Garath McCleary

[traff]

If S Hunt had the average foot size of a typical Hobbit, he would not have missed that open goal at home to Everton and history would have played out so very differently

[Sutekh]

Full name Fred Upper West Stand

Actually it's Right Said Fred Upper West Stand and Deliver your money or your life on mars bar
Big Right Said Fred/Adam Ant/Bowie fan/chocolate fan

Deeply dippy

Wunderbar

[South Coast Royal]

Reading Football Club are delighted to announce the signing of talented forward Garath McCleary, who becomes our first signing of the summer.

Garath, who turned 25 yesterday, put pen to paper on a three-year contract at Madejski Stadium, choosing the Royals ahead of a number of other clubs to sign on a Bosman ruling.

McCleary was named Nottingham Forest's 'Player of the Season' in 2011/12, but his contract expired at the end of the campaign and Reading have acted swiftly to make a key early addition to their ranks.

Chairman Sir John Madejski said, "I'm delighted to welcome Garath to the club. Completing this excellent signing so soon after sealing promotion is an example of the seriousness with which we are already taking our Premier League challenge.

"It's amazing to be at a club like Reading," Garath said after completing the move. "Being a local boy as well, it's the stuff that dreams are made of. I can't wait to pull the Reading shirt on and prove what I can do.

"After helping Forest stay up last season, It's a fantastic achievement for me to now come to a Premier League side, a club with such fantastic support. It's great to be here!"

Manager Brian McDermott, said "It's important that we have brought a player of Garath's quality through the door. It's an early signing for us, and it's a great one. We're absolutely delighted to get him.

"He's young, he's got an eye for a goal, he's very, very quick, he's got a real energy about him. He wants to work hard and improve and, in all the players we've got here, that is a key attribute. And he's a nice lad, so he'll fit in well with what we're trying to do at this club."

The versatile 6'2" Oxford-born forward has made huge strides since moving to the City Ground in January 2008, making the switch to Forest after the spending the early part of his career in non-league football with Slough Town and Bromley.

Last season, he scored nine goals for Steve Cotterill's men, four of which came in one high-scoring 7-3 win over Leeds United at Elland Road in March - a haul that earned McCleary the npower Championship Player of the Month award.

The paperwork is subject to the normal ratification by the football authorities but should be completed shortly and Director of Football Nick Hammond was delighted to have got the deal done.

"There has been a lot of interest in the player from other Premier League clubs, so we are really pleased to have secured his services and that he has committed his future to Reading," he said.

I will only believe a Pepe post about it.

I wish Pepe hadn't posted that to remind us that at that time we were perceived as a more attractive proposition than Forest.

Times really have changed and Bindon has gone there for peanuts and they spend £30,million or so on a player and we are seemingly delighted at signing a player soon to be 36 and are not able (or don't want to?) spend more than a few thousand on a player.

I do hope our respective fortunes are reversed sooner rather than later as regrettably I don't have much of a later.