Player 13 - the only player more embarrassing than Long

[Millsy]

OUR SUPPORT IS F**KING SH*T.

Throw your toys out the pram all you like those who disagree, but you're wrong and I don't care if this thread p*sses you off.

East stand, you make the old Southbank chantstarters sick that you're allowed in the ground.

Not fit to wear the hoops. Not fit to sit in the East Stand. Not fit to call yourself Reading fans like the generations above you who sung at the tops of our voices to help lift the team from the depths of English football to where we are now.

Why not be part of the solution and try to identify why the support falls short of your standards, why it is important to you that we have those standards, what exactly those standards are and finally suggest measures which could be incorporated into a plan in order to reach a desired standard.

Personally, I think alcohol helps a crowd lose their inhibitions and start chanting - you only have to look at the number of cars queued up to depart the stadium after the game (of 5 mins before the final whistle) to see that a large percentage of our fans are not drinking.

Falls short because our fans demand to be entertained and are too bloody thick to realise the effect the crowd has on the players, despite countless managers and players harping on about the tremendous positive impact at every opportunity as well as the sheer common sense of anyone with an IQ above 80.

Important because I want to see Reading win and every little helps. See above.

Standard is to be at least as loud if not louder than the away fans. Ideally have a core section of the crowd who produce a significant amount of supportive noise for large proportions of the game.

Measures to be incorporated: reserved seating is the biggest factor in my opinion as a chantstarter of many years in the fearsome Southbank that killed the atmosphere. A stand with non-reserved seating might help (over time). As would possibly a stand earmarked for chanters. The drum is a good try, but too little too far. I disagree with alcohol - a filthy drug which should be banned everywhere let alone at footy matches, and I've never needed it to be the loudest mouth in the stands for many seasons, so I'd never advocate that as a solution but I like the thought process and agree people have inhibitions. On the inhibition front I'd suggest people attending with groups of friends where individuality dissipates, making it much easier to start and join chants. But then you can't just turn up at a footy match and migrate towards your mates or towards other likeminded loud people you know, bringing me back to the point about reserved seating.

Oh, and being fearless and vocal on HNA making the point in a way that is likely irritate the plastics but generate some debate IS trying to be part of the solution.

[Snowball]

How is regurgitating "Long is embarrassing" being part of the solution?

On one hand you argue cogently that we need to support the players (through chanting)

On the other you just LOVE to keep digging at a a fairly young man when all he needs is a dab of confidence to turn the corner

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

I was sat in Y25 abd it has to be said that Leeds showed us how to support your team, that said....nealry everyone around me was a Leeds supporter!.....15000 RFC the rest where infiltrators...

So just like the Southbank most weeks.

[It Is What It Is]

Small children screaming random things and making comments about how long is left of the last minute on the board = GTFO

[madreadingfan]

If we were allowed to stand in Y25/6 areas like a safe-stading zone, it will most definitely boost the atmosphere right up...

Along with Sweet Caroline before the match!!

[Snowball]

If we were allowed to stand in Y25/6 areas like a safe-stading zone, it will most definitely boost the atmosphere right up...

Along with Sweet Caroline before the match!!

Agree that sitting down makes it a lot harder to get really energised to chant.

[Svlad Cjelli]

So what's the great surprise? Has anything changed from the way it's always been?

Apart from the basic fact that supporters who travel are almost always noisier than those who don't (because they're the motivated ones who can be arsed to travel 400 miles to watch a football match), head for head large city clubs with predominantly working class support will always be louder and more raucous than provincial clubs with predominantly middle class support.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Standard is to be at least as loud if not louder than the away fans.

How often does that happen anywhere these days?

Measures to be incorporated: reserved seating is the biggest factor in my opinion as a chantstarter of many years in the fearsome Southbank that killed the atmosphere.

I'd say it's more to do with the kind of people that are there. Think back to the Elm Park days, and the sort of people who stood in the noisy 3rd of the south bank tended to be more youthful and boisterous. Move along the south bank and the fans got older, and older still in the Tilehurst End and the North Stand.

At the Madejski, all types are pretty much mixed together.

And unreserved seating wouldn't work for one reason - beer. The kind of fans you really need to be in there at least half an hour early to get the atmosphere going are the kind who are likely to be drinking right up until kick-off, if not beyond.

[LWJ]

Can we have a 16+ age limit in y25/6? Get rid of the little sh1ts so we can have some proper football banter without distressed parents complaining. Tried standing at the bottom of y26 against leeds. Fans behind me decided they would rather lean round me than stand up as well.. cpunts.

[biscuitman]

Tried standing at the bottom of y26 against leeds. Fans behind me decided they would rather lean round me than stand up as well.. cpunts.

Try and get a ticket at the top of Y26...?

[SLAMMED]

How is regurgitating "Long is embarrassing" being part of the solution?

On one hand you argue cogently that we need to support the players (through chanting)

On the other you just LOVE to keep digging at a a fairly young man when all he needs is a dab of confidence to turn the corner

Why don't you just fucking marry him...

[Snowball]

How is regurgitating "Long is embarrassing" being part of the solution?

On one hand you argue cogently that we need to support the players (through chanting)

On the other you just LOVE to keep digging at a a fairly young man when all he needs is a dab of confidence to turn the corner

Why don't you just fucking marry him...

Because I love YOU, and always will, darling

[SLAMMED]

[Snowball]

Look, it pisses me right off that so much of the list is negative
and that various players in turn are pilloried by cowards.

But what is even more ridiculous and condemnable is when a totally
unrelated thread is poisoned by the title.

2WW doesn't seem to get that while he starts a thread which bemoans "poor support"
he AT THE SAME TIME spreads the ill-will, the demotivations by including a frankly
stupid remark about Long (it could have been any player) when the player is not
a referent in the thread. 2WW is simply INVITING a shitty reply.

So 2WW while bemoaning a lack of support is at the same time, however slightly undermining the support he says he cares about.

Nobody can pretend that these boards have no affect on player morale. The fact that the manager and at least one player has come out to publicly defend the player, and the player responded with a gesture at QPR means they ARE aware, and, however slightly, the pathetic, cowardly, uninformed bleating of a hundred band-wagon-hopping nobodies DOES affect the team.

Professional sportsmen are thoroughbreds, they need to be near 100% right to perform well. 1% off and they are "OK" 3% off and they are pretty much useless. The lines are fine.

And PLEASE don't come back with the usual bollox line that they are professionals and should rise above it.

YOU are all professionals. How would you like it if almost every day emails were circulating about you being total shit? Do you think you would keep performing at your maximum? Get real!!


I have no problem with CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. What I detest is the MANNER, the BILE, the VITRIOL, the "cuteness".

When a player becomes the next target (and there have been plenty) Kebe, Bikey, Rosenior, Cummings (Cummings whose confidence was completely shot to pieces)... it isn't that we can't complain, or shouldn't complain or argue, say that Church should play instead of Long (or whatever).. it's the way you all seem to treat human beings as pieces of meat. You sound like rednecks talking about raping a black woman for sport.

[Yellowcoat]

Well said. Too many on here seem to forget it is a TEAM game.

[sandman]

It is a team game up to the penalty area at which point the guy at the front has to finish it.

[LoyalRoyalFan]

This is a atmosphere-related thread and you keep bringing up Shane Long.

Our atmosphere isn't bad and certainly isn't the worst in the league. We can create a decent atmosphere on our day.

/end of thread.

[winchester_royal]

How does your opinion end the thread?

[roadrunner]

OUR SUPPORT IS F**KING SH*T.

Throw your toys out the pram all you like those who disagree, but you're wrong and I don't care if this thread p*sses you off.

East stand, you make the old Southbank chantstarters sick that you're allowed in the ground.

Not fit to wear the hoops. Not fit to sit in the East Stand. Not fit to call yourself Reading fans like the generations above you who sung at the tops of our voices to help lift the team from the depths of English football to where we are now.

Agree, but curious as to where you sit? I mentioned recently how there were 4000 Leeds fans singing away and just 200 of ours singing back while everyone around me in Y26 just sat there not watching the football, watching the Leeds fans! Why can't those silent spastics just join in as well instead of sit in awe of other supporters? Our support is awful.

[SLAMMED]

Look, it pisses me right off that so much of the list is negative
and that various players in turn are pilloried by cowards.

But what is even more ridiculous and condemnable is when a totally
unrelated thread is poisoned by the title.

2WW doesn't seem to get that while he starts a thread which bemoans "poor support"
he AT THE SAME TIME spreads the ill-will, the demotivations by including a frankly
stupid remark about Long (it could have been any player) when the player is not
a referent in the thread. 2WW is simply INVITING a shitty reply.

So 2WW while bemoaning a lack of support is at the same time, however slightly undermining the support he says he cares about.

Nobody can pretend that these boards have no affect on player morale. The fact that the manager and at least one player has come out to publicly defend the player, and the player responded with a gesture at QPR means they ARE aware, and, however slightly, the pathetic, cowardly, uninformed bleating of a hundred band-wagon-hopping nobodies DOES affect the team.

Professional sportsmen are thoroughbreds, they need to be near 100% right to perform well. 1% off and they are "OK" 3% off and they are pretty much useless. The lines are fine.

And PLEASE don't come back with the usual bollox line that they are professionals and should rise above it.

YOU are all professionals. How would you like it if almost every day emails were circulating about you being total shit? Do you think you would keep performing at your maximum? Get real!!


I have no problem with CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. What I detest is the MANNER, the BILE, the VITRIOL, the "cuteness".

When a player becomes the next target (and there have been plenty) Kebe, Bikey, Rosenior, Cummings (Cummings whose confidence was completely shot to pieces)... it isn't that we can't complain, or shouldn't complain or argue, say that Church should play instead of Long (or whatever).. it's the way you all seem to treat human beings as pieces of meat. You sound like rednecks talking about raping a black woman for sport.

Stick to stats m8.

You sound like a whining little girl when you try and argue.