Memries of Reading Pt. 3

[grafikhaus]

As I've got some time on my hands after doing Memries of Barnet...

Top scorer Bődvarsson is extremely doubtful for this match as he has been affected by injuries since September and second-highest scorer Meite has been struggling to complete 90 minutes for a few weeks.

As ever, not a game to set the pulses racing. Our last meeting was on 27th February 2018 when we won 3-1 at The Madejski Stadium with goals from Sharp (2) and Duffy in front of the second-lowest league crowd of the season (6,769).

​

That win would see us climb to 6th in the table but indifferent late-season form meant that we wouldn’t see those heights again. Here are my previous ramblings about our games with Reading:

https://www.s24su.com/forum/index.php?threads/memries-of-reading.59026/

https://www.s24su.com/forum/index.php?threads/memries-of-reading-pt-2.62611/

To date, our League Record v Reading:

Home: P: 19 W: 8 D: 6 L: 5 F: 30 A: 19

Away: P:19 W: 8 D: 1 L: 10 F: 24 A: 23

Championship Table:

United go into this game in sixth place while Reading are in 21st place with 18 points.


Full Championship Table (West Brom v Aston Villa – playing Friday 7th December)

Form Guide:

Based on the last six league games (oldest first),

Full Championship Form Guide

Not much between the teams with United in 13th spot and Reading in 17th.


Reading Top Scorers:


The Manager:

In March 2018, Paul Clement was appointed Reading manager.

​

Significant Others:

Marc McNulty played 40 games for the Blades, scoring ten goals before being loaned out to Portsmouth by Chris Wilder. We eventually sold him to Coventry on 18th May 2017 where he prospered. He scored 23 goals in 42 goals for the Sky Blues. He was sold to Reading on 6th July 2018 and finally scored his first goal for Reading last Saturday in a 2-2 draw at home to Stoke City.

​

Dave Kitson played 135 games for Reading between 2003 and 2008, scoring 54 goals. After spells at Stoke, Middlesbrough and Portsmouth, Kitson joined United on 31st August 2012, playing 33 league games and scoring a creditable 11 goals in the 2012-13 season. Despite finishing this season in fifth place, this was a period of transition for the Blades which saw Danny Wilson replaced as manager for Chris Morgan as caretaker manager.

​

We ended the season losing out in the play-offs to…Yeovil.

 

[Houston_Blade]

McNulty will score.

 

[Stretch]

Yep, agree that McNulty is nailed on to score but so will we. Confident we can put these away.

 

[Houston_Blade]

My prediction is 3-1, back to all being rosy in the garden and us being the best team in the world again until the next time we don't win.

 

[CarlingBlade]

My memories are the most blatent penalty i've ever seen for a foul on Keef, Paddy should have been sent off in the same match, a very HOT 0-1 loss on the opening day of the 1996 season (Jimmy Quinn last minute) and their (new) ground being the most boring shithole i've had the missfortune to go to (twice).

 

[Silent Blade]

Baldock v Baldock

When was the last time we had a player playing against his brother?

 

[BushBlade]

Baldock v Baldock

When was the last time we had a player playing against his brother?

Well if you don’t know.....

 

[LoughboroBlade]

Our last meeting was on 27th February 2018 when we won 3-1 at The Madejski Stadium with goals from Sharp (2) and Duffy in front of the second-lowest league crowd of the season (6,769).

The coldest game I’ve been to, in an eerily empty Madejski. But absolutely worth it for the Duffy goal and quality Sharp 2nd.

McNulty will score.

Till last weekend he was Marc McNoGoals. I don’t think he will score, despite the tendency of former players to do so.

 

[Sean Thornton]

My prediction is 3-1, back to all being rosy in the garden and us being the best team in the world again until the next time we don't win.

Hardly a risky opinion is it?

 

[Salfordblade]

Have a vague alcohol dimmed memory of an unbelievable Shaka Hislop save from a Nathan Blake header back in the September of the 94/95 season...lost 1-0. Crap ground, proper sesh beforehand.

 

[Jehovah]

Full weekend down in reading for me meeting my brother who lives there. We're going to go into kidney punch overdrive.

 

[Silent Blade]

Baldock v Baldock

When was the last time we had a player playing against his brother?

Well if you don’t know.....

Chris and Terry Nicholl when we lost 4-1 at Villa in the FA Cup in January 1975. Steve and Alan Quinn have played each other a few times when we played Ipswich. Dont know if there were more cases

 

[Cheets]

Chris and Terry Nicholl when we lost 4-1 at Villa in the FA Cup in January 1975. Steve and Alan Quinn have played each other a few times when we played Ipswich. Dont know if there were more cases

I remember David Holdsworth playing against his twin, Dean, playing for Bolton. Either late 90s or early noughties?

 

[Silent Blade]

I remember David Holdsworth playing against his twin, Dean, playing for Bolton. Either late 90s or early noughties?

 

[blade53]

W hen we were promoted to the Premiere League along with Reading , does anybody remember some Reading fans calling in at the Bramall Lane car park on the way back from their game to celebrate with us.

 

[drinksmat]

Should be a bit warmer than the game earlier this year.

 

[Deleted member 1486]

Reading is a shit hole. A couple tried to rob us outside the train station over the summer. Thankfully those trying to do the robbing were imminently identifiable as smack heads, so as they hovered around us we were on to them (they still hung around around our bags/suitcases for 5 minutes and pretended to have a conversation, while we glared at them).

(not football related I know, I just felt the need to share).

 

[benn5712]

My birthday this weekend. Last birthday Blades took Brizzle apart - Duffy was terrific, as was their first goal - and proceeded to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. Alright then, the jaws of a draw.
Always ruin birthdays, and loads of other occasions to be honest.
Anyways. It's my party and I'll cry if I want too.

Was going to make the trip but instead will be watching from the pub.
UTB and a safe journey to travelling Bladesmen/women/jcb-gt others.

 

[Bannerman]

Remember being at their old ground when Les Tibbott chased a ball toward the sideline and was shoved hard in the back by one of their players causing him to smash into the stand at full pelt.
As he lay there being attended by the trainer my mate turns to me and says " That's problem with Tibbott, too injury prone ".
I pointed out that he'd just crashed into a concrete stand at speed but to no avail. he was too soft apparently.

 

[e17blade]

I got turned away from Elm Park once as the policeman on the turnstiles said my crutches “could be used as weapons”.

I pointed out that I had my leg in plaster and that even if I wanted to use them as weapons I wouldn’t be able to catch anyone. He just said that I might lend them to someone else so I still couldn’t go in.

In the end his senior officer came over and told him to stop being so stupid.

We had already been to a pub where a man playing the piano stopped when we walked in like a saloon bar in a western movie.

It was an odd night out.

 

[grafikhaus]

Remember being at their old ground when Les Tibbott chased a ball toward the sideline and was shoved hard in the back by one of their players causing him to smash into the stand at full pelt.
As he lay there being attended by the trainer my mate turns to me and says " That's problem with Tibbott, too injury prone ".
I pointed out that he'd just crashed into a concrete stand at speed but to no avail. he was too soft apparently.

Then there was this from January 21, 2007.

Reading (1) 3 Sheffield United (0) 1

Three sendings-off yet only one of them a player. Expect the unexpected whenever Neil Warnock and his team come to town. This was a game that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Sheffield United and Reading may have been promoted together as friends but there was no love lost yesterday in a match that exploded just after half-time resulting in Warnock, Reading first-team coach Wally Downes and Sheffield substitute Keith Gillespie, who had only been on the pitch for 15 seconds, all being dismissed in two minutes.

Nothing in a keenly contested but relatively trouble-free first half had suggested the ugly sequence of events that was to follow. Mark Halsey had little choice but to issue a straight red to Gillespie for a dangerous off-the-ball elbow on Stephen Hunt, the player who was involved, ironically, in Petr Cech' s horrendous head injury.

Gillespie had not even touched the ball but the fracas which then erupted had to be seen to be believed. Officials of both teams stormed off their respective benches to become embroiled in an unsavoury free-for-all. Warnock was sent from the dug-out for adopting an "aggressive attitude" and Downes for pushing.

Warnock was dismissed the last time he brought his team here and has a history of altercation with Downes. He had no qualms about Gillespie getting his marching orders but was unhappy about his own treatment.

"Keith let us down," he said. "You can't get away with what he did but sometimes I feel reputations follow you around. In my case, all I did was lift my foot to complain to Mark Halsey about a Steve Sidwell foul which I thought was the worst of the game.

"Wally got carried away and came barging into me saying I was trying to tell people to break legs which is absolute garbage. But Mark probably had to send us off to calm it down because it was mayhem."

Steve Coppell said he would not be taking any action against his No 2, insisting Downes had simply reacted to provocation. "I've got no problem with what Wally did. That's not to say others might have and I'm sure there will be repercussions. It's a shame because I'd prefer the emphasis to be on how well we did given the fact we had a number of late knockbacks through injury and illness." Link

Stephen Hunt. Full-weight twat. Wally Downes. Full-weight cunt.

 

[Bannerman]

Then there was this from January 21, 2007.

Reading (1) 3 Sheffield United (0) 1

Three sendings-off yet only one of them a player. Expect the unexpected whenever Neil Warnock and his team come to town. This was a game that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Sheffield United and Reading may have been promoted together as friends but there was no love lost yesterday in a match that exploded just after half-time resulting in Warnock, Reading first-team coach Wally Downes and Sheffield substitute Keith Gillespie, who had only been on the pitch for 15 seconds, all being dismissed in two minutes.

Nothing in a keenly contested but relatively trouble-free first half had suggested the ugly sequence of events that was to follow. Mark Halsey had little choice but to issue a straight red to Gillespie for a dangerous off-the-ball elbow on Stephen Hunt, the player who was involved, ironically, in Petr Cech' s horrendous head injury.

Gillespie had not even touched the ball but the fracas which then erupted had to be seen to be believed. Officials of both teams stormed off their respective benches to become embroiled in an unsavoury free-for-all. Warnock was sent from the dug-out for adopting an "aggressive attitude" and Downes for pushing.

Warnock was dismissed the last time he brought his team here and has a history of altercation with Downes. He had no qualms about Gillespie getting his marching orders but was unhappy about his own treatment.

"Keith let us down," he said. "You can't get away with what he did but sometimes I feel reputations follow you around. In my case, all I did was lift my foot to complain to Mark Halsey about a Steve Sidwell foul which I thought was the worst of the game.

"Wally got carried away and came barging into me saying I was trying to tell people to break legs which is absolute garbage. But Mark probably had to send us off to calm it down because it was mayhem."

Steve Coppell said he would not be taking any action against his No 2, insisting Downes had simply reacted to provocation. "I've got no problem with what Wally did. That's not to say others might have and I'm sure there will be repercussions. It's a shame because I'd prefer the emphasis to be on how well we did given the fact we had a number of late knockbacks through injury and illness." Link

Stephen Hunt. Full-weight twat. Wally Downes. Full-weight cunt.

Have to agree with your descriptions of Hunt and Downes, you are a fine judge of character sir. My only quibble being that I would swap the epithets, as Hunt rhymes with cunt .

Gillespies sending off must be a record in terms of time spent on the pitch before dismissal?

I was at the game at Stamford Bridge when Vinnie Jones got booked after 5 seconds of the kick off.

So fastest red card and fastest yellow card!

Meks you proud to be a Blade

 

[grafikhaus]

Have to agree with your descriptions of Hunt and Downes, you are a fine judge of character sir. My only quibble being that I would swap the epithets, as Hunt rhymes with cunt .

Gillespies sending off must be a record in terms of time spent on the pitch before dismissal?

I was at the game at Stamford Bridge when Vinnie Jones got booked after 5 seconds of the kick off.

So fastest red card and fastest yellow card!

Meks you proud to be a Blade

The old brain is going, but surely Vinnie was booked after 5 seconds at Maine Road and then got sent off shortly after (Jan. 19th, 1991)?


Vinnie Jones was once booked THREE seconds into a game, for a foul against Sheffield United's Dane Whitehouse, while he played for Chelsea. At the time this earned him a record for the quickest ever yellow card. Link

But...Fastest red card: 13 seconds - Kevin Pressman Sheffield Wednesday v Wolverhampton Wanderers, 12 August 2000 (handball outside the box).

 

[Bannerman]

The old brain is going, but surely Vinnie was booked after 5 seconds at Maine Road and then got sent off shortly after (Jan. 19th, 1991)?


Vinnie Jones was once booked THREE seconds into a game, for a foul against Sheffield United's Dane Whitehouse, while he played for Chelsea. At the time this earned him a record for the quickest ever yellow card. Link

But...Fastest red card: 13 seconds - Kevin Pressman Sheffield Wednesday v Wolverhampton Wanderers, 12 August 2000 (handball outside the box).

Well your brain may be going, but mines apparently gone! Yes you're right, he was booked against us while playing for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. I wouldn't mind too much but I was at the game!

If I remember correctly ( and it's a big IF obviously ) Wednesday were away at Arsenal the same day and lost 7-1. This resulted in me nearly having our car run off the road on the way back up the M1.

Being aware of the score from Highbury and realising that we'd meet up with some of those numptys on the way home I decided ( smartarse that I am ) to buy a soft drink in a can for the journey.

Somewhere around Leicester we caught up with a mini van full of that lot all covered with scarves. We also had colours showing and as we drove past they started shouting and giving us the finger. At which point I slowly lifted up my can to take a sip. I don't even like 7 Up but they must have really hated it because they drove out of their lane straight at us! Luckily my mate who was driving saw what was happening and shifted us out of there , I'll not tell you what he suggested I do with the can. People can be very harsh at times.