Would it be a tragedy if we went down?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Remember when people said relagation from the Prem would be a good thing?

See my post. It could have been. Even failure to go back up last season could (and should) have been made into a positive.

That is a fair point.

So many other effects though.

If we have no money now, imagine what it would be like in L1. The good young players would be long gone.

[Dickie's Spear]

I think it would be a tragedy, mainly for the fact we weren't up there there long enough, considering how long we waited for our BIG chance.
It could be quite some time if ever we get back into the top rung.
I believe this as the chairman is not up to Premier League standard, and he showed severe discomfort with running a Premier League Club and if we get another crack again why will anything change there.
So as players and managers can be graded as suitable at a certain level, I think the chairman has also declared his own comfort level somewhere between League 1 and Championship.

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

We are a similar sized club to Charlton and Southampton? Really?

If we go down, we won't be pulling in 15-20k like they do (saints had 30k boxing day), it'll be down to about 8,000 (STH take-up will be halved, at the very least I think). Just like the dark times of Keith Scott and co. The only thing that got us out of that was JM's investment in good players like Butler. Can't see him repeating that type of outlay any time soon.

Not ruling out survival this season – but we could well be tumbling through the leagues without the safety net of a rich benefactor willing to pump in lots of cash and with a fanbase that will dwindle as fast as it grew. That spells big trouble in my opinion.

[floyd__streete]

Considering how long it took us to get out of the third tier and considering that we have thrown away Premier league status through a sucession of seemingly poor decisions at board and management, relegation would - relatively speaking - be a disaster, yes. I am not looking forward to sub-10,000 home crowds echoing around the Madj again next season, thank god we neever went ahead with those ludicrous plans for expansion.

[Terminal Boardom]

Remember when people said relagation from the Prem would be a good thing?

See my post. It could have been. Even failure to go back up last season could (and should) have been made into a positive.

The positives can be seen with how well, and otherwise, the graduates from the Academy have performed. Some have exceeded expectations and others look to have something about them which will require gentle nurturing.

[Silver Fox]

Also relegation might mean reduced prices for tickets, which would suit me just fine

you know that wont happen.

Are we still paying the prices we did in the premier league?

To all those who voted yes, do you know what a tragedy is? If we get relegated and as handbags says we stay in business it will be disappointing, an inconvenience maybe, it will be far from a tragedy

[Comfortably Numb]

Also relegation might mean reduced prices for tickets, which would suit me just fine

you know that wont happen.

To all those who voted yes, do you know what a tragedy is?

i know ALL the words

tradegy

[Arch]

considering that we have thrown away Premier league status through a sucession of seemingly poor decisions at board and management...

For someone who goes to a lot of the games, aren't you even momentarily tempted by the thought that we threw away premier league status by a succession of bad performances on the pitch? This is football. What happened to holding the players accountable?

[andrew1957]

In answer to the original question it will all depend on Sir john.

If we went down but retained all the good young players - let go some of the old guard and used our youth to rebuild then it might be a blessing in disguise.

If on the other hand he cuts the cloth even more and sells Sig, Church etc to balance the books, then it would undoubtedly be as complete disaster and we could be there for many years.

[Seal]

In light of how the club has performed since our last relegation, both on AND off the pitch. I can see it being nothing sort of a disaster. The club have done nothing in the past few years to indicate the correct management structure is in place to deal with such situations, and I would have very little faith in the ability of our current hierarchy to do 'a Leicester' as another poster referred to.

N.B. I like how all the RTGs are now saying 'ah well, relegation won't be so bad'. Jeeeesus. Is it EVER possible to admit that the club was wrong? And has made numerous mistakes? It's all very well taking the glory and plaudits on the way up with positive momentum behind you. The real test is how you deal with things on the way down.

[RoyalBlue]

Feel free to dodd me but leading on from Arch's post I was just wondering if it really would be such a shame if we went down?

Look at the league positions of Norwich, Leeds, Charlton and Southampton this year. It shows that we could bounce back. We also will be financially solvent and with loads of talented youngsters to come through.

I don't want us to go down but I don't think it would be a tragedy if we did. What do you think?

Archie's penalty. The only (massive) flaw in your argument is that relegation would see another round of severe cloth cutting from the Manic Scissor Brothers. Goodbye all of the talented youngsters that were coming through. In contrast I think the teams you mentioned have made some investment to turn their fortunes around.

[Maguire]

Tragedy is obviously the wrong word but it would be absolutely shit.

When every other team is the league is trying to get out of their division upwards, you get Reading fans trying to play relegation as a some kind of positive.

Smaller crowds, poorer squad, higher chance our good players will be sold on, lower quality matches, less income, and absolutely no guarantee of when or if we'd get back into the Championship again.

Relegation = BAD

As for it "giving us an opportunty to rebuild" - err, let's just rebuild in the Championship please.

[Terminal Boardom]

Welcome t the reality of building brick by brick but also the world of full blown, thermo-nuclear demolition!

[Archie's penalty]

Ok obviously I wouldn't want us to go down at all.

Here's for a win on Saturday!

[Mr Angry]

Of course it wouldn't be a tragedy! Get some perspective here; a tragedy is Haiti, or the Iraq war, or the Tsunami - at worst it will be sad, and as a fan, an embarassment as mates and colleague extract the michael, and galling as we go to places that aren't quite as prestigeous as some grounds (and against some massive teams) that we had been playing only a couple of seasons before, but not a tragedy.

In fact there are a lot of potential positives; a better than average chance of winning some home games, going to grounds not visited before or for many Years, seeing new players coming through etc etc etc - relegation for teams like us is a fact of life; how you react to it as a fan is whats key - do you whinge and constantly hark back to better times, or do you get behind the team and support them in order to play your part to, hopefully, promotion?

[Arch]

We were a whisker away from getting back into the Prem.

Madejski bottled it, and now we're fighting relegation.

It wasn't Madejski bottling it when despite our +32 GD we failed to score against Ipswich, Palace, Coventry, Barnsley in March and April. A gritty performance and a goal in any one of those games would have given the final game against Birmingham a wholly different complexion. At the end of January last season, we were widely regarded as the dominant team in the Championship. The rank capitulation came after it was too late to do much, but JM still sanctioned the expensive and useless loans of Little and Kitson. To put the failure down to Madejski is a classic symptom of all that's wrong with modern football. Money is the only measure of quality, as though players putting in duff performances and showing no backbone when the going gets tough, or managers showing no initiative to solve onfield problems is in no way their own responsibility.

[Ian Royal]

In light of how the club has performed since our last relegation, both on AND off the pitch. I can see it being nothing sort of a disaster. The club have done nothing in the past few years to indicate the correct management structure is in place to deal with such situations, and I would have very little faith in the ability of our current hierarchy to do 'a Leicester' as another poster referred to.

N.B. I like how all the RTGs are now saying 'ah well, relegation won't be so bad'. Jeeeesus. Is it EVER possible to admit that the club was wrong? And has made numerous mistakes? It's all very well taking the glory and plaudits on the way up with positive momentum behind you. The real test is how you deal with things on the way down.

very few "RTGs" from what I can see are not acknowledging that mistakes have been made. They just haven't decided to beat the club with them repeatedly and lose all sense of posivity because of it.

[winchester_royal]

We were a whisker away from getting back into the Prem.

Madejski bottled it, and now we're fighting relegation.

It wasn't Madejski bottling it when despite our +32 GD we failed to score against Ipswich, Palace, Coventry, Barnsley in March and April. A gritty performance and a goal in any one of those games would have given the final game against Birmingham a wholly different complexion. At the end of January last season, we were widely regarded as the dominant team in the Championship. The rank capitulation came after it was too late to do much, but JM still sanctioned the expensive and useless loans of Little and Kitson. To put the failure down to Madejski is a classic symptom of all that's wrong with modern football. Money is the only measure of quality, as though players putting in duff performances and showing no backbone when the going gets tough, or managers showing no initiative to solve onfield problems is in no way their own responsibility.

Spot on.

Blaming Madejski for the failures of last season is beyond stupid.

[Focher]

The only tradegy for me will be the embarrasment of being in such a low division given where we were 2 years ago, other than that i just enjoy going to watch us, whichever division.

If we do go down bring on the proper grounds, better pies, better prices, better fans, and more than likely better results.

[Franchise FC]

The only tradegy for me will be the embarrasment of being in such a low division given where we were 2 years ago, other than that i just enjoy going to watch us, whichever division.

If we do go down bring on the proper grounds, better pies, better prices, better fans, and more than likely better results.

At least we won't lose any of our internationals to the African Cup of Nations.