Issue 4 - August 1998

Right - hands up who's expecting to get promoted at the first time of asking? You at the back there - put your hand up, man! What are you - a bloody traitor or something?

Because, of course, the Royals are bound to go straight back up again, aren't they? Look at the facts: fantastic new stadium, great manager, new, exciting players and what's more, second division opposition! How can we possibly fail?

Well, quite easily as a matter of fact. The current euphoria surrounding Reading Football Club is unique but is liable to be pricked by the reality of league football some time in September. The likes of Bristol Rovers, Luton and the rest are unlikely to be blown away by our confidence and newly discovered wealth and status.

There are two major reasons for preaching caution for the coming season. Firstly, Reading lost fifteen out of seventeen at the back end of last season and the two games we didn't lose were against Man City and Stoke. Remind me, which division are they in again? This is hardly the form of a team destined to take the division by storm.

Stop, whoa, desist, I hear you cry! Any idiot knows that this appalling failure was under the old regime - so much has changed since then that last season is irrelevant. Not quite, however, but we'll come to that in a minute. The second reason for caution is precisely that change which is supposed to have swept away all last season's problems.

Tommy Burns appears to be an intelligent and perceptive manager and he's certainly very hard working. To achieve the kind of success expected in some quarters, however, he'd have to be Merlin the bloody Magician!! His gameplan, tactics and new training methods will take time to communicate especially as half the playing staff have never played together before. Football, you be surprised to learn after last season, is a team game and you can't build an entirely new team in just a couple of months.

Burns himself, having brought in a large number of new players, will probably not find out his best team for at least a couple of months. Players who shine in training or in friendlies against less-than-interested opposition, may well find life a little harder against fierce tackling defences in the second division (step forward and take a bow, Jason Bowen).

Playing against settled sides, who have not had too many changes in personnel and stick to a set game plan, Reading may well struggle early in the season. A tight-knit squad, who can rotate players without disturbing the rhythm of the side, takes considerably longer to produce than just five months.

Despite the changes, the majority of the squad were involved to a greater or lesser extent in last season's debacle. Confidence, morale or whatever you want to call it, was the lowest since the dark, Maxwellian days of the early eighties and won't be easily restored. A couple of bad defeats early on and those doubts could easily resurface.

What's the point of all this pessimism? Simple really - a plea to give the new manager, his staff and players, the time to give us the team we deserve. With expectation so high, there is a real danger that disappointment, more keenly felt in the circumstances, could quickly turn into bitterness and resentment.

As an example, look at Carl Asaba last season - the record price tag generated an expectation that he was unable to live up to (and remember he was playing in a poor side) . That quickly lead to boos and jeers whenever his name was announced which was undoubtedly counter-productive and may even have destroyed his career at Reading.

Tommy Burns obviously has the full support of everyone in Reading as the '98/'99 season opens. If, as I suspect, it takes longer than one season to regain First Division status then that support should not waiver one jot.