| Competition | Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
| Friendly | Tuesday, 31st July (7.45pm) | Oxford City | Away | Won 2-0 |
Match facts:
Reading goals: Darius Henderson,
Andre Fashanu
Assists:
Opposition goals: None
Half-time: Oxford City 0 Reading 1
Gamebreaker: Reading's second goal
Attendance:
Reading line-up: Jamie Ashdown;
Chris Casper, Barry Hunter, Adam Lockwood, Nicky Shorey; Sammy
Igoe (Scott Williams), Joe Gamble (Ricky Allaway), Matt Birnie,
Simieon Howell (Jason Awbery); Darius Henderson (Declan O'Hara),
Andre Fashanu
Sub not used: Simon Cox
Reading yellow cards: None
Reading red cards: None
Match report:
What a pleasure it was to see a team resplendent in proper narrow blue-and-white hoops. Unfortunately the team concerned were Oxford City, who appear to have managed to circumvent all the marketing objections thrown up to stop Reading playing in our traditional strip. In fact, Oxford City are so proud of their hoops that they also have one at the bottom of their shorts, two on their socks, and three more incorporated into the club badge. In this game, I got my first sight of Reading's new away strip, which I can only describe as hideous. There will be no complaints at all when they make the next change.
The Reading team in this match contained mostly youngsters, with Chris Casper, Barry Hunter and Sammy Igoe the only starters who have played more than a handful of first team games. The home side also looked very young, seeming to lack even the couple of grizzled old former pros that are the norm for a non-league side.
Reading dominated the game, and secured victory with two one-on-one goals. The first came after Darius Henderson was released through the middle, and calmly took the ball round to the goalkeeper's right before slotting it home. The defence complained bitterly about offside. One of the defenders had not pushed forward with the rest, and may have played Henderson on, but it was a close call. (Truth to tell, I was only concentrating about as hard as the sloppy defender, and so don't really know whether Henderson was onside or not.)
The second goal came early in the second half, with this time Andre Fashanu put through on his own and no serious appeals for offside. Fashanu took the ball past the keeper on his left, and was easily able to score. It was good to see two such goals, given the number of times that the first team forwards have failed in similar situations.
The second half was broken up by a large number of substitutions by the home side, as well as a few by Reading. making it difficult for either team to play with much consistency. The Oxford side hardly ever tested Jamie Ashdown, and Reading were able to run out comfortable winners.
In the very last minute of the game, though, an Oxford City forward went down in the penalty area, and had a pretty good shout for a penalty. The referee hesitated, and then took the easy way out by blowing for full-time, despite the fact that we were still 30 seconds short of 45 minutes in the half!
Overall, it was a reasonable run-out for the reserve side against not terribly high quality opposition.
Match notes:
None.
Match preview:
None.
Ticket information:
None.
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