The worst performance since........

[South Coast Royal]

There have been many that were much worse than on Tuesday night.

3 that come to mind:-

THAT Oxford game already mentioned (my in-laws lived about 400 yards from the Manor Ground and were OTT sympathetic after the game).

Reading 0 Bristol Rovers 6 (the only good thing to come out of the game was the later signing of the original "What a bargain").

Reading 0 Huddersfield 0 (so much at stake but so little shown on the pitch in surely one of the dullest games that Wembley has ever witnessed )

[Sutekh]

There have been many that were much worse than on Tuesday night.

3 that come to mind:-

THAT Oxford game already mentioned (my in-laws lived about 400 yards from the Manor Ground and were OTT sympathetic after the game).

Reading 0 Bristol Rovers 6 (the only good thing to come out of the game was the later signing of the original "What a bargain").

Reading 0 Huddersfield 0 (so much at stake but so little shown on the pitch in surely one of the dullest games that Wembley has ever witnessed )

The archetypal "how not to play football in a final", two sides with awful managers who just didn't want to lose and so absolutely zero ambition was ever shown on the pitch - particularly by Stam/Reading - it was a total travesty whoever won and a penalty shoot out lost in style about summed the whole ridiculous farce up. Afterwards I'd seriously have considered reprieving whoever finished 20th in the PL and keeping both finalists down for taking the **** or bringing the game into disrepute.

[Orion1871]

There have been many that were much worse than on Tuesday night.

3 that come to mind:-

THAT Oxford game already mentioned (my in-laws lived about 400 yards from the Manor Ground and were OTT sympathetic after the game).

Reading 0 Bristol Rovers 6 (the only good thing to come out of the game was the later signing of the original "What a bargain").

Reading 0 Huddersfield 0 (so much at stake but so little shown on the pitch in surely one of the dullest games that Wembley has ever witnessed )

Never forget that Reading were drawing that game 0-0 at half time.

[East Grinstead Royal]

I forget the details now, but I remember arriving home from an absolute stinker of an away evening match at Colchester and venting my anger onHNA over Mad Dog’s contribution to the club. No idea why I blamed him more than Pardew, but something he had either said or done really wound me up. I’ve never been as angry over a Reading performance as I was that night.

[MR. CYNICAL]

Thing is there is a difference between worst performance and worst result, yes, that play off final v Udders was bad but we never lost over the ninety minutes, a positive result usually disguises a poor performance but there is nothing worse than losing with a poor performance.

[Clyde1998]

Thing is there is a difference between worst performance and worst result, yes, that play off final v Udders was bad but we never lost over the ninety minutes, a positive result usually disguises a poor performance but there is nothing worse than losing with a poor performance.

I'm not sure it was a bad performance, per se: the players seemed to execute their instructions without fail and achieved the objective of the tactics (aside from losing the penalty shootout). The tactical decisions and the spectacle was completely horrific though.

[tmesis]

Oxford away in 1998, finally sealing the taxi’s fate.

I think the 0-3 at home to Port Vale, just before, was worse, but I've seldom been as angry about a performance as that night in Oxford.

Thanks, yes so bad it was blotted out of my mind…

Remember now the after match pitch invasion, triggered by one bloke running on and sitting in the centre circle, calling for the taxi to go, and then the chant that really blanched JM “new ground, no fans”. He still said something to the crowd afterwards about not being bowed by mob rule though

Was that the worst ever season? I think so! First Q&G sacked, after pulling off miracles season after season with usual JM el cheapo budget, to be replaced with a no one who all the fans were calling out as being not up to it within a month of the kick off then he brought in El Tel’s no 2 from Barcelona to help out but that just seemed to make things even worse. To further stick it to Q&G the taxi, as he became known after a rather mistaken comment in the local media, was given a budget the like of which they’d been asking for for years but were never trusted with and some fairly decent players arrived that the management went onto to completely ruin with some very weird tactics (if there were ever any tactics in the first place). For example Asaba, a pacey rather useful striker who thrived on balls being banged into channels for him to run on to yet, because he was tall, I seem to remember a lot of banging the ball at his head for some reason making him look a real plank. Steve Swales arrived to compete with Andy Legg, could never work out which was the more hopeless - at least Legg had a mammoth throw on him to at least create panic in opposition defences if used properly though. Caskey seemed to get dumped out of the team more often than not, especially when the final clown masterstroke was played and Michael O’Neill arrived on loan

Then the season ended with arrival of Tommy Burns, the first of the lovely fellas but didn’t seem to have a clue about English lower league football and cue yet more money wasted over the following 6 months.

Honestly it was the most key time in the history of the club yet it was the time that JM made his biggest **** ups as chairman. He should never have binned Q&G as they’d have kept Reading up that season esp. with the money el taxi was given. OK he had spent much of the close season trying to get Burns in, and that might have worked with him at the higher level, but his backup plan seemed to be non existent when he should have been looking for an experienced safe pair of hands.

Quinn and Gooding were in the odd position of having their contracts run out, rather than actually being sacked. After two years of hovering around the drop zone, they were really being hailed as heroes, and the though of many, do doubt, is that we could get someone better in. Bernd Schuster wanted the job, but also wanted a bigger budget than we were ever going to offer.

The odd thing was that with 17 games to go we looked in no real danger of the drop, then it all just fell apart in spectacular style, losing 15 of those 17, as well as losing our first FA Cup 5th round tie for 60 years, away at Sheffield United in the 90th minute. On a Friday night.

[Sutekh]

I think the 0-3 at home to Port Vale, just before, was worse, but I've seldom been as angry about a performance as that night in Oxford.

Thanks, yes so bad it was blotted out of my mind…

Remember now the after match pitch invasion, triggered by one bloke running on and sitting in the centre circle, calling for the taxi to go, and then the chant that really blanched JM “new ground, no fans”. He still said something to the crowd afterwards about not being bowed by mob rule though

Was that the worst ever season? I think so! First Q&G sacked, after pulling off miracles season after season with usual JM el cheapo budget, to be replaced with a no one who all the fans were calling out as being not up to it within a month of the kick off then he brought in El Tel’s no 2 from Barcelona to help out but that just seemed to make things even worse. To further stick it to Q&G the taxi, as he became known after a rather mistaken comment in the local media, was given a budget the like of which they’d been asking for for years but were never trusted with and some fairly decent players arrived that the management went onto to completely ruin with some very weird tactics (if there were ever any tactics in the first place). For example Asaba, a pacey rather useful striker who thrived on balls being banged into channels for him to run on to yet, because he was tall, I seem to remember a lot of banging the ball at his head for some reason making him look a real plank. Steve Swales arrived to compete with Andy Legg, could never work out which was the more hopeless - at least Legg had a mammoth throw on him to at least create panic in opposition defences if used properly though. Caskey seemed to get dumped out of the team more often than not, especially when the final clown masterstroke was played and Michael O’Neill arrived on loan

Then the season ended with arrival of Tommy Burns, the first of the lovely fellas but didn’t seem to have a clue about English lower league football and cue yet more money wasted over the following 6 months.

Honestly it was the most key time in the history of the club yet it was the time that JM made his biggest **** ups as chairman. He should never have binned Q&G as they’d have kept Reading up that season esp. with the money el taxi was given. OK he had spent much of the close season trying to get Burns in, and that might have worked with him at the higher level, but his backup plan seemed to be non existent when he should have been looking for an experienced safe pair of hands.

Quinn and Gooding were in the odd position of having their contracts run out, rather than actually being sacked. After two years of hovering around the drop zone, they were really being hailed as heroes, and the though of many, do doubt, is that we could get someone better in. Bernd Schuster wanted the job, but also wanted a bigger budget than we were ever going to offer.

The odd thing was that with 17 games to go we looked in no real danger of the drop, then it all just fell apart in spectacular style, losing 15 of those 17, as well as losing our first FA Cup 5th round tie for 60 years, away at Sheffield United in the 90th minute. On a Friday night.

Forgot about Schuster. At the end of the day it would probably been cheaper for JM if he had appointed him! Probably would have drawn a lot more sponsorship and interest from the media with Bernd running things too!

[Ark Royal]

27.11.90 Aldershot 3 Reading 1. Leyland Daf thingy. We were truly shocking and what made it memorable was that I remember leaving the ground seriously considering packing it in.