The journey is more often than not far more enjoyable than the
destination. The commute into work, the slow process of getting drunk
rather than actually being drunk and watching The Dark Knight Rises are all disappointing testament to this.
Oh, as is promotion to the Premier League, which the comparison with the commute to work is probably most apt.
Flying through on green lights/ tearing apart all-comers? Check.
Dreams of endless possibilities that can be achieved in the day/season to come? Check.
Ultimate disappointment and looking forward to getting home/back to the Championship? Checkity, check, check.
And so we come to the last day of this season with Reading battling to secure a play-off place which a win against Burnley on Saturday will secure.
But is promotion really something we, as fans, would or, perhaps should, want?
In the optimistic aftermath of our last two promotions, Reading fans were rightly hopeful of achieving a modicum of success in the top flight. The glorious 2005/06 season where records were smashed and the 2011/12 campaign where we came from nowhere to win the title both hinted at a long-term plan and a team capable of competing at a higher level.
The promises of the 106 season proved to exceed expectations - albeit for one season - while the 2012/13 Premier League season probably paints a better picture of what we should expect if we were to win the most unexpected of promotions this season.
The feeling throughout the 2011/12 season throughout the superb second half of the campaign was when our opponents were going to find out our limitations and exploit them and this season, our form has been even worse yet somehow we are in the play-off picture.
With all due respect, this squad is not as good as the 2011/12 season let alone the 2005/06 vintage - though possessing the trademark character and strength of will associated with a lot of Reading teams so far this century - so what could we expect in the Premier League next season?
Presumably, with no investment looking likely, weekly batterings, non-existent confidence in the squad and relegation by early April would probably be a fair assessment.
Furthermore, if the club does get promoted and is suddenly far more attractive to an oversea moneybags buyer a) what chance fair and due diligence will be done on them in the rush to get some cash and b) how likely is it to expect funding to be in place for new signings outside of a late August, Crystal Palace-style splurgefest last summer which Tony Pulis has proven to have been completely futile?
Football may well be about the glory, but those who cannot see a long-term plan and decry anyone not wanting promotion immediately to be unambitious are themselves incredibly naive.
I would be delighted with a play-off place and even a play-off final as it can be enjoyed stress-free with no desire for promotion, similar to the Swansea play-off final in 2011 which was nowhere near as heartbreaking as 1995 or 2001, no matter what anyone says.
A few years at Championship level building properly and steadily is no bad thing. The clubs more successful at establishing themselves in the Premier League in recent years - Wigan, Stoke, Swansea - spent a few years in the Championship laying the foundations of becoming a Premier League team.
We've had the chance twice, but failed to take it for one reason or another. This time around, we have a talented crop of youngters coming through which, coupled with Nigel Adkins' track record of blooding young players, bodes well for long-term building with the right leadership from the board.
But that's another issue for another day.
Monday 28 April 2014
Saturday 26 April 2014
Amazing Greys with their hammer of comeuppance
Do you know what's cracking good fun? Laughing at other people and TV show creators just know it.
Many modern entertainment programmes are based exactly on that premise, making us all feel better about ourselves as we sit watching TV every night getting slowly older, balder and full of aches which must be nothing...not worth bothering the doctor about surely.
The Only Way Is Essex? Ha, they lack primary school level syntax. Deal Or No Deal? Chortle, some people think chanting will change what they will find in a box. The Jeremy Kyle Show? Well, you get the picture.
Laughing at social groups or 'show title first, show format second'. That's the secret to TV success. I know the rules, but just don't want to exploit them to my own ends...
Amazing Greys (ho, ho) fits both of those categories - a pun title and the mild titillating thrill that you'll get to laugh at a segment of the social strata - this time the older generation.
The premise of the show is a strapping young person, cocksure and fancy-free, strides on to Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway stage (decorated slightly differently) to take on a series of challenges where he or she will take on a person who experienced food rationing, the Suez Crisis and men always wearing great hats.
Said young person is seemingly encouraged to make a series of thrusting pronouncements the jist of which he will beat someone who has 50 years on him/her at any game - making them look less confident and more of a bullying 'banter-saurus'.
The show sets you up to think the young person will sweep all before them and take home £10,000. I mean, look at the opposition. Take a good, long look at them. They're old! They like slippers and read the Daily Express and wear fantastically ironed trousers.
But, wait, hold the phone, all is not as it would seem. This older generation are all experts in their fields (like a 1940s-born version of Eggheads but far less annoying). They make amusing cracks and jokes. Some of them aren't even grey!
And lo! More often than not they wipe the floor with their opponents and it is wonderfully life-affirming.
Not the fact older people are showing off mad skillz, bur rather arrogant Take Me Out-standard knobheads usually getting their comeuppance handed to them from someone three times their age.
They even get the chance to be given a 'headstart' in one of the games and get gimme questions about Katy Perry or TOWIE and still they fail.
Ha ha, screw you young people with your sexual promiscuity and your haircuts and your Daily Star and your skinny jeans - you got beaten by people with decades of experience in their field, a field you presumably have very little experience in. Ha ha! Oh.
Many modern entertainment programmes are based exactly on that premise, making us all feel better about ourselves as we sit watching TV every night getting slowly older, balder and full of aches which must be nothing...not worth bothering the doctor about surely.
The Only Way Is Essex? Ha, they lack primary school level syntax. Deal Or No Deal? Chortle, some people think chanting will change what they will find in a box. The Jeremy Kyle Show? Well, you get the picture.
Laughing at social groups or 'show title first, show format second'. That's the secret to TV success. I know the rules, but just don't want to exploit them to my own ends...
Amazing Greys (ho, ho) fits both of those categories - a pun title and the mild titillating thrill that you'll get to laugh at a segment of the social strata - this time the older generation.
The premise of the show is a strapping young person, cocksure and fancy-free, strides on to Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway stage (decorated slightly differently) to take on a series of challenges where he or she will take on a person who experienced food rationing, the Suez Crisis and men always wearing great hats.
Said young person is seemingly encouraged to make a series of thrusting pronouncements the jist of which he will beat someone who has 50 years on him/her at any game - making them look less confident and more of a bullying 'banter-saurus'.
The show sets you up to think the young person will sweep all before them and take home £10,000. I mean, look at the opposition. Take a good, long look at them. They're old! They like slippers and read the Daily Express and wear fantastically ironed trousers.
But, wait, hold the phone, all is not as it would seem. This older generation are all experts in their fields (like a 1940s-born version of Eggheads but far less annoying). They make amusing cracks and jokes. Some of them aren't even grey!
And lo! More often than not they wipe the floor with their opponents and it is wonderfully life-affirming.
Not the fact older people are showing off mad skillz, bur rather arrogant Take Me Out-standard knobheads usually getting their comeuppance handed to them from someone three times their age.
They even get the chance to be given a 'headstart' in one of the games and get gimme questions about Katy Perry or TOWIE and still they fail.
Ha ha, screw you young people with your sexual promiscuity and your haircuts and your Daily Star and your skinny jeans - you got beaten by people with decades of experience in their field, a field you presumably have very little experience in. Ha ha! Oh.
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