Dan's Year of Sport: A puck-ing enjoyable night with the Basingstoke Bison

Before last night, the full extent of my ice hockey experience was playing NHL 95 on the Sega Megadrive a lot when I was about seven-years-old, playing almost exclusively as Long Island for no fathomable reason.
However, last night, as part of my New Year's Resolution, I rocked up at the Basingstoke Ice Arena to see Basingstoke Bison take on the Guildford Flames with a mind full of cliches about what I was going to witness.
NHL 95 told me to expect blokes knocking seven bells out of each other, common-sense dictated pucks flying at a million miles per hour with the crowd taking evasive action regularly and my girlfriend told me that when she bought tickets she was told we were in the 'rowdy' part. I decided to leave my purple v-neck t-shirt at home.
However, the first thing that struck me when turning up was the amount of women, teenagers and kids at the arena - being used to the exclusively white, male, middle-aged, homogenised experience that is professional football, this came as something of a surprise.

After a fight broke out about ten minutes in to the game and lasted a good minute, I thought we were back on track to fulfilling what I thought ice hockey was all about. But the very friendly and informative man sat next to us explained it is something of a rarity to have brawls in ice hockey this side of the pond - apparently our uncouth North American cousins encourage the practice - and this fight was a bit of a hangover from the last time the two sides played.
So we settled into the match which seems to consist of two separate events - the on-field game itself and the atmosphere created partly by the fans and partly by the announcer.
Sporting-wise, the sheer speed of what happens is mindboggling. The programme has in it a safety-first, "you-can't-sue-us-now" disclaimer saying to watch the puck at all times which is decidedly easier said than done considering it is a black object on white ice.
But the players must have the same frames per minute eyesight as pigeons to react as quickly as they do to the puck flying about the place and the reflexes of hares to actually control it when it comes to them whether it be with stick or skate. Add to that the skill to be get the thing to go where you want it to go and the thought process to decide what you are going to do with it. They seem to be in complete control and have all the time in the world. And that's before we get into how skilled as skaters they are - coming from a man who falls arse over head when skating, even when clutching the edge of the rink for dear life, this is both a point of huge jealousy and admiration.

Rolling substitutes keep the action flowing though, as a layman, the amount of stoppages in play did grate but that might be down to not knowing why fouls were called rather than breaks themselves.
Now, off-ice, like any sport, there is the fan-created atmosphere of singing, clapping and instruments, but, and I think I'm right in saying this is the norm across all ice hockey and not just at Basingstoke, the announcer plays a huge role in creating the spectacle.
Acting as kind of a cheerleader/pisstaker/commentator, this witty, pithy individual interacts with the crowd - wishing people happy birthday, letting people (crucially) know WHY a player has been sin-binned and not just who it is and, presumably with a sidekick, interspersing a combination of 90s club classics and sound effects in to breaks in play. A particular favourite was the use of the series of "D'ohs" as Homer Simpson falls down Springfield Gorge a second time when Guildford fans thought they had scored.
The appeal of the announcer ties in to a clear wider point which I felt from last night of a sporting club genuinely appreciating its fanbase and treating them as supporters, not cash cow customers. While I assume money is quite tight at this level of ice hockey, it might even be better that way, without the dispiriting and disruptive influence that is billions of cash of investment in sport. Apples and oranges, but I can't imagine football clubs allowing their fans on the pitch to have a kickabout at the end of a match like Bisons allow their fans to have a skate, for free I think, afterwards.
Speaking of price, we certainly got our money's worth - £12 for three hours of entertainment complete with overtime and penalties resulting in a 5-4 win for Basingstoke - is pretty hard to beat.
Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing night of sport. I will most certainly be returning. Speaking of which...

Next up on the sporting 2015 tour
Possibly back to Basingstoke Ice Arena on the 15th for their last regular season home match or their match a Bracknell Bees on the 8th. Alternatively it will be Rivermead Leisure Centre on the 28th for a Reading Rockets basketball match.

Sports done so far
Football and ice hockey.

A late New Year's resolution - my 2015 campaign to see a massive variety of local sport

It is statistically (un)proven the New Year’s resolutions which are most easily broken are the ones made half-cut at 12.01am on New Year’s Day - those ones which have had no thought put into them whatsoever.

So, therefore, using the same reasoning, the best time to make a resolution must certainly be at the start of February. So, here is mine.

This year, I want to watch live as many different sports as I possibly can, at a variety of different levels in Berkshire and North Hampshire (for the simple reason I grew up in Reading, work in Slough where I cover the Windsor patch and live just in Hampshire in Tadley).

And this is where I want some help; I want suggestions on what sports and teams I should go to see over the remaining 11 months or so of 2015 to add to this crude list I’ve made below which will also outline why I’ve chosen that sport/team or who has suggested it.

Football

Reading FC - hometown team, supported since I was five-years-old and, to be honest, an easy one to add to this list as I would be seeing them already this season anyway. DONE - AWAY AT FULHAM FC, SATURDAY 17 JANUARY

Basingstoke Town FC - fitting in with my relocation from Reading to Tadley, Basingstoke are the nearest semi-pro side around (and my girlfriend’s boss owns the place so it would be rude not to divert some of my income that way)

Reading Town FC - there has to be a lower league outfit in this list and seeing as RTFC play at Scours Lane around 15 minutes walk away from the house in which I grew up, it kind of makes sense.

Cricket

Berkshire CC - when I was studying journalism at university, I did a ‘day at the cricket’ as a feature piece for the sports journalism section of my course. Unfortunately, that day largely consisted of eating the food the club generously laid on as heavy May rain caused the match at Falkland CC to be called off. Time for a re-visit.

Basketball

Reading Rockets - They are the only basketball team playing at a decent level in the region so kind of a forced-hand but they have been pretty handy in recent years, so Wikipedia tells me.

Rugby

London Irish - I am in no way a fan of rugby but as a proper UK sport, it must be done and I may as well see what is the cause of why the Madejski Stadium pitch is a bit ropey at times. Plus the promise of St Patrick’s Day being the day for this trip is kind of enticing.

Ice Hockey

Basingstoke Bison - I can’t remember where the idea for 2015 being the year of diverse spot for me came from but Basingstoke Bison features somewhere in there so they have to feature. DONE - HOME TO GUILDFORD FLAMES, SATURDAY 28 FBERUARY

Hockey

Reading Hockey Club - Back to Reading again (this is becoming awfully Reading-centric), but both the men’s and women’s team compete in the top tier of English hockey with many an international player among them which is something of a rarity in this list.

Boxing

No idea where yet but there is always some amateur boxing going on in Reading or Slough... no reference to nightlife chortle, haha, etc and so on.

Horse Racing

Newbury, Windsor, Ascot - plenty of choices here to get pissed in as classy a way as there is.

Got anything else I should add to this list? Tweet me or leave a comment!

Alexandre Gaydamak and Portsmouth vs Anton Zingarvich and Reading

I'm currently reading Jim White's (the writer, not the football transfer maniac with more mobiles than a modern day Pablo Escobar) ambitious 'Premier League; A History in 10 Matches' which explores...well, you can probably guess what the subject matter is.
The eighth match in the book is one Reading fans will never be able to forget as it was one of the most conspicstaging posts in the collapse of our greatest ever team.
It was on Saturday, September 29. Stephen Hunt, Dave Kitson, Shane Long and an OG from a Nicky Shorey short were our scorers. And we still lost.
Yup, it was Portsmouth 7 Reading 4 - a match which presumably still has Alan Hansen waking up in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat and needing to turn the bedside table lamp on.
The chapter focuses largely on the largescale financial incompetence at Portsmouth under the ill-fated Harry Redknapp/ Alexandre Gaydamak axis starting in around 2006 and how the club are still paying the price for that to this very day. The Reading angle is largely sketched in (small club inferiority complex yada yada yada), but more on which later.
The overall summarisation being that Portsmouth's demise changed the way the Premier League saw the potential financial implosion of its members - from being something very distant to being a genuine threat (though one which one always got the feeling they were hoping to just keep Portsmouth going until the end of the season and then they would be the Football League's problem).
The chapter ends on a positive with the takeover of Portsmouth by its Supporters' Trust and highlighting the fact that their opponents on that strange September afternoon were a sustainable model they could seek to emulate.
This book was written last year and hindsight is 20/20 of course but given the events of the past year at Reading, it makes such a suggestion seem somewhat laughable. The pace of change in modern football, eh?
The club and Sir John Madejski are praised in the book for the self-sustainable model imposed and more or less achieved (in relative football terms anyway) from 2006 to 2011 - a model which many Reading fans were rightly proud of and perhaps, whisper it, even miss the security of.
While Portsmouth chased the dream and lived so scarily obviously - and obviously scarily - beyond their limited means, Reading cut their cloth (to use the parlance) and lived within their similarly limited means.
However, both ended up being sold on to a young owner with ties to Russia with no real indication given where they had earned their respective wealth with suggestions dubious Daddy was behind each of them respectively.
While Reading - or so it would seem if the latest takeover gets finalised - were saved by the early prudent bookkeeping and owning their stadium and their training ground (making them a much more attractive purchase), Portsmouth were not so lucky and League Two has proved to be the place where enough anvils were thrown out of the hot balloon to allow them to float.
Were it not for Reading's circumstances of owing a modern, income-generating machine of a stadium, the post-Zingaravich world could be looking a lot worse - indeed, genuine fears over administration earlier this summer suggests it may not have been all that far away.
All of which goes back to that 7-4 game nearly seven years ago where two similar-sized clubs met with markedly different immediate pasts, presents and immediate futures but ended up going in the same direction (though to differing extents) further down the line.

The genesis of this season's success

I’ve just finished reading Graham Hunter’s insightful and interesting book “Barca; The Making of the Greatest Team in the World” where he takes a magnifying glass to everything at the Catalan club from the La Masia academy and the background politics to the lives and histories of key personnel like Pep Guardiola, Xavi Hernandez and Lionel Messi.

One of the key themes in the book is the huge impact that Johan Cruyff had on the club, particularly in his stint as manager in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The theory goes that the current success of the club under Guardiola’s management has its genesis in the almost complete overhaul of the Catalan club that Cruyff instigated.

The two key facets of Cruyff’s policy were the implementation of an offensive 4-3-3/3-4-3 formation on the first team with Guardiola in the pivote role and then ensuring that this formation was used at every level of the club youth development system (obligatory use of the phrase La Masia) to ensure that the best young players would be schooled to know how to play in their respective position and so slot seamlessly when they made the jump to the first team. Cruyff would go on to win a record 11 trophies at the club, including their first European Cup in 1992.

The influence on the current ‘Pep team’ is blindingly obvious as the formation and attacking intent is very similar (with Sergio Busquets performing the Guardiola role) and the number of cantera graduates coming through the system who, upon graduation to the first team, slot into their respective positions with no fuss. From Xavi and Iniesta through Messi and Busquets to the current crop of Cuenca and Tello, the fruits of Cruyff’s labours are plain to see. Guardiola has since surpassed Cruyff’s trophy record.

In between these two epochs was the success of Frank Rijkaard’s teams which took the influences of the Cruyff formation in addition to the young generation coming through (particularly Iniesta, Valdes and Messi) from La Masia. However, the Rijkaard team failed as it’s generally seen that the team lost its hunger for success; a lesson Guardiola is keen to avoid and has to a certain extent, though time will tell.

In the same way that Rijkaard and Guardiola’s success can be traced back to the seeds sown twenty years beforehand(thus creating the ‘Barcelona way’), the successful season that Reading have had can very conceivably be seen in seeds sown by Brian McDermott’s predecessors starting over a decade ago. And this isn’t just promotion giddiness talking, going and comparing Reading to Barcelona.

Whilst there has been no large scale restructuring of the club ala Cruyff, key themes and elements of this successful Reading side can be seen in the last two times we were successful in this division, with refinements and evolution over the years.

The play-off defeat of 2002/03 team of Alan Pardew, the 2005/06 Championship-winning squad of Steve Coppell and this season’s incarnation under McDermott all share distinctive similarities in their respective on-field and off-field demeanours and styles.

The playing style of each team is very similar; reliant for creativity on wingers (from John Salako and Luke Chadwick through Glen Little and Bobby Convey to Jobi McAnuff and Jimmy Kebe), hard-working almost to the point of self-sufficient strikers (Nicky Forster, Kevin Doyle, Noel Hunt, Jason Roberts) and a solid, uncompromising, ever-present base of central defence and centre midfield to launch attacks from. If there is a ‘Reading style’ of football, this is it and it has been it for the last ten years since Pardew was manager.

The teams of Coppell that failed to get promoted in 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2008/09 as well as being relegated n 2007/08 all played in this manner and, despite McDermott being absolutely right in saying that he has created three different teams in his time as Reading manager, each of them broadly played in the same manner. Each time the system was found out, it has been refined but the same basic premise remains.

The other key reason for the successes of Pardew, Coppell and McDermott, and for the interspersed failures indeed, has been the utilisation of team spirit to create a ‘greater than the sum of our parts’ playing staff. Pardew’s style was to create something of a siege mentality, Coppell’s may well have been something of an accident created by some players that really got on well mixed with success (as in evidence by the capitulation of 2007/08 and the subsequent clear loss of team spirit) whilst this season’s team looks genuinely like they get on well and are a supremely united unit as in evidence by their celebrations together but, more importantly, their socialising together all through the season. We did say that about the 2005/06 vintage mind, when finding factors to attribute their initial Premier League success to.

Lessons from the 2005/06 team to the current generation, both in terms of positives built upon and negatives learned from, can also be seen in a similar fashion to how Guardiola has learnt from Rijkaard.

The way McDermott handled the media this season by playing things down and the fallback line of “we’re just concentrating on the next game” is a carbon copy of how Coppell spoke to the press and TV throughout the 106 points season. Meanwhile, the decline of that team and the way the team spirit fell apart is something McDermott will seek to avoid when recruiting players this summer.

The fact that McDermott has been around the club for so long and picked up the best bits of each of his predecessors can be seen as instrumental to this year’s success, in addition to Nicky Hammond’s years of service to maintain stability and preserve an identity on the playing side of the club.

Sir John Madejski in his role as Chairman has a very powerful say in the direction that the club will follow and his role in this evolution should not be underplayed either. His choices of manager and his desire to run the club on a budget have had a large impact on how the three teams analysed were made and developed. But additionally, his desire to not be an overbearing Chairman has allowed the distinctive Reading manner outlined earlier to flower by giving managers the time and space to refine the system that had become stale under their predecessors. *It should be hoped that Anton Zingarevich will continue this and quotes like these give a good indication that he will.

Overall, this post isn’t about comparing Reading to Barcelona as every club enjoying success for an extended period of time (which Reading have relatively over the last ten years) can trace that success back through its ‘family tree’ to see where its roots lay and the evolution that the club has been on in that time by building on past successes and learning from failures in a stable environment.

The success of this season can be traced back through Coppell and Pardew’s team building, their style of play and their own personalities’, combined with the understated role of Hammond as a pillar of the club, all under the influence of Madejski’s stable ownership regime.

To say that this season has been the culmination of a decade-long project is wrong but the DNA this team possess has traces of Coppell, Pardew, Hammond and Madejski in it and whilst the success is hugely attributable to McDermott, his coaching staff and the playing staff, how they all got there and the way in which their success has been achieved has its roots a lot further back than the start of the season.

*Incidentally, the one manager who wasn’t given the time, Brendan Rodgers, was the one manager who seemed to attempt to branch out from the successful model of the last decade in his style of football and Madejski appeared to notice the mistake swiftly and rectify it.

Thoughts and feelings the night after the night before

Nearly 24 hours on from the night before, promotion has just started to sink in and the memories from last night are still fresh in the mind.

What follows is a series of thoughts and emotions, some personal and some applicable to all Reading fans which are just as much to keep my memories and experiences alive for future reference as well as a typical ‘article’ on this blog.

So here goes…

The three ‘M’s

There are three people who deserved last night more than most and they all have surnames beginning with ‘M’.

Firstly, John Madejski who signed off his reign as owner of the club in fine style. He has his detractors but he has always had the best interests of the club at heart, to make us self-sufficient, to find the right investor and to keep us at a solid base level at the very least. Over the years he has grown to love this club, not as a businessman but as a fan and his joy from some pictures last night showed this.

Secondly, Jobi McAnuff was not everyone’s choice when he was appointed captain at the start of the season but he has showed just how inspirational he is. He isn’t a shouting captain but what he does is lead by example, covering every blade of grass, tracking back, providing jolts of quality here and there and being an eloquent speaker off of the field. The video going round of him and his reaction to being promoted is one of my favourites thus far. After a career spent in the Championship, he has served his time and on an individual level, has earned his promotion.

Thirdly, Brian McDermott who has built a third outstanding team at this level in two and half years at the club on a small-ish budget and having to sell his best players every summer. To bounce back from the play-off final defeat last year, to identify players like Kaspars Gorkss, Adam le Fondre, Jason Roberts and Hayden Mullins, to inspire his team, to make game-changing subs, to keep the pressure off them, he has done it all.

The whole club deserved last night but these three leaders each have their special reasons for last night.

Promotion to the top flight a second time

Nothing will ever beat getting promotion to the Premier League at Leicester back in 2006 as it was the first time we had done it but last night was damn close for a multitude of reasons.

Doing it at home and so the resultant pitch invasion is one, our game kicking off 15 minutes later the one at Ashton Gate thus giving us the knowledge of what we needed to do to make promotion a reality, the last five minutes of the game itself with the clearance off the line and Forest hitting the bar and the extraordinary run that led up to last night. Seriously, if you had said in November we would win promotion with two games to spare, you’d have been sectioned.

Atmosphere

More often than not, and rightly so, Reading fans and the Madejski Stadium gets a bad press for a lack of atmosphere and quiet home fans but last night, you could literally feel the floor shaking.

Admittedly, so it should be on a night when promotion is on the cards but the stadium really was rocking last night, particularly in the second half when the racket was unrelenting. The clap banner things were rightly neglected in the East Stand as you cannot make a solid noise with them (and the fact they’re a bit ghey) but elsewhere in the ground, they made a right din and looked good too when utilised.

It is very rare to come out of the Madejski with no voice but last night was one of those occasions.

Bus banter

Everyone has their own little stories from football that make the whole experience unique and special to them on a personal level. This is mine.

From 2004 to 2008, I had a season ticket sat next to my Dad and two of my uncles. By 2008, I had gone to university so took the decision to not renew my ticket and haven’t had the finances to do so since. Every game we went to then and every game I go to now, we get the bus from one of our local pubs.

However, I went to the game last night and I was sat close to them last night and we got onto the pitch together (and with other family members too, more on which later) before losing one of our number.

After half an hour or so on the pitch, we ambled out of the ground to find our bus back to the pub had departed without us. We marched on cheerfully to the buses back to the town centre, skipped onto one without paying (sssshhhhh) and took seats at the back of the top deck.

So ensued a superb journey to the bus station with non-stop singing of “West Ham United, it could have been you”, “we’re not going to Wembley”, “We’re the left side” and “We are going up” with a bunch of random fans I had never met before. Football has this effect of unifying people who do not know each other to make unforgettable and unique experiences for those people.

Purple Turtle

The unofficial Reading promotion party location for the third successive promotion now with Madejski and McDermott ending up there in the early hours of this morning, played the event well as the numbers built up which got the noise and singing back. One of the more unusual memories of a horde of football fans invading a decidedly alternative place is testament to the way football can cross societal boundaries, albeit as it is the one late night drinking establishment in Reading for celebrating.

Family and friends

As alluded to earlier, going to football has been a family experience for me for the vast majority of my footballing life with my companions to games usually being some combination of cousins or uncles.

Last night, sat within about a fifty metre radius of each other were myself, my cousin, my dad, three uncles, my cousin’s mate, another cousin and his daughters and when coming down the stairs to get on the pitch, I turned around to see another one of my uncles who was promptly bundled.

Sharing a massive group hug in Row BB Y26 followed by individually hugging everyone and jumping up and down and shouting was one of the best moments of the night, as was sharing the half hour or so on the pitch with them. After the whole family going through a great deal of loss and pain in the last 18 months, to have a lot of us together for a joyous moment was a wonderful moment and almost something of a closer.

To top it all off, when leaving the ground in this group, I saw a friend of mine who has moved away from Reading this season so I do not get to see often enough. Immediately upon seeing him, I ran and jumped on him and the shouting and singing started again. Another golden moment.

The team

Anyway, enough personal memories, back to the football.

Last night was another one of those team performances that has epitomised our season where we gritted our teeth and got through it through sheer force of will as a strong unit, this time for the ultimate prize.

Two moments stand out in this regard; the three players on the line to block Forest’s goalbound effort with five minutes to go showing the commitment of every single player in that team (the fact that one of those players on the line was Jimmy Kebe only adds to it).

The second moment of showcasing the team spirit of this incarnation of Reading is Jem Karacan discharging himself from the Royal Berks, still visibly worse for wear, to join in the festivities like being pushed around in his wheelchair by Noel Hunt in his underpants. He got a hug off McDermott and McAnuff, naturally as his captain and skipper, but also from Benik Afobe; a player who has only been at the club a matter of weeks but is clearly a big part of the team judging by how much he wanted to see Karacan. A clear embodiment of the team’s attitude and unity.

The club

Lastly, as has been said elsewhere “I love this club”. There is a Reading way (explained here) and the connection between the fans, the players, the management and the owners of the club are clear to see and this factor enhanced the feelings of last night, topped off by Madejski’s speech at the Turtle in the early hours.

 I’m probably biased but the way we go about things as a club is quite unique and long may it continue to bring nights like yesterday.

We are going up. And that is all that matters.

All but there

The great, but also not so great, thing about football is that it can make your weekend or make going into work the next day that little bit easier. Having an emotional investment in somebody or something does that to you as putting a bit of yourself in is the gamble and whether it pays off or not, in euphoria or disappointment, is the outcome.

With football, putting your faith and emotional investment into a team has a pretty straight forward payoff; more often than not there will be a win or a defeat that affects your mood and subsequent desirability to be around the following day or so. There are three set outcomes unlike emotional investment in a fellow person which has at least 1,145,189 different outcomes.

However, as the season wears on and some wins become more equal than others, the impact on one’s mood becomes more profound. Suffice to say, after last night’s result, work today and tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that has been and will be a lot easier to bear.

The simple reason for that is, for all intents and purposes, we are there; we are promoted to the Premier League. It does not feel right at all saying those words as anyone who has read this blog before (here, here and here are three examples) knows this blogger is naturally ultra-pessimistic and uber-cautious when it comes to anything Reading FC-related.

This probably stems from experiences such as the 2008/09 capitulation to play-off defeat, missing out on the play-offs in 2003/04 and 2004/05 after promising starts and the horrendous ‘9 draws in ten games’ closing stages of the 2001/02 season where guaranteed promotion was almost blown. The one common factor in each of these years being the incredible start followed by the pressure getting to us/other teams working us out leading to a flattering to deceive season where so much was rightly expected, followed by crushing disappointment (almost, in the case of 01/02).

This year, on the other hand, it feels…it feels different as, in keeping with every season under Brian McDermott, we’ve hit our stride as the season as worn on, not tripped over our own shoelaces.  Thus, the level of expectation hasn’t been there all season and we’ve managed to sneak up pretty much under the radar to now top the league at a time of the season that is very much our time.

But it’s not just this change of pattern in how our season has panned out that’s got this blogger feeling unnaturally and unerringly confident.

The main reason for this is the manner in which Reading have gone about their business since the start of 2012. As written about before, tight wins built on a solid defence only look really convincing when looking back at them towards the end of an ultimately successful season.

It was quite conceivable to say that Reading were a lucky team back in February when winning by the odd goal and keeping it tight at the other end. However, two months on from then and it clearly isn’t luck anymore, no matter what managers such as Nigel Adkins and Sam Allardyce say about all the goals we score being lucky. No matter what anyone says, a 46-game season evens out the impact of random chance.

The run we’ve been on since November, but from January particularly, has been built on quality, resilience, confidence, team work, determination, spirit and a plan. A plan based on a refined version of “smash-and-grab” remains a plan as it entails a strong defence (as exemplified by the best defensive record in the league) and the ability to get goals when it matters, as shown by the spread of goals across our squad which is a strength and not a weakness in the manner in which we play.

Furthermore, these last two weeks has shown that this team can take the pressure at this stage of the season. 12 points from four games against West Ham, Leeds, Brighton and Southampton is beyond any fan’s expectations and the latter two superb away wins have come with huge injury problems in the squad.

There remains a tiny seed of doubt but common sense says that the form team in the league for two thirds of the season should not blow it from a position of six points clear with nine left to play for and I have no reason to doubt common sense, despite the inbuilt pessimism garnered over the years.

This team is the most effective at gathering points remorselessly whilst sticking to a plan at this level (and arguably in the country right now) and we will get promotion this season which sounds easy to say with three games left to play and such a lead that we hold but the past’s ghosts don’t shift easily.

How good is Brian McDermott's transfer acumen?

The Reading sixteen involved away at Brighton on Tuesday night consisted of four Steve Coppell signings, two from Brendan Rodgers regime, three products of the youth system and seven Brian McDermott signings.

Due to McDermott’s long association with the club at various levels, he would be well acquainted with all of those players but with less than half being his own signings*, just how good has McDermott been in the transfer market in his time as manager of the club?

With a background in player scouting, McDermott should have a well trained eye when it comes to recognising the requisite skills he requires in a player to fill a problem position or to improve the starting XI but does the hard evidence support this theory?

Below are a list of all of the players McDermott has signed as manager or during his time as caretaker of Reading, grouped into three categories (success, failure, somewhere in between) and a sentence or two explaining why I feel they fall into that category.

Successes

Andy Griffin- signed January 2010 initially on loan but permanent deal made permanent that summer- added much needed experience to a shaky defence and provided a consistent, dependable presence

Zurab Khizanishvili- signed January 2010 initially on loan to end of the season which was made a year-long loan that summer- see above and also built a superb partnership built with Matt Mills last season that our post-January form was built on

Ian Harte- signed Summer 2010- probably initially seen as a one year solution to the left back hole vacated by Ryan Bertrand’s departure but has been just as important this season defensively and in terms of goals and assists

Mikele Leigertwood- signed on loan January 2011 until the end of the season, made permanent in Summer 2011- the turning point of our 2010/11 season and has been just as huge a presence in the centre of midfield this season

Kaspars Gorkss- signed August 2011- brought out the best in Alex Pearce to create arguably the best central defensive pairing in the division and chips in with some handy goals too

Adam le Fondre- signed August 2011- qualified success has he has yet to cement a permanent place in the starting XI but can think of three games this season off of the top of my head he has won us all three points (Watford and Milwall away, Leeds at home)

Jason Roberts- signed January 2012- in a similar fashion to Gorkss, has allowed someone else to shine (Noel Hunt in this case) and has been just as important for his experience and bringing a focal point to our attack, as well as being a focal point for a media coverage come to that

Matthew Connolly- signed January 2012- qualified success again due to his injury problems but brought in as cover for the last four months of the season and has been solid when called upon

Hayden Mullins- signed March 2012- same as above, brought in to add squad depth to see our thin squad through to the end of the year and has been capable at right back and centre midfield

Failures

Gunnar Thorvaldsson- signed January 2010 to end of the season- qualified failure as he was only on a short-term deal to provide cover and was never expected to make it long term at the club

Marcus Williams- signed Summer 2010- genuine mistake by McDermott but one that was quickly realised hence signing of Harte and offloading of Williams after one season

Matthieu Manset- signed January 2011- see above, potential seen but failure to get required fitness levels saw the striker replaced and quickly shown the door

Bongani Khumalo- signed on loan July 2011- see above again, genuine mistake that was alleviated by Gorkss signing and his hasty departure from the club

Somewhere in between/too early to tell

Ethan Gage- signed January 2011- young and on the cheap with time on his side

Erik Opashl- signed January 2011- see above

Cameron Edwards- signed May 2011- see above

Ryan Edwards- signed May 2011- see above

Joseph Mills- signed August 2011- potential is there and has a good tutor in Harte but injury problems hampered progress thus far

Cedric Basseya- signed September 2011- cheap punt that looks like being a failure but for next to no cost

Karl Sheppard- signed January 2012- young and promising striker for the future

Tomasz Cywka- signed January 2012- cheap cover signing that could still prove useful

Benik Afobe- signed March 2012- a short-term loan deal to diversify our attacking options a bit in the run in that hasn’t paid off 100% as of yet

Using crude numbers, that’s nine successes, four failures and nine somewhere in betweens which works out very favourably when the majority of the latter players are young professionals who were probably not expected to have an impact at this stage of their Reading FC careers.

There appear to be three very important points to take from this (admittedly subjective) analysis.

Firstly, McDermott’s ability to identify early on when he has made a mistake when signing a player and making moves to rectify it very quickly, as can be seen in the Williams, Manset and Khumalo signings where they were shipped off after less than a season with us and replaced with players who have paid off (Mills, to a certain extent, Roberts and Gorkss).

Secondly, McDermott’s nose for a potential short term problem developing, solving it and that problem then becoming a long term strength. As can be seen with the signings of Griffin, Harte and, in particular, Leigertwood, McDermott appears to take cheap punts on experienced players who still have something to prove to fill a gap but these players seem to become key components not only in the starting XI but around the club as a whole. It is very conceivable that given time, Gorkss and Roberts will perform a similar role as could Mullins and Connolly if they are given permanent deals. Whether the same will happen to the vast majority of players in the ‘in between’ list who were signed with a view to the future remains a key question regarding McDermott’s otherwise impeccable transfer market record.

Thirdly, the very small amount of money spent on the 22 players listed. With exact transfer fees hard to come by it is difficult to estimate how much the total cost of these signings has been but it is safe to say it is not a great deal, particularly compared to the outgoings seen at Reading the last few years.

McDermott clearly has the skill to pick out, on the cheap or loan, a player that not only has the footballing skills to improve the team but also the personal skills to contribute to the team spirit in evidence at the club during his tenure. Team spirit is the illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory, Steve Archibald famously observed and victory has been a common theme of McDermott’s reign. But the “greater than the sum of our parts” approach, to this season’s team particularly, is a key reason why we are where we are and the fact that McDermott appears to be able to identify factors in a prospective signing that would aid this spirit is crucial to his whole managerial ethos.

As mentioned earlier, it remains to be seen whether the young players McDermott has signed will prove to be as successful as their more senior pro counterparts but the fact that this doubt is the only real, conceivable blot on McDermott’s transfer record so far is testament to the skill of the man after only two and a half seasons in charge.

*this is something of a red herring due to the number of injuries we had going into the game

Does Fleetwood's impending records undermine ours?

There are a few other more important Reading FC-related things going on right now what with the promotion push, going top of the Championship for the first time in six years on Friday, away games at Brighton and Southampton this week, the continued fallout from the Leeds battle and the ongoing takeover of the club.

However, something a little lighter to alter the mood somewhat concerning our one remaining record in English football*; the most points accrued in a single season in any English professional league with the 106 points gained in the incredible 2005/06 season.

One of the common threads on internet messageboards since that season has been “106 watch” where the possible challengers to this record are ticked off one by one has the current season unfolds, leaving our record untouched once again.

This year, all of the contenders in the Football League have faded away and Premier League teams can never compete as they play eight games less in their season.

However, there remains an interesting challenger in the form of Fleetwood Town in the Blue Square Premier division who have racked up 101 points so far this season with four games remaining.

Despite games against second-placed Wrexham (second-placed but 11 points behind albeit with a game in hand) and play-off chasing Luton to come, Fleetwood should still manage to get at least two wins to go past our 106 point benchmark.

Fleetwood’s record this year is quite amazing, particularly away from home where they have picked up 56 points from a possible 66 so far and averaged nearly two and a half goals a game. Amazingly, they still haven’t guaranteed promotion as of yet due to the equally relentless form of chasing Wrexham who could also break the 100 point barrier and not even get promoted.

The wording of Reading’s record is “the most points in a single season in any English professional league” which eliminates the challenge of Fleetwood as, despite going full-time for the2010/11 season, play in a division in which all of the participants are not professional and largely semi-pro.

Furthermore, in recent seasons, there have been huge points totals accrued in the lower leagues as clubs like AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester distort the playing field at the levels they operated, despite their good intentions as institutions. I also seem to recall seeing on the Sky Sports News sidebar a few seasons ago a team with a huge points to game ratio but cannot remember for the life of me what league it was or who the team were.

Clearly, the records of these teams and Fleetwood should they break the 106 barrier does not invalidate the Reading record due to the wording but does it put an asterix next to it due to the increasingly professionalization of the Blue Square Premier division and the fact that no club (not even Crawley last season with 105 points) broke our record since the division went to 24 teams in 2006/07.

It shouldn’t do but as it is the first time a team from a league recognisable to most football fans has broken the 106 barrier since the 2005/06 season and the record has been in the conscious of Reading fans, it might feel a little bit undermined.

*Edwin van der Sar broke Steve Death’s record for the longest time without conceding a league goal a few years ago. Death retains the Football League record in this field but that does not mean he holds the record in English football

Robo-ref is no team morale builder

Another match weekend, another case of referees getting more than their fair share of the blame in key games up and down the divisions in England.

Firstly, we go to Stamford Bridge and the case of certainly one and possibly both of Chelsea’s goals in their victory over Wigan being wrongly awarded after both looked offside (according to the press, radio and TV of course), prompting usually mild-mannered Wigan boss Roberto Martinez to label the decisions “disgusting”.

Secondly, to the Madejski Stadium yesterday afternoon where a bad-tempered game with tackles from Leeds United players flying in almost worked as gameplan enough to stop Reading but could have easily resulted in three Leeds players seeing red (the card, the mist they had already seen). Disclaimer, this blogger is a Reading fan so may be somewhat biased though the evidence of the match clearly speaks for itself. In the post-match interviews, Leeds manager Neil Warnock said that it was hard for a referee to officiate in a difficult atmosphere where Reading players constantly surrounded him.

Clearly, these are two very different cases which can each be bracketed into the four main areas of contention when it comes to modern day refereeing; insufficient quality (Chelsea-Wigan), perceived big-club bias (Chelsea-Wigan), player influence on referees (Reading-Leeds) and blaming the officials whether justly or not (both games).

Many, many words and airtime minutes will be dedicated to whether or not the decisions were right, the standards of refereeing in contemporary football and players crowding referees but I feel as if the last point is somewhat overlooked in media analysis despite it probably being heard in 2/3s of managerial quotes.

As mentioned earlier, these are two very different cases involving two very different contexts with one being a pair of offside calls and another being about red cards but the contrasts can help outline a salient point that both cases demonstrate.

Casting aside important points such as the difference in team quality between Chelsea and Wigan which affects the chances of success for either side in the match, every managerial quote that blames the officials for their own team’s failure to succeed (and success is not just winning but a draw or even a close defeat depending on the opposition) is a manager’s attempt at deflecting pressure off of their players.

“My players were not good enough/are not good enough/ did not get their jobs right on the day, therefore we lost” is rarely used when it comes to a manager’s analysis of his team’s performance for reasons such as morale and team-building. Ergo, an exterior factor is identified and fingered with the blame and the key exterior factor is the officials as they have no right of reply either in the media or on the pitch itself.

Martinez and Warnock may well have been just in blaming the officials (for my money, the former is justified in doing so thanks to television evidence, the latter is not using the same evidence showing how reckless and dangerous some of tackles by Leeds players were) but the fact is that neither of their teams were good enough to achieve their goals on the day. The difference in quality between teams, perceived bias and so on are factors but the bottom line is, their teams were not good enough.

So here’s a thought; should technology be introduced in football to ensure that decisions on issues such as offsides, red cards, the ball crossing the line and so on are correct as often as possible, what exterior factor do losing managers blame to deflect attention from their team’s failings if the official's decision would be as near as makes no difference correct 100%?

Be careful what you wish for, perhaps?

Thoughts ahead of Blackpool

A gloriously sunny day with temperatures touching 20C and a game of football to look lustily forward tomorrow can only mean one of two things; it’s August or it’s nearly April.

If it were August, we would be full of anticipation and dreaming that starry-eyed dream of glory and promotion before, nine times out of ten, those dreams are broken before the clocks go back let alone when they go forward again.

Nine times out of ten that is, if you support someone other than Reading. For someone my age, coming into this stage of the season with something to play for is to be expected rather than to be shocked at (not that I’d take anything for granted as a Reading fan). Over a decade has now passed since we haven’t had something to play for going into the last eight games of the season.

So yes, it is nearly 20C, it has been sunny all day long and we can look forward lustily to the game against Blackpool tomorrow, still with those glory-based dreams in our mind, unbroken by the bitter winter of football now passed.

But now, now its crunch time. The winter months build character in a squad of players but now is the time when that character and those lessons learned are tested to the extreme and many are found wanting.

Without wanting to put too much of a point on it, it is now crunch time big for Reading. At the very base level, there are eight games left to secure promotion. Insert squeaky bum time reference here, naturally. Eight games where the pressure is at its intense.

Factor in that of those eight remaining games, seven are against the current top twelve in the Championship and three of the away matches are at St Mary’s, Upton Park and St. Andrews. More pressure. It’s not exactly the easiest run in but you’ve got to prove you’re better than the rest and there is the opportunity; come through those with your dream still intact and you’ve earned your glory.

On top of that, Reading will be going into the game against Blackpool in a situation they haven’t faced in 11 games;  coming off the back of a defeat in their last match (against Peterborough) in addition to being the hunted rather than the hunting in the race for the two automatic promotion spts.

Blackpool will be a similar proposition to the Posh; open, expansive attacking football. One look at the stats shows this with the Tangerines knocking in more goals than anyone else on their travels but also conceding the third highest away from home. However, it wasn’t the openness that did for us on Tuesday night but some uncharacteristic bad defending.

A similar proposition to Peterborough perhaps but there is the notable added advantage of being at home. We’ve lost just once in the league at the Madejski since the middle of November (and that in dubious circumstances vs Hull).

Looking at historical precedent, 70 points is very close to being the benchmark for a play-off place but the noises coming out of the club have been anything but settling. The players sound up for the run-in and determined to see it through and the bringing in Benik Afobe to bolster the attacking ranks sends out a message to those around us that Reading are up for the fight in the sunshine, just as they were in the rain and snow.

Making a statement

Ten days ago, I wrote a meandering, dreadful piece of writing about the perceptions of the 1-0 scoreline in football. Really, do not read it at all unless you do literally have all the time in the world to burn.

The main point of the piece was to talk about how 1-0 wins in football are talked up by managers, pundits and commentators (no one-size fits all use of the word “media” here, friends) as “the sign of a successful team”.

This cliché is, inevitably, bollocks. The only time a series of wins by the odd goal looks good is come the end of the season, when hindsight becomes 20:20 and one can look back at that run of wins and say “yeah, that was where the confidence was built and promotion/title was really won”. At the time of those wins, confidence is never there, in the stands at least, to think a win is inevitable.

Much more confidence in your team comes from when you give another club a real dicking. It demonstrates a marked superiority, particularly when you add a clean sheet to the offering too. You can see both on the pitch and on paper that you are a lot better than a fellow team.

And so we come to Reading.

As we’ve quietly gone about our business since the turn of the year, picking up 31 points from 39 available (or 43 points from 51 since December 10^th), we haven’t  really destroyed anyone. Largely single goal or two goal wins have been the order of the day, built on solid defensive performances.

Whilst looking impressive, multiple games in which one unlucky break or piece of magic and the story could be completely different have, for myself at least, doubted how good we might actually be.

Nothing quite breeds confidence like some good solid numbers combined with an impressive performance. Winning well whilst playing badly is good and winning at the very least is also good but a superb performance married with a huge margin of victory is the business.

But, the game against Barnsley was so much more than some confirmation that we can destroy a team when we want to. There were a myriad of other factors to consider.

With our winning run coming to an end in midweek at Doncaster, it was interesting to see how we would bounce back from the smallest of setbacks. My own theory was that the pressure might have been released a bit as the overbearing nature of wanting to keep that run going would be lifted; an extended unbeaten run is a far more common occurrence than a long winning one. That would appear to have been the case.

Secondly, as is so often said, being the hunted is quite a different kettle of fish to being the hunter and Saturday marked the first time this season we were in that position with Reading going into the game second ahead of West Ham. Against a team in a decent run of form, we responded to this new challenge by hitting four goals, taking our goal difference above that of third-placed West Ham and briefly going top of the league.

On the other hand, our East London rivals have felt the pressure and slumped to three draws in a row. It would appear our squad has taken on the experience of last-years late-season pressure and how to cope with it. Pushing on for the whole 90 minutes to grab an extra goal to secure that improved goal difference also shows this experience coming to the fore.

There is still a long way to go this season and I’d still make us third-favourites for promotion thanks to our tricky run-in and the quality of our rivals but quietly going about our business is what we do and there still seems to be some reluctance to take our promotion push based on a “better-than-the-sum-of-our-parts” team approach. Long may it continue that way.

1-0s and time-shifting perspectives

The final score in football is always the most important piece of information to come out of a game. The way in which the score is achieved is quite irrelevant. As long as you get the right result, that is all you need. Even West Ham fans with Sam Allardyce, perhaps the most contrasting manager to an assumed historical ethos around right now, appreciate that.

But the problem with scorelines are that they can be deceptive and misleading. A 1-0 win can come as a result of utter domination from one team and putting away just the one chance or utter domination from that same team and the opposition doing a “smash and grab”. That’s the thing with numbers; they only tell you so much.

In theory and on paper, a 1-0 win is the perfect scoreline for the victorious team. It would appear to indicate minimal effort expended to get the advantage and the prevention of your opponents from achieving their primary aim of scoring.

However, the now clichéd “football is played on grass not paper” argument is the correct one here as anyone who has ever sat through a 1-0 win will attest. That slender advantage is under constant threat; every time the ball gets even remotely close to your team’s penalty box your heart beats increases and your bowels get that feeling usually reserved for that split second between saying a chat-up line and finding out whether it landed or not.

This might just be my in-built pessimism, developed over 15 years of supporting Reading, kicking in but even with a resolutely and proven solid defence, a 1-0 win never looks secure until the final whistle. A team that’s conceded just the one goal in the last seven games or so should be able to hold on to the slenderest of leads as they’ve done it before.

Indeed, we have on the majority of the games in our recent winning run which looks great, once the results have been secured. Sat watching it, one can’t help but feel that the odds of probability mean the equaliser has got to come soon, even with the best teams.

It’s commonly assumed that 1-0 wins that are ground out in the middle of the season are what indicates a successful team on the march to promotion or a title. But they sure as hell don’t feel that way when these wins are being accumulated, even on a regular basis as Reading are doing right now.

Maybe just the Reading pessimism again, seeing as only in THAT season have I ever approached Reading games with a lot of confidence in a positive outcome, but I can’t shake the feeling we will get found out soon. I said the same thing last season mind and Reading are an awful lot more well rounded side than this time last year.

1-0 wins may well be the benchmark of a good team but you just don’t know if the team is really that good, at Championship level anyway, until the season is drawing to a close. Come the end of April, we may well be saying that this period right now is where we won promotion but, right now, each single goal lead still brings the same fear.

Britain’s Gay Footballers @9pm Monday, BBC3- 7 out of 10

Over the last few years, BBC3 has managed to find a niche market in the realm of documentary making; oscillating between hard-hitting issues and trivial bollocks, often with a semi-celebrity host to add some white smiley teeth and good hair.

Without even watching the hour-long programme (seriously, I’m typing this sentence at 8.46pm), Britain’s Gay Footballers will be using the standard BBC3 documentary format; get a celebrity face, said term stretched to breaking point here it must be said, to front a look into the cutting subject of homophobia in football. Perhaps it’s for the common touch to draw in the audience figures. Or a C-list celebrity is cheaper than a journalist these days. Who knows? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

However, there is one very marked and hugely important with Britain’s Gay Footballers. A difference anyone with even a passing knowledge of either football or the fight for gay rights in the UK, not the most exclusive centre circle in a Venn diagram in these increasingly enlightened, will recognise the name Fashanu.

Justin Fashanu was the first openly gay British footballer, ‘coming out’ in late 1990 and, depressingly, remains the only one to have come out. He essentially became an outcast in football, with no club offering him a full time contract since he broke the story in an interview with the Sun. His brother and fellow professional John Fashanu even appeared to ostracise him; a decision he clearly deeply regrets now. Fashanu would later commit suicide in 1998 with his suicide note reading he “did not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family”.

This documentary follows Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin, son of John Fashanu and near subject of nominative determinism (she works in fashion), as she looks into the reasons why out of some 5000 professional footballers in the UK, none are openly gay.

Straight from the off there are some damning indictments of the football world's attitude towards the issue of homophobia in the sport. Cases in point; the outright refusal of nearly all current professional footballers to talk on camera about the issue, albeit not helped by Amal’s to-the-point-not-so-subtle interviewing technique, the generational difference of ex-professionals who still operate in the sport exemplified by John McGovern’s quotes regarding the word “poof” and the refereeing union blocking a gay assistant referee to be interviewed.

Even the players that do talk about the issue seem to treat the issue somewhat trivially and banally, occasionally slipping back into the “banter” default mode and not confronting the issue. However, credit where credit is due to people like Darren Purse and Paul Robinson at Milwall and Joey Barton to break ranks; particularly the latter who tackled the issue with now trademark intelligence and perspective. If more footballers take the stance of these three, the apparent perception from inside football that speaking about the issue means you are homosexual may well hopefully abate.

As a documentary, the show is a bit on the weak side with Amal’s lack of interview technique causing problems and irrelevant asides such as Amal chatting to her friend over coffee about their thoughts on the issue, which just smacks of filler due to a lack of cutting interviews with those in the field; the Barton and Anton Hysen interviews aside.

All in all, for anyone with a knowledge and interest in the issue of homophobia in football, there was very little new ground covered on why there are no current openly gay footballers; the fear of ridicule from both teammates and fellow professionals, abuse from fans, the culture ingrained from previous generations of players and the unfortunate precedent of Justin Fashanu's eventual fate.

However, that’s not really the point. The real point is that the subject needs coverage and to be aired in the public domain. Despite many column inches and blog bytes (that’s the phrase I’ll use for that idea) devoted to the issue, the oxygen of TV is far more important. A slightly soft documentary on the subject, but heart-wrenching on the Fashanu family level of the programme, is a great starting point but there is a long way to go yet.

All questions, very few answers

A weekend is a long enough time in football on the pitch; build up to the game, pre-match talk, the match itself, post-match reaction from the manager, TV analysis, Sunday press analysis and then Monday press analysis. Throw in an off the pitch story and it suddenly gets an awful lot longer. And madder too.

It was only announced around 48 hours ago through Reading Football Club’s official website that a previously unheard of company is in the preliminary stages of gaining a significant stake in the club. Blogging in reaction to that announcement, this writer guessed that it would be a while until any further news came out about this investment and it was a while; less than a day.

Since then, two further statements have come out of the club, numerous speculative news articles and countless pages of discussion across the Internet.

Cutting through the speculation, let’s establish the facts as they are at this stage.

Fact number one; a new group called Thames Sport Investment looks set to buy a “significant” stake in Reading Football Club. The fact that the company is yet to be registered at Companies House and there is no evidence of its existence anywhere is testament to the company being a new group.

Fact number two; Sir John Madejski will stay on as Chairman until at least 2014 and will be Life President once he steps down from the Chairman role. Madejski, therefore, will still have a role in the running of the club until 2014.

Fact number three; the main points to the partnership have been outlined and an agreement signed with regard to these from all concerned parties. The deal is scheduled to be completed by the end of March 2012. Until that point, there is no obligation for the persons involved in TSI to be revealed.

Fact number four; TSI will provide limited funds (although it is not stated in what form these funds will be given; loans? Donations? etc.) for Brian McDermott and Nicky Hammond to strengthen the squad this transfer window.

These are the sum total of the facts we know thus far; essentially, what the original statement on Friday night told us. However, there is an awful lot more to the story than the mere facts. Using nothing more than a cynical eye and no insider knowledge, here are what appear to be the assumptions about the takeover circulating around the media and Reading FC messageboards.

Assumption number one; the man behind TSI is Anton Zingarevich, son of a Russian print businessman who was educated to university level in Reading and who was part of a wildly unsuccessful attempt at providing investment for Everton Football Club. Very little information is available on the man and his previous with Everton as a manager of the Fortress Sports Fund might well suggest there is more to the group than Zingarevich but that is also speculation.

Assumption number two; TSI will take a 51% stake in the club, costing £40 million, and so become owners of the club. Like ‘assumption number one’, the prevalence in this assumption seems to come from a short Daily Mail exclusive published on Saturday (subsequently picked up by no other national media outlet but both Reading-based newspapers) but makes logical sense as any new in investor would presumably want majority ownership.

Assumption number three; as is the case with any takeover, rumours about big spending immediately begin springing up, linking anyone and everyone with the club. When the most concrete rumour is a loan deal for an ageing centre forward, fans speculating about big money deals (this transfer window anyway) would appear to be wishful thinking. What kind of investment fund would pump millions of pounds into an operation that they aren’t even owners of yet? A small good-faith payment is feasible but anything in the millions, at this stage anyway, is surely unrealistic? Whilst the fun of takeover talk is built on Championship Manager-style spending, some realism must be taken into consideration, particularly when the identity of the prospective owner is still pending, let alone his wealth.

Assumption four; I’m as big a defender of the way Madejski has sought a buyer over the last five years as anyone. After 20 years+ at the club, he was always likely to want to sell to the right people to continue the superb work that he has done for the club and the town also. However, as has been documented, the last few years have been difficult for Sir John so perhaps his desire to sell has increased thus loosening his ideals for a new owner.

Essentially, straight-up fact-wise, we know very little more than what was said on Friday night, aside from the stage in negotiations Reading Football Club and TSI are. The rest is largely conjecture and speculation on conjecture. It’s very much impossible for any supporter to make a judgement on the proposed takeover based on the facts we have at hand right now. But that won’t stop anyone doing just that, myself included.

This Tweet might well lead to some more concrete information tomorrow but it only raises further questions. How are the Daily Mail getting so many stories on Reading now? If Zingarevich is the sole member of TSI, how has he gone from being a student with only his father’s money to spend to being able to buy a majority stake in a Championship club inside six years?

All things considered, it’s an exciting time to be a Reading fan but an equally confusing one.

A Post-Madejski World?

It seems like an eternity since Sir John Madejski started his search for new financial investment in Reading Football Club. That would be because it was the better part of five years ago and merely a week in football is a long time, as Carlos Tevez seems so eager to prove.

Anyway, upon promotion to the Premier League way back in 2006, Madejski stressed the need for a new financial backer at Reading; a billionaire rather than a millionaire being the main headline grabber.

Fast forward some 60 or so months, all of which passed by with very little news of any interested parties whatsoever, and we arrive at the consequently surprising announcement made a mere two hours ago.

As the Reading Post and Reading Chronicle seemed it prudent to run the whole statement as the bulk of their article on the subject, this blog shall be doing completely the opposite. If you want to read the three paragraph long statement, go here.

Both the Chronicle and the Post seem to be convinced that the deal is the initial announcement for large-scale investment in Reading Football Club, though cynicism would appear to indicate this is a “we-are-not-quite-sure-but-watch-this-space-and-buy-our-paper” play, with the lack of  clear information outside of the statement posted on the official Reading FC site as evidence for this.

All we have to go on right now is a whole lot of conjecture so here that is.

As pointed our rightly on Hob Nob Anyone?, the ‘Thames Sport Investment’ group is not registered at Companies House and a Google (ever reliable as it is) search brings up no relevant links aside from the official site statement, the resultant stories from the Chronicle and Post  (and subsidiary media outlets) and the Hob Nob thread.

As a result of this and the “no further announcements can be made until a binding agreement has been reached” paragraph of the official site statement, would both appear to indicate that “Thames Sports Investment”  is a new company and the next announcement would come once it becomes a registered company.

One of the perceived stumbling blocks when it comes to new ownership at Reading Football Club has been the role of Madejski in a new set up at the club and the theory that he would want to stay on at the club in some capacity. The statement confirms that he will stay on as Chairman for the foreseeable future, despite the agreement with this new group.

For this observer, this would appear to indicate that the “Thames Sport Investment” company is either a new holding company for Reading Football Club with Madejski at its head or a new set of investors who have grouped together and are awaiting approval for their company to be formed, with the blessing of Madejski to work alongside him.

If the eventual outcome is the latter, this would work well as it would allow the Chairman to guide the new investors in how the club works and its identity, leaving the club in safe hands when Madejski should decide to retire from ownership of the club.

On the other hand, if this new company is merely a restructuring of his ownership of the club, it leaves the club in the same position as it was before this evening’s announcement. However, why the fanfare of a statement if this was the case?

One of the things that Madejski cannot be criticised for is having the club’s best interests at heart, which is why news of a more investment or a takeover has been so long in coming as it had to be approved by Madejski that it was right for the club. If the “Thames Sport Investment” company does prove to be a case of new ownership, this observer would feel confident that they had the best interests of the club at heart, thanks to Madejski.

It may well be some weeks however, before the ramifications of this statement become truly clear, though if any Reading fan is expecting a spending spree akin to Leicester as a result of this, its probably best to come back to reality.

A mid-season review

Despite it _­not quite being halfway through the season, coming after the Christmas/New Year run of games and the 3^rd round FA Cup exit, now would seem like an appropriate time for a mid-season review of Reading’s season.

The one idea that can sum up the season thus far is the effect of diminished and enhanced expectations; a theory best surmised in analysing our exits at the first hurdle of both cup competitions this season.

Our defeat to Charlton wasn’t the end of the world and was generally viewed as a chance to concentrate on our league form. On the other hand, an emphatic (if not on paper but on grass) defeat to another in form team from League One, Stevenage, has prompted much navel-gazing.

So, putting aside the difference in historical size of Charlton and Stevenage, what caused such a large discrepancy in the reactions to the respective defeats? It should be noted that seven of the thirteen players who featured in our League Cup exit also made an appearance on Saturday.

The answer is the difference in expectations of Reading’s capabilities between the two points in the season. The Charlton defeat occurred after only one win in our first four league games and a 13^th place in the Championship. So a defeat to a high flying, inform team in the division below us was almost to be expected.

Fast forward four months or so and a run of seven wins in ten games, putting us into the play-offs, the expectations going into the Stevenage game were much higher than they were ahead of the Charlton game. Admittedly, a terrible “performance” on Saturday exacerbated the reaction but sitting in 5^th place gave many fans (and perhaps the team) a sense of entitlement; an effect of enhanced expectations if you will.

The value of this in-depth look at these two games that were not even in the league comes from our form in the Championship between September and January.

Ten wins and six draws from twenty games in that period, including wins over numerous rivals, has catapulted us from lower mid table bona fide play-off contenders. A solid, and sometimes spectacular, centre back partnership between Alex Pearce and Kasparss Gorkss and Adam Federici’s underrated performances has allowed Reading to eke out results without needing to score too many at the other end of the pitch.

However, impressive as four defeats in twenty games and 5^th place in the league is, there is a flip side to it. A commonly used yardstick for promotion is an average of two points per game and no team in the Championship is achieving this currently. This hints at a league in which many teams are very evenly matched thus making our current 5^th place look a bit false; a result of outstanding current form rather than consistency. In each of our last three seasons back at this level, taking into account the number of games played, 39 points for 5^th place is the lowest total required at the turn of the year.

 A top goalscorer with six goals and the four main strikers contributing just over 50% of our total league goals (17 out of 32) tells its own story on Reading’s area of improvement and why they haven’t been able to push on to that magical two points a game mark.

At the start of the season, especially after the departure of Shane Long, there would have been very few Reading fans who could have confidently stated that we would sit 5^th going into 2012. The fact that we are is testament to Brian McDermott, for the second season in a row, forging together a team and playing style that is successful. On that basis, Reading fans should be particularly pleased with our season thus far.

But the concerns that were expressed at the close of the transfer window, when we sat 20^th in the league, still remain; overdependence on Jobi McAnuff and Jimmy Kebe for creativity, a lack of variation in the striking department and a lack of depth in quality both at centre half and on the wings.

Impressive seasons from Federici, Pearce, Gorkss, Mikele Leigertwood, McAnuff and Kebe have masked these flaws so far, as has the rather average standard of the Championship this year.

All in all, Reading’s season has the potential to go one of two ways still. If the above players can keep up their standards and one of the strikers finds a run of goalscoring form, a play-off place is eminently achievable. McDermott’s record in the second half of each of the last two seasons makes this very plausible, if you believe in the repetition of history.

Equally as plausible however is a couple of injuries or a loss of form to key personnel would lead to a reverting of type and a mid table finish. The matches against Cardiff and Stevenage seem to hint at a relatively small squad feeling the effects of a hectic Christmas/New Year period, although a FA-cup free rest of the season may alleviate the impacts of squad tiredness.

Finally, no predictions will be made this time around; even if they are proven emphatically wrong to the benefit of us all.