crowd's reaction to the referee, post-match comments heard whilst making the trek to the coach, the BBC radio phone-in - from each of these all I can deduce is that these people are from a different world. Are you really all so backward that you don't know anything about football at all?

In the mid-1980s I was offered a job in Norwich and have often wondered how life might have been different had I taken it. Clearly, I would either have immediately risen to the top of the large company concerned, or I would have been dragged down to the "intelligence" level of the city's other residents and therefore unable to even type these words. And of course that's why it's safe for me to do so - not one of the locals will be able to read this. And those of you who are exiles will no doubt have had very good and understandable reasons for moving on.

So, rant over. What else did I notice? I did say I wouldn't go on about the seating but I have to mention I was rather looking forward to a different view of the game and being closer to the action. The only real reward I got, though, was to hear the ref call a player by his nickname rather than just "blue 10" (or whatever), which I found vaguely interesting. And let's face it, the view wasn't much worse than it was from that old stand, anyway.

One of the obvious talking points among Reading fans before the game was whether our potential new manager might be there. When Norwich scored I took a quick look at the directors box - there were five people not celebrating so it seemed reasonable to guess that they were from Reading. I could spot our chief exec, the club president, and a director, but couldn't tell who the other two were. (When Reading equalised I took another quick look - this time no-one in the directors box, not even the five, were celebrating!!!!)

I thought we should have done better in the match and felt that at the end of the game our caretaker manager Kevin Dillon was probably crossing his fingers and hoping, whilst another manager would have made changes to improve our chances of getting a win ot at least a draw. After the winning goal, our only chance of getting a second equaliser was when keeper Marcus Hahnemann came up for a corner and saw his header blocked near the line. There have been a couple of keepers who have scored recently, but Marcus wasn't just jumping on the bandwagon. Last season in the away games at both Preston and Coventry he went up for corners, but without success. In fact, this was easily his best effort. There have been vague calls for him to take penalties, too.

Overall, I was not at all impressed with the home team. As far as I can see, there was one good player in their side (Darren Huckerby, for the benefit of any stupid Norwich person having this slowly read out to them) and I think that under normal circumstances we should have won comfortably. If that is a typical Norwich performance, then at the end of the season you can expect to finish about where you did last season or a bit lower. Obviously, if that turns out to be a typical Reading performance, we'll be even lower in the table, but I know we can play much much better.

But the final word has to go to the local BBC radio commentator. Back on the coach I got to hear his commentary of the winning goal. It was absolutely clear that he had no idea the shot had taken a huge deflection despite this being obvious even to the idiots on the three sides of the ground. How do these people get jobs like that? Has he never watched a game before? In a very difficult, competitive and challenging contest I would like to nominate him as biggest fool in Norwich.

The newspaper publishes this report on the web, and I have received a number of comments from aggrieved Norwich fans. To be fair, a couple were surprisingly coherent and so clearly not any of the people I had the misfortune to speak to or overhear whilst in their town. Others were simply ignorant or abusive and in general reinforced my feelings about the education levels in the area. Here are some e-mail addresses from the latter group - I will remove the address of anyone who e-mails with an apology:
rbutcher@northerncanaries.fsnet.co.uk
MRHAMMY79@aol.com
steve@musntgrumble.fsnet.co.uk
ricky_bilverstone@hotmail.com
Southcanarie@aol.com
kellydgordon@hotmail.com

Match notes:

Compared to the Sunderland game, John Mackie replaced the injured Steve Brown, whilst Shaun Goater and Ricky Newman replaced John Salako and James Harper. The formation changed from 4-4-1-1 to 4-4-2.

It was John Mackie's first start of the season.

Match preview:

None.

Ticket information:

There is major rebuilding work at Carrow Road, and the stand that away fans have used in the last few years no longer exists. Instead, away fans have two rows of seats running the full length of the pitch with room to seat about 350. For some reason Reading have only 270 tickets to sell - they go on sale to season ticket holders on Tuesday, 23rd September (one per season ticket) and will sell out quickly.

Prices are:
Adults - £15
Senior, under-16s and students - £9
Under-12s - £5

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