March 25, 2006, at the Walkers Stadium, a decade on

From the most extreme emotional experiences, there tends to be a handful of freeze-frame moments which remain with you.
These are probably the moments that are said to flash before your eyes when you are about to meet your maker.
One of those experiences for me came ten years ago today – football is the most relevant irrelevance so there is no harm in a day as visceral, intense and joyous as March 25, 2006, at the Walkers Stadium, Leicester, being classed as an extreme emotional experience. Plus, I’m male so emotionally stunted; sport being one of the elements allowed to pierce that.
The key thing on the day was context – Reading did not need to win to guarantee promotion to the top flight for the first time. It was going to happen that season, in the coming games, regardless.
On the face of it, there was no need for emotional engagement with the day. No jeopardy; no risk; the only failure being losing a game and even that could have seen us promoted. Why the stress?
But, the context. Going for our first ever promotion to the top flight, residual resentment over the events of 1994/95 (I was four at the time but the one promotion place, 2-0 with a penalty and bloody Fabian de Freitas was ingrained) and that nagging, nagging feeling all football fans have that it just cannot be true.

Moment one

It shouldn’t feel strange to fall behind in a game of football but that was the kind of season we were having. Leicester City away was our 40th of game of the season and this was only the 12th time we had fallen behind in a game. 12!
Nothing of Iain Hume’s goal sticks in the mind’s eye but what does is a feeling of slight confusion and disbelief at half time to be 1-0 down. This was our day to party in what was becoming a perfect season and someone had taken a piss in the punch. We couldn’t lose and get promoted, not after how we had performed all year.
We were probably going to go up anyway but it didn’t feel like it – it wasn’t anger or annoyance, it was quiet and nervous.
A regular enough feeling but in the wider context of the day, enhanced.

Moment two

The equaliser.
Even the very best goals you ever see tend to be lost in the mists of time and you end up remembering them how you saw it on TV. But not Kevin Doyle’s that day.
I remember thinking we won’t score from a right-footed inswinger of a corner. James Harper rarely took corners that season – the oft masterful left-footed deliveries of Bobby Convey and Nicky Shorey were the usual set piece routines that season.
I remember the mesh of bodies in the box and thinking for a split second the ball will just get lost in there before it bounced through a man in a white shirt (I had no idea who) got his head behind it. Time slows.
The middle of the net ripples.
The rest, a blank.

Moment three

Two or three minutes previous, the message had come over the PA system that Watford and Leeds had dropped points. We had done enough to win promotion.
Two or three minutes of forgettable but unforgettable jumping around, shouting, singing, hugging the complete strangers in front, to my right and behind.
Two or three minutes of enjoying the loss of control that football brings.
Two or three minutes before feeling I had a lot of space on my left-hand side. I look down. I see my father sat with his head in his hands; not in a despairing way but simply to take some time to himself and remember all the years that had led up to that moment.
Context. Then, release, he joined in with the rest of the incoherent, unconfined joy.

Plenty more happened that day but it often takes the fan videos (still stored on my laptop from the wonderful webpage of resources which emerged after March 25) and the season’s DVD to recall them.It was a delight to discover one of the fan videos was taken from three seats to my right, a keen refresher to fill in the joy-caused blanks.
These are my memories from where I was stood that day – their value only sentimental to me but to others, I would hope they bring back their own freeze-frame moments from that unrepeatable day.

A March day in Leicester

If I may start with what I know may seem a controversial view but…football is tribal.
And, to add another controversial conversational starter to the meal that is this stream of consciousness, Leicester City are winning the hearts and souls of millions with their story this season, rightly or wrongly.
Now those two points are thrown out there, I’m going to sew them together.
Like I assume a lot of Reading fans, for me the next four weeks or so are a time of nostalgia, reflection and reminiscence as we approach 10 years on from not only our greatest season ever, but one of the greatest seasons in English football history.
The numbers and their associated records are ingrained forevermore – 106 (points), two (defeats all season), 33 (league games unbeaten), zero (previous promotions to the top flight), 99 (the number of league goals scored, Reading’s equivalent of Bradman’s 99.94 career average in the pursuit of perfection) and one (the number of sex tapes Leroy Lita featured in that season).
Memories flood from that season; James Harper’s 18-yard header against Milwall, Lita’s overhead kick versus Crystal Palace, Glen Little’s one trick beating left backs every game, dominating Wolves for 90 minutes over Christmas, Bobby Convey being chased down the pitch for 75 yards by Andy Hughes before scoring in a 4-0 evisceration of Norwich, Kevin Doyle being Kevin Doyle, Ibrahima Sonko saving a goal bound shot by getting his face in the way at home to Ipswich, 5-0 to win the title at home to Derby, Graeme Murty’s penalty against QPR, John Madejski on a taxi outside Purple Turtle and so many, many more.
But the most important and everlasting memory came on Saturday, 25 March, 2006, at what was then called The Walkers Stadium, Leicester.
A 1-1 draw on a drab day in the Midlands isn’t quite how you can imagine it (your first time never is of course), but the 4,000 or so Reading fans who were there will remember the cycle of faint hope (knowing only a win would guarantee promotion), fainter hope (Iain Hume’s opening goal), resignation (half time when promotion on the day looked doubtful), relief (Doyle’s equaliser), anxiety (when the full time whistle went) and pure joy (when the results came through).
I intend to write more about the day as a whole later in the month but suffice to say, there will never be an experience quite like it.
Tempered within all of this was the welcome given to Reading by Leicester’s fans and the club as a whole.
From their announcer confirming Reading’s promotion with a bawdy shout over the PA system to the club allowing the fans to stay inside the ground and celebrate with the team for at least 90 minutes after the final whistle, it was all a bit unusual but very welcome.
Even allowing Reading fans in the home end to shuffle up to the barriers separating the away fans during the celebrations struck of terrific common sense and empathy.
But the lasting memory is leaving the ground at around 6pm to be greeted by a handful of Leicester fans who wanted to shake your hand and congratulate your team followed up by a similar group of a similar nature at a nearby pub.
What would I do in that situation? Say balls to tribalism and share a moment with a fellow football fan? I am fairly certain I would have buggered off home straight after the full time whistle went, especially seeing as Leicester were having an average season and, if memory serves, the draw that day basically ended their playoff chances.
I was 15 back in the 106-point season and was told to savour every minute of it as Reading will never have it so good ever again, something difficult to comprehend as a teenager. But in the last decade, we haven’t had it as good and I’ve made peace with the fact we won’t ever again.
And a portion of how special that how season was is all that happened immediately after leaving The Walkers Stadium on that soggy March day.
And there is a retained memory which adds another element to me enjoying Leicester’s season this year.