Back from the Game - Southampton

[Rex]

theres someting fishy going on with bikey, i have a suspision he wants his place back, sc said no, he threw a bikey paddy, hes off in jan to stoke?

Why would a player be so desperate to play for long ball Stoke or is it just for the prestige of 4 months of prem experience.

[Jackson Corner]

Support was crap today. Despite there many faults the Cardiff support was brilliant in terms of songs and noise and lifted there team in the second half. We just sit there waiting for something to happen before we start to get behind the team. Yes Southampton are rubbish but they are scraping for there lives and are'nt just going to roll over and make it easy for us. The fans in front of me just sat there slagging off everything we did making no effort to get behind the team. For oxf*rd sake we are 8 games unbeaten second in the table I can think of a lot of clubs who would give anything to be in our position.

[FiNeRaIn]

Support was crap today. Despite there many faults the Cardiff support was brilliant in terms of songs and noise and lifted there team in the second half. We just sit there waiting for something to happen before we start to get behind the team. Yes Southampton are rubbish but they are scraping for there lives and are'nt just going to roll over and make it easy for us. The fans in front of me just sat there slagging off everything we did making no effort to get behind the team. For oxf*rd sake we are 8 games unbeaten second in the table I can think of a lot of clubs who would give anything to be in our position.

You sound shocked.
Its no coincidence every team tells us our home and away support is crap. They don't make it up out of bitterness as we beat them like some might have you believe...our fans are just crap, too middle class and too happy clappy. I don't understand why we have such a toff fanbase when reading the area itself is quite working class, it doesn't make sense. You don't see any groups of lads all pissed up before the game making a racket like you do at most other clubs. I walk past the away end at the madstad almost every game to get to my seat and the away fans are always nearly pissed up, loud and passionate fans who are singing before they are even through the turnstiles. Ours just walk along with jester hats and shirts on. The downside to having a fanbase like cardiff is that occasionally a few idiots spoil it like they did on saturday, apart from that their support was top notch. Original chants, standing up, loud and having a good day out.
Our fans are just always miserable, quiet and expecting of the team and quite honestly, just embarrassed to support a football team vocally.

birmingham fan put it simply.. " reading are the arsenal of the championship, everyone knows their team will be stuffed at the madejski, but they take pride in the fact their support will never be as bad as readings".

100% spot on and its sad to hear comments like that.

[winchester_royal]

LOL @ a Birmingham fan saying that. Their support is 10X worse.

[FiNeRaIn]

LOL @ a Birmingham fan saying that. Their support is 10X worse.

In terms of home gates, agreed. Vocally? I bet they are a lot louder when they come here than we were at theirs, I bet they bring twice as many aswell.

[winchester_royal]

LOL @ a Birmingham fan saying that. Their support is 10X worse.

In terms of home gates, agreed. Vocally? I bet they are a lot louder when they come here than we were at theirs, I bet they bring twice as many aswell.

Were you at St Andrews? Their fans were worse than Brizzle's, and thats saying summat.

[rabidbee]

Its no coincidence every team tells us our home and away support is crap.

Who cares?

They don't make it up out of bitterness as we beat them like some might have you believe...our fans are just crap, too middle class and too happy clappy. I don't understand why we have such a toff fanbase when reading the area itself is quite working class, it doesn't make sense.

What's wrong with being middle-class?

Large amounts of the crowd travel in from the surrounding areas, a lot of which aren't at all working-class, because they are London commuter dormitories.

You don't see any groups of lads all pissed up before the game

Good.

Ours just walk along with jester hats and shirts on.

Jester hats at a normal league game? LOL

And of course we're unique in having large numbers of fans wearing club merchandising. As are Southampton, judging by the number of shirts I saw today.

Oh no, hang on...

Original chants, standing up, loud and having a good day out. Our fans are just always miserable, quiet and expecting of the team and quite honestly, just embarrassed to support a football team vocally.

We've never had a particularly vocal support, nor have we ever produced many chant - certainly very few that weren't sung everywhere else. So what? The point is just to go along and enjoy yourself, isn't it? It's not a contest. Or did I miss the inauguration of the Strictly Come Chanting championship? If you want to sing - sing; if you don't - don't. The one hardly impinges on the other. Why you have to vent your spleen about it every week I don't understand. Thus has it ever been, thus will it ever be, thus. oxf*rd deal with it.

its sad to hear comments like that.

I'm sure I speak for many when I say "m'eh!".

[Barry the bird boggler]

Dreadful rubbish I'm afraid. Reading did not turn up until the 75th minute when they actually started to look threatening.

Lot of work needed by SC to get things back on track and I'm quite relieved we have no proper football until 9th January so everyone can have a bit of a rest.

[RoyalBlue]

Its no coincidence every team tells us our home and away support is crap.

Who cares?

They don't make it up out of bitterness as we beat them like some might have you believe...our fans are just crap, too middle class and too happy clappy. I don't understand why we have such a toff fanbase when reading the area itself is quite working class, it doesn't make sense.

What's wrong with being middle-class?

Large amounts of the crowd travel in from the surrounding areas, a lot of which aren't at all working-class, because they are London commuter dormitories.

You don't see any groups of lads all pissed up before the game

Good.

Ours just walk along with jester hats and shirts on.

Jester hats at a normal league game? LOL

And of course we're unique in having large numbers of fans wearing club merchandising. As are Southampton, judging by the number of shirts I saw today.

Oh no, hang on...

Original chants, standing up, loud and having a good day out. Our fans are just always miserable, quiet and expecting of the team and quite honestly, just embarrassed to support a football team vocally.

We've never had a particularly vocal support, nor have we ever produced many chant - certainly very few that weren't sung everywhere else. So what? The point is just to go along and enjoy yourself, isn't it? It's not a contest. Or did I miss the inauguration of the Strictly Come Chanting championship? If you want to sing - sing; if you don't - don't. The one hardly impinges on the other. Why you have to vent your spleen about it every week I don't understand. Thus has it ever been, thus will it ever be, thus. oxf*rd deal with it.

its sad to hear comments like that.

I'm sure I speak for many when I say "m'eh!".

Well said sir!

[66DD]

Support was crap today. Despite there many faults the Cardiff support was brilliant in terms of songs and noise and lifted there team in the second half. We just sit there waiting for something to happen before we start to get behind the team. Yes Southampton are rubbish but they are scraping for there lives and are'nt just going to roll over and make it easy for us. The fans in front of me just sat there slagging off everything we did making no effort to get behind the team. For oxf*rd sake we are 8 games unbeaten second in the table I can think of a lot of clubs who would give anything to be in our position.

You sound shocked.
Its no coincidence every team tells us our home and away support is crap. They don't make it up out of bitterness as we beat them like some might have you believe...our fans are just crap, too middle class and too happy clappy. I don't understand why we have such a toff fanbase when reading the area itself is quite working class, it doesn't make sense. You don't see any groups of lads all pissed up before the game making a racket like you do at most other clubs. I walk past the away end at the madstad almost every game to get to my seat and the away fans are always nearly pissed up, loud and passionate fans who are singing before they are even through the turnstiles. Ours just walk along with jester hats and shirts on. The downside to having a fanbase like cardiff is that occasionally a few idiots spoil it like they did on saturday, apart from that their support was top notch. Original chants, standing up, loud and having a good day out.
Our fans are just always miserable, quiet and expecting of the team and quite honestly, just embarrassed to support a football team vocally.

birmingham fan put it simply.. " reading are the arsenal of the championship, everyone knows their team will be stuffed at the madejski, but they take pride in the fact their support will never be as bad as readings".

100% spot on and its sad to hear comments like that.

Why do you let it upset you? It really isn't that important.

[No Hoops]

After desperate measures to get a ticket this morning, i wish i hadn't bothered.

Our fans are awful, and Shunt and Kebe are horrendous wingers. Only Doyle, Afed and Ivar deserved their shirts this afternoon and i'm disguisted..

There was a distinct lack of singing today. I was top row where we made a fair bit of noise, but those lower down did feck all until we scored.[/quote][/quote]


Perhaps you were part of the group who were singing "Our Support is F****** S***" on several occasions.

I too was on the back row and within 20 feet of me saw FOUR different confrontations between so called Fellow Reading Fans. One of which was between two guys who obviously came to the game together!!!! These two also verbally abused a family when they refused to sit down.

With 3000 fans travelling I would say our support was pretty good, some people just don't want to sing abusive songs all afternoon.. A Blue Army and Stand up etc are fine, but I would suggest that Stabbing an Swindon supporter is probably something none of the idiots singing it have done. As all they can do is argue with each other like in a school playground. Pehaps spending too much time with the family over Christmas has sent them crazy!

[AF1]

I too was on the back row and within 20 feet of me saw FOUR different confrontations between so called Fellow Reading Fans. One of which was between two guys who obviously came to the game together!!!! These two also verbally abused a family when they refused to sit down.

lol

[Hoop Blah]

I don't get this suggestion of playing Marek just off a striker. That role is surely almost exclusively for a player with an eye for goal and pace. Something Marek hasn't shown a great deal of. It seems as silly to me as playing him as a winger.

I think he'd be much better employed as a fairly advanced fulcrum of a 3 man central midfield. Have one of the other two bursting past him to get on to his through balls and join the striker(s). That also seems to fit much closer with the style he plays in for the Czech Republic too. Advance the wingers into more of a wide forward position and it could work.

I'd see it as attacking but very flexible. In a way (hoping we get promoted) I'd almost like to see Coppell leave at teh end of the season so a new manager who might actually try it could develop the team. Because what we have at the moment, even with a few players to strengthern in both windows, doesn't look likely to stay up in the Prem. IMO

Surely what you're suggesting there is pretty much exactly what everyone else has said, play Mateovsky infront of two central midfielders and behind the forward(s).

A player in that position doesn't need to have pace. Infact it's probably one of the easier positions to can get away with a lack of pace because you're drifting around the gaps between the oppositions midfield and defence and so don't need that pace to pull away from a marker. Pace will always give you an advantage if your trying to beat a player (think Gerrard or Gazza playing in that hole) but think of the better players of that kind of position over the last ten years (players like Scholes, Le Tissier, Sheringham, Cantona, Zola, Berkamp) and they don't have physical pace, but they do, like Mateovsky, have that speed of thought and quality of touch to make time and space for themselves.

[Thames]

Stephen Hunt was awful. Played like a League one winger, doing pointless tricks and then hoofing a cross into the stand.

[Big Foot]

Stephen Hunt can fook off IMO as can probably 3k of the 3,200 Reading fans there yesterday

I hate going to football post 2005, Reading's support yesterday was summed up for me by an idiot I know coming up to me and saying, "waheyyyyy xyz wasn't let in, he drank 5 bottles of wine before the game"

Reading's support is full of modern, kunty gobshites and I detest this.

[Schards#2]

Why oh why does anyone give a toss about the "quality" or merits of our supporters? It simply doesn't matter.

I was amused by the family in front of us who had a picnic and then put a picnic blanket over their legs. The mother asked RL "why are we singing Seaside?" When she explained it as Cisse, she asked "why are they singing that".

Totally plastic but, frankly, so what? They pay their money and can do what they like. They shouldn't be expected to conform to some no colours, standing only stereotype if they don't want to.

[Hoop Blah]

I agree to a certain extent Schards, although a lot of the history and appeal of supporting your football club was the tribal element of being in and around like people with a like cause.

I'm not too fussed about other Reading fans to be honest, as I find a lot of them hilarious entertainment (in a Mr Bean kind of way), but I do find the change in make up of football fans in general since the mid to late 90's a factor in my decreasing attendance at games.

...I make a reference about how 'gimp' a bunch we are as Reading fans to my Mrs before the Birmingham game. She told me off for being cruel...right up until the camera panned across the away section at St Andrews......

[Schards#2]

I agree to a certain extent Schards, although a lot of the history and appeal of supporting your football club was the tribal element of being in and around like people with a like cause.

I'm not too fussed about other Reading fans to be honest, as I find a lot of them hilarious entertainment (in a Mr Bean kind of way), but I do find the change in make up of football fans in general since the mid to late 90's a factor in my decreasing attendance at games.

...I make a reference about how 'gimp' a bunch we are as Reading fans to my Mrs before the Birmingham game. She told me off for being cruel...right up until the camera panned across the away section at St Andrews......

As someone who was regularly part of away support that didn't reach three figures, I much prefer 3,000 fans of mixed plasticity that the kudos of being part of 70 odd diehards.

There is, in fact, no kudos outside the ranks of the other 70 odd who are themselves considered wierd by the rest of the population.

[Royal Lady]

I didn't hear the fans at the back singing "our support is ********* sh**" - so they probably couldn't hear the ones at the front singing for most of the game - as we were.

Special mention again to the gobby stewards who insisted everyone sit down - ALL THE TIME. "Sit down. Do it NOW!" LOLz. When one lad, quite rightly, pointed out that to our right the Saints fans were ALL standing up, the silly old mare ignored him, but called in reinforcements in the shape of a Francis Rossi look-a-like.

Also, that other young lad would not have slipped over after our goal if the stupid Tadley Royals flag wasn't laying on the ground right where people walk. No one could see the flag, so why bother putting it there. It was an accident waiting to happen imo and broke health and safety rules far more than fans standing at exciting moments of the game.

That said, it was quite exciting for the last 15-20 minutes - prior to that we were pretty awful. A Fed had another good game, Ivar was solid, Long took his goal well but has a long way to go before I'd pick him ahead of any of our other strikers (inc Lita if he stayed), Kebe always looked like a threat but some of his passing let him down again. S Hunt was utter tripe and we should snap anyone's hand off who offers us £5 million for him - LOLz.

[Gordons Cumming]

I've been watching Reading for nearly 40 years now and rarely ( i mean rarely ) sing. I shout occasionally to relieve the tension but that is about it.

That's my way.

I expect the team to give me something to shout about, not the other way around. That's me. I'm thankful not all supporters aren't like me too.

By the way I also believe seats are there to be sat on.

HTH