As always, it's the hope that gets you

Hope. Hope is what brings you to that stadium match after match after match, often despite your better judgement. Hope is what makes you think your lumbering striker, floundering goalkeeper or error-prone centre back will confound the critics today.

Hope is what gives you the idea that this year is different, this year might be the year your play off duck is broken.

Hope dashed. Hope dashed is what makes you question why you come back to that stadium time and again. Hope dashed is what makes you think why the manager keeps sticking with that lumbering striker, floundering goalkeeper and error-prone centre back.

Hope dashed was Monday.

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What provided the hope this time around was how the team had gone about its business this season – tactical versatility to counter different teams (both Fulham games a case in point), a steely resolve to see out games (note the countless single goal margin wins) and a strong sense of spirit and purpose (see 3-2 away wins at Bristol City and Blackburn).

Time and time again this season (now last season I guess), we saw things a lot of Reading teams couldn’t do, or very rarely did, in the past – play with three at the back, play a proper 4-3-3, see out one goal leads, make comebacks…and also collapse in spectacular fashion away from home.

This gave hope that we had the skillsets to compete and overcome on Monday. We didn’t.

It felt either as if we froze somewhat or more played the occasion rather than the opponent. Or Huddersfield just sussed us out.

Regardless, the nagging feeling is we didn’t play to our potential. That perhaps is another factor of what made it such a galling day.

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It was fitting our best performer was Danny Williams in a season when his value to this team and his quality was finally recognised.

All year, in either a two-man or three-man midfield, the American offered something none of our other midfield options could – a balance between strength, mobility and passing quality. For all of our decent midfielders this year, none could do what Williams consistently did.

In a game where precious few Reading players excelled, Williams was probably our stand-out. In a similar vein to Steve Sidwell in the 06/07 season, Williams has never shirked a challenge this season despite knowing it could be his last with the club.

His devastatingly tearful reaction at the end suggested to me this will be the end of his Reading career – if we had gone up, I think he would have signed a new deal but he is 28 now and has the quality to player in the top tier; it is most likely now or never for him.

If he does move on, he absolutely deserves his chance and not one Reading fan should begrudge him that. He gave everything and more on Monday.

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The most painful of losing a play-off final isn’t the not getting promoted. The ambivalence toward being a part of the bottom-half Premier League football is growing – without wishing to sound like sour grapes, what really is the point of hoping to survive each year with nought much else to look forward to?

If you haven’t experienced the top tier already, that feeling is less prevalent and understandably so – I was very much looking forward to being part of the Premier League circus back in 2006 and I do sincerely hope Huddersfield enjoy it.

But there is an increasing ‘what’s the point to it?’ when you’ve been there, done that, got the overpriced T-shirt.

No, the reason why losing a play-off final aches to the very soul is your team has missed out after 48 matches and nine months of blood, spit, sweat, tears, fears, beers, joys, disappointments, exhilarations and more. 

It hurts all the more so after a penalty shoot out when you haven’t actually lost the game.

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Nothing in your football watching life prepares you for the intensity of penalty shoot-out in a final.

That said, watching Reading fully prepares you to expect to lose a penalty shoot-out in a final. My celebrations for each successful penalty were barely more than a look to the sky – for Al-Habsi’s penalty save, it was nothing than a single fist pump. It just felt as if things could go wrong.

After play-off final losses via being 2-0 up with a penalty, a freak own goal and a comeback thwarted by less than the width of a post, a penalty shoot-out loss felt likely to be added to the roll call.

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It is now three full days on from the final whistle. Only today have I felt anything like normal.

Tuesday was a day of nothing but mental and emotional exhaustion – a drained out hollow shell trying to make it through the day without reading any match reports or opinion pieces, glancing at Twitter and switching the channel over every time you heard the words “£170m match”.

Wednesday was the hangover from this – the mood slightly lifted but the baggage still being dragged along, the disappointment etched still on your face and the engagement with the rest of the human race still not quite fulsome.

The disappointment will probably last a little while yet, especially as the fallout from the result becomes clear – what happens with Stam? How do the new owners fit in? Which players will leave and who will we sign?

However, the talk has already begun of looking to next year’s fixture list, what away days to do, pre-season tours…

That’s the thing with football there is always next year, there is always hope.

Joining the Sky Blue army at Wembley

On Sunday afternoon, I’ll be at Wembley watching a team which play in blue and white for the third occasion.
On the previous two occasions, I didn’t really care for the result – Reading were underdogs in both games so it was more about enjoying the day. Though it being Reading, on both days they still managed to draw me in to caring, deeply, via a stirring but futile comeback and coming within one decent pass of an unlikely upset, respectively. Cue days of sulking afterwards.
But this Sunday has a bit of a different feeling about it as I’m to watch Coventry City play Oxford United in the EFL Trophy final – the first time I’ve been to a game involving two English league sides, one of whom isn’t Reading.
I’m going as my girlfriend’s family are Coventry fans and it sounded like some fun, going to a final at Wembley without my mood for the next week dependant on the outcome of the game.
However, I am emphatically an advocate of the idea that you can’t really enjoy a game of football in the flesh without having some kind of vested interest – your team is playing, you’ve got a bet on, it’s an overseas team who you have always liked but not supported. That kind of thing.
But I now find myself rather looking forward to Sunday hoping more and more that Coventry win.
I suspect this is because I’ve invented reasons for me to have a vested interest:
· Cov are playing Oxford, which gets my Royal blue and white blood pumping that little bit faster.
· Ex-Reading cup hero Yakubu (still only 29-years-old…) is on Cov’s books, as is Stuart Beavon, son of his namesake father who played 400 odd times for Reading before I was even born and we share a Jay Tabb in common.
· All of the issues Cov fans have had to put up with over the past decade with their ownership, stadium situation and so on (added to the fact they’ve not finished in the top six of any league for 47 years) plus the way their season is going this year, makes me think they deserve this.
· Maybe I’ve missed backing a desperately poor team, it being close to 20 years since Reading occupied the same relegation zone Coventry occupy now.
· The original individual shaping a club - Jimmy Hill.
· Dion Dublin, Darren Huckerby and Noel Whelan in the mid-to-late 1990s.
· The exciting adventures of Steve Ogrizovic (taker of the wickets of Viv Richards, Chris Broad and Alvin Kallcharran while playing for Shropshire, hoax Kazakhstan kidnapping, goal scorer and all that)
· Brian Kilcline. Just Brian Kilcline, nothing further to add.
· A Cov win will make for a far more enjoyable train journey home.
So yeah, let’s all sing together, play up, Sky Blues.

A new flavour of promotion push

Tuesday night’s classic come from behind win against Brentford got me thinking about how our successful Championship level teams have worked.

The shape this season is taking is markedly different to any of our other previously successful seasons at this level – successful meaning we won the league or got to the play offs and excluding 94/95 (I was five at the time so am not in a position to comment).

This isn’t the 05/06 season, for obvious reasons, it isn’t 2010/11 where we benefitted from one player being in the form of his life (Shane Long) and it isn’t 08/09 when we convinced and then spectacularly collapsed.

This year is more like the 02/03 and 11/12 seasons where the sum of the parts was the key reason for success (obviously 05/06 had that same factor but the quality of player was far greater).

But in 02/03, we had a system which worked a treat but when Nicky Forster was injured, we  struggled to cope, and the 11/12 season saw us wedded to the Plan A of four-four-fucking-two which, in the season after, showed up the limitations of that side.

We’ve gone through all manner of formational tweaks this season – three, four or five at the back, wing-backs, no strikers, four centre midfielders – which is a significant difference to the 11/12 season and an ability likely to be of use in the Premier League. That said I think most fans still believe the team would struggle next year if we were to be promoted come May.

This is a strange kind of team – its limitations can be seen from the fact we haven’t really dicked anyone this year and we have, in turn, been thoroughly dicked ourselves on occasion. But the team spirit and the tactics (both Stam’s ideas and the team’s embracing of those ideas) alleviate this.

It is arguable this is something Reading fans haven’t experienced before, certainly in my lifetime; a team which shifts and evolves game-to-game and even mid-game rather than having a set system which works and sticking to it.

And this is all down to Stam and Tevreden.

Further, it shouldn’t be forgotten that this has been a revolutionary past year – a dozen new signings, a new manager and a new director of football in the summer, an extra five signings in January and the constant ownership uncertainty between and lingering.

To be keeping pace with the top two at this stage of the season is nothing short of remarkable and to reach the play-offs this year would be a stunning achievement.

These are points needed to secure 6th place in the last ten seasons - 74, 78, 72, 68, 75, 75, 70, 74, 70, 75 – an average of 73.

Put another way, that’s four more wins from our remaining 14 games. To compare, Fulham have to win more than half of their remaining games (8 of 15) to reach the 73 point mark.

But whatever happens from this point on, this season should be marked as a success.

A trip to Dortmund; how perception and self awareness is holding back stadium atmospheres in England

At the start of last month, I followed the now very well-travelled route to Dortmund and a pilgrimage to the Westfalendstadion.
And, lets get it out of the way, yes, it was as awe-inspiring as everyone says; fantastic football, a goosebump-inducing atmosphere (admittedly aided by a 4-1 scoreline), a visually striking stadium, knowledgeable, friendly and generous fans – the complete package really.
But what really struck was how much of what was going on, if it had been taking place in and around an English football stadium, would be castigated as ‘plastic’ by a lot of English football fans:
-Club song played loudly over the speakers so an ‘organic atmosphere cannot be created’? Check.
-Flag-waving on the pitch? Check.
-Stadium announcer? Check.
-Supporters buying overpriced food and drink? Check.
-Every piece of branded tat imaginable (and a BVB version of Cluedo) in the club shop? Check.
But despite these perceived impingements on ‘real’ football culture, the revered BVB atmosphere remains (maybe it really is the right to drink booze in the ground...). It was all about working through a catalogue of songs and waving flags a lot no matter what was going on the pitch. Go 1-0 down? Keep singing. Striker miss a sitter? Restart the song where you left off.
Which I found rather unusual. For me it served to highlight, in an English football ground, the remaining need nearly always for if not an air of violence but certainly an antagonism and schadenfreude towards the ‘other’ (team or referee) to create an atmosphere.
This was particularly highlighted for me on Monday at the Bristol City – Reading game at the impressively refurbished Ashton Gate. Both of Bristol City’s goals were marked by many of their fans giving the big one to those in the away end and, subsequently, Reading’s comeback of three goals in 18 minutes to snatch a win also featured plenty of Vs flicked and wrists waved, though I’d say joy was probably the overriding emotion (as it should be with a last-minute winner).
In England, the noise from away followings is often similar to that of BVB fans in Dortmund; more or less detached to what is happening on the pitch (as away fans are usually the ‘hardcore’, there to make noise and enjoy the day regardless of the result).
It is the atmosphere created by home fans which is, with some honourable exceptions, anodyne, as you might have heard once or twice before. It is the stadiums and fans which have ‘plastic’ elements (Leicester’s happy clappy things, Crystal Palace’s flag culture) which generally are far noisier and atmospheric.
A lot has been said about what English football can learn from the culture of German cousins. Perhaps a precious attitude over who or what is allowed to make an atmosphere is something different to be taken on board.