MATCHWATCH : Harborough Town (h)

[Clyde1998]

Home to Burnley

[Mr Optimist]

Special word for the refereeing. I’ll have a pint of whatever he/they were on. A linesmen who didn’t want to make a decision and what was that American football style body check by the Harborough player down towards the South West corner about when he realised he was being outpaced and the ref gave a free kick to them.

Thought the ref was poor. Certainly didn't feel like an even playing field, with Harborough constantly being able to get away with shirt pulls and fouls that should've been yellows. He seemed much more likely to give fouls against us.

That was on Tuma IIRC. Was a total body check and cannot understand how that was given in Harborough's favour.

It was mad! It must have been 10 yards away from the ball and he just stepped across Basil (think you are right) who was easily getting to the ball before him and although 10 yards from the bye line and out wide there was only the keeper back.

[rabidbee]

Tried to post my thoughts last night, but the server had a wobble.

Fortunately, my 7yo and 5yo have absolutely no grasp of what constitutes quality, so they both loved the match - although I think the 7yo was slightly disappointed he didn't also see a penalty shoot-out.

Besides what everyone else has said here (well played Harborough, &c.), I thought today showed we are not set up or practised at being the dominant team. The few times we looked good was when we broke at speed (including when the ball wasn't played quickly enough for Wareham, so he ended up being 2 yards off before making a lovely finish). For a lot of the game we had the ball, and no idea how to work space. I was quite frustrated how slowly we were moving the ball a lot of the time. Early on, Wing played some lovely slide-rule passes that didn't quite lead to chances, but once Harborough clocked that everything was going through him they shut us down. Elliott was trying to be a playmaker, but looked quite light-weight today. We looked more balanced with Craig and Savage in midfield.

We were absolutely shocking at set-plays - I don't think you can just put it down to Ruben not knowing NL, League One is quite physical too. Their third goal was a really nice move. As for Dean, the few times he had the ball at his feet I think shows why Ruben is obviously wary of putting him on the pitch - we needlessly played ourselves really into trouble by pissing about at the back.

I was also distinctly unimpressed with the Reading fans who tried to give it the big one to the Harborough fans after we were safely 5-3 up - they're step 7 for oxf*rd's sake, we get no bragging rights.

But the main takeaway is that Jr I is super excited that we're still in the FA Cup and couldn't wait for the draw. He wasn't even gutted when we draw Burnley. The magic of the cup.

[katweslowski]

The Reading fans were absolutely dire.

The atmosphere was weird. There were some attempts at chants around Y25 but the rhythm and pace were off, if was as if it was people who has never been to a game before.

It was silent and I was embarrassed by the ridiculous chants of "you're not singing anymore" when for 87 minutes it was abysmal home support.

Said it many times recently but our club is so poorly supported. Other clubs of a size that were comparable to would have sold way more than 5000 tickets.

How many would.the likes of Coventry, Derby, Huddersfield, Portsmouth have sold?

[Sutekh]

The Reading fans were absolutely dire.

The atmosphere was weird. There were some attempts at chants around Y25 but the rhythm and pace were off, if was as if it was people who has never been to a game before.

It was silent and I was embarrassed by the ridiculous chants of "you're not singing anymore" when for 87 minutes it was abysmal home support.

Said it many times recently but our club is so poorly supported. Other clubs of a size that were comparable to would have sold way more than 5000 tickets.

How many would.the likes of Coventry, Derby, Huddersfield, Portsmouth have sold?

How many of those though are currently depressed with an owner that doesn’t give a ****, won’t sell and have a side of kids stretched to the limit with a league game at home 2 days later.

There’ll also be a naff all turn out for Burnley as it’s a dreadful dull draw with an expectation of, probably, a damp squib of an exit. Wouldn’t even expect the Burnley fan to bother with it.

[Snowflake Royal]

Special word for the refereeing. I’ll have a pint of whatever he/they were on. A linesmen who didn’t want to make a decision and what was that American football style body check by the Harborough player down towards the South West corner about when he realised he was being outpaced and the ref gave a free kick to them.

Thought the ref was poor. Certainly didn't feel like an even playing field, with Harborough constantly being able to get away with shirt pulls and fouls that should've been yellows. He seemed much more likely to give fouls against us.

That was on Tuma IIRC. Was a total body check and cannot understand how that was given in Harborough's favour.

It was mad! It must have been 10 yards away from the ball and he just stepped across Basil (think you are right) who was easily getting to the ball before him and although 10 yards from the bye line and out wide there was only the keeper back.

I thought the ref got it right to be honest. He did exactly what every defender does, get in the way of the run, and from a fair distance ahead of Tuma, and rather than try to go round him, like everyone else does, Tuma just ran through him.

[blythspartan]

I quite enjoyed the game and fair play to Harborough for having a real go. As mentioned above, I was ashamed of the chants when we were winning 5-3. I thought we had more class than that.

Burnley at home is a yawn and I can see it being a smaller crowd than we had on Sunday. Looking more forward to going to Walsall tbh.

[stealthpapes]

The Reading fans were absolutely dire.

The atmosphere was weird. There were some attempts at chants around Y25 but the rhythm and pace were off, if was as if it was people who has never been to a game before.

It was silent and I was embarrassed by the ridiculous chants of "you're not singing anymore" when for 87 minutes it was abysmal home support.

Said it many times recently but our club is so poorly supported. Other clubs of a size that were comparable to would have sold way more than 5000 tickets.

How many would.the likes of Coventry, Derby, Huddersfield, Portsmouth have sold?

Yet our away attendances are some of the highest in the league.

I think that might solve your riddle.

[Snowflake Royal]

The Reading fans were absolutely dire.

The atmosphere was weird. There were some attempts at chants around Y25 but the rhythm and pace were off, if was as if it was people who has never been to a game before.

It was silent and I was embarrassed by the ridiculous chants of "you're not singing anymore" when for 87 minutes it was abysmal home support.

Said it many times recently but our club is so poorly supported. Other clubs of a size that were comparable to would have sold way more than 5000 tickets.

How many would.the likes of Coventry, Derby, Huddersfield, Portsmouth have sold?

Yet our away attendances are some of the highest in the league.

I think that might solve your riddle.

And we had the highest attendance in R2, I believe.

Unsurprisingly, our atmosphere wasn’t great with only a few thousand in, against a club we didn't care about, throwing a party with similar numbers to us. In a game where we went behind and struggled, in a competition that only means money to us.

[katweslowski]

How many of those though are currently depressed with an owner that doesn’t give a ****, won’t sell and have a side of kids stretched to the limit with a league game at home 2 days later.

There’ll also be a naff all turn out for Burnley as it’s a dreadful dull draw with an expectation of, probably, a damp squib of an exit. Wouldn’t even expect the Burnley fan to bother with it.

It's all just excuses and I have little empathy now. We're all fed up, but the team continue to win games and do really well, with a manager who has them playing well and exciting football. We're pushing for the playoffs and have some really young, talented players.

All this "we're sick of the owners" is just a poor excuse now and all from a poor fanbase.

I'm sure if we got drawn against Arsenal at home, we'd soon see 20,000 fans suddenly appear. I know that's always going to be the case, but the attendances for all games are poor, struggling to even get to 10,000 home fans on a Saturday.

[katweslowski]

Yet our away attendances are some of the highest in the league.

I think that might solve your riddle.

What riddle?

I'm talking about home attendances but I appreciate the away figures - I haven't looked at those directly.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

To be scrupulously fair....

Harborough fans started with the "Reading's a sh1t hole, I wanna go home" in the first five minutes.

Followed by the classics "You're support is oxf*rd shit" and the timeless "is this a library?"

And who can forget their spin on the well-loved family favourite "We forgot that you were here." I bow down in front of their comedy genius.

So let's be clear: if Reading fans towards the end of the game were being annoyingly childish in their taunting of the visiting fans, it's not like they were picking on the blameless ambassadors for sporting fraternity.

[Sutekh]

How many of those though are currently depressed with an owner that doesn’t give a ****, won’t sell and have a side of kids stretched to the limit with a league game at home 2 days later.

There’ll also be a naff all turn out for Burnley as it’s a dreadful dull draw with an expectation of, probably, a damp squib of an exit. Wouldn’t even expect the Burnley fan to bother with it.

It's all just excuses and I have little empathy now. We're all fed up, but the team continue to win games and do really well, with a manager who has them playing well and exciting football. We're pushing for the playoffs and have some really young, talented players.

All this "we're sick of the owners" is just a poor excuse now and all from a poor fanbase.

I'm sure if we got drawn against Arsenal at home, we'd soon see 20,000 fans suddenly appear. I know that's always going to be the case, but the attendances for all games are poor, struggling to even get to 10,000 home fans on a Saturday.

Good enough to get the biggest FA Cup crowd over the weekend though, 7916 around 1600 more than the next highest for Peterborough v Notts County.

[bcubed]

To be scrupulously fair....

Harborough fans started with the "Reading's a sh1t hole, I wanna go home" in the first five minutes.

Followed by the classics "You're support is oxf*rd shit" and the timeless "is this a library?"

And who can forget their spin on the well-loved family favourite "We forgot that you were here." I bow down in front of their comedy genius.

So let's be clear: if Reading fans towards the end of the game were being annoyingly childish in their taunting of the visiting fans, it's not like they were picking on the blameless ambassadors for sporting fraternity.

Football fans in banal tedious and over familiar chants shock...

[stealthpapes]

Yet our away attendances are some of the highest in the league.

I think that might solve your riddle.

What riddle?

I'm talking about home attendances but I appreciate the away figures - I haven't looked at those directly.

Both my own experiences and the attendance data makes me think there's maybe a good few hundred to a few thousand fans who attend away days but won't go to home games, particularly ones in the cups.

Ownership changes, this changes.

[Mr Optimist]

To be scrupulously fair....

Harborough fans started with the "Reading's a sh1t hole, I wanna go home" in the first five minutes.

Followed by the classics "You're support is oxf*rd shit" and the timeless "is this a library?"

And who can forget their spin on the well-loved family favourite "We forgot that you were here." I bow down in front of their comedy genius.

So let's be clear: if Reading fans towards the end of the game were being annoyingly childish in their taunting of the visiting fans, it's not like they were picking on the blameless ambassadors for sporting fraternity.

Football fans in banal tedious and over familiar chants shock...

I just put that down to most of them being Leicester fans who are not known for their originality and sparkling wit. I couldn’t really hear Y25 but hope they gave them a “5-3 in your cup final”. It was like a cliche songbook from the plucky non-leaguers, still they cheered loudly when they got a thrown on, and they had a nice day out I’m sure.

[stealthpapes]

At least two Harborough fans in attendance were Leicester fans from Brum. Cheers lads!

[Snowflake Royal]

Yet our away attendances are some of the highest in the league.

I think that might solve your riddle.

What riddle?

I'm talking about home attendances but I appreciate the away figures - I haven't looked at those directly.

You have unrealistic expectations for our home attendances under the circumstances.