On this day

[Sutekh]

17 February 1998
Sunderland 4-1 Reading

Bibbo, Booty, Davies, Primus, Swales, Parkinson, Houghton, Hodges, Bowen, Asaba, Morley.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

41 years ago today...Reading 1-1 Southend, a third tier game watched by circa 2500 at Elm Park. For those interested, Gary Donnellan scored a late equaliser. For anyone moaning about our wide players today, believe me Donnellan was twice as bad.

Why call this game out? Because there are remarkable parallels with this season. Some guy on a football Facebook group posts random fixtures and tables from today's date through the years and from 1983 today:

Reading were in 16th place and 5 points above the relegation places, having played a game or two more than the sides below them.

Another parallel the club was for sale. The chairman, a certain Frank Waller was looking to sell the club having lost interest, initial interested parties earlier in the season included Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. A few weeks later he agreed to sell to a guy up the road at Oxford, which is more than adequately covered on other posts. The only positive compared to Dai was that at least the wages and tax were paid on time.

Fast forward to the end of the season, the bottom two sides, Preston and Millwall, 11 & 12 points behind us on this day, survived comfortably and we were relegated on the last day with 53 points, our form following the Southend game wasn't even amazingly bad with with 14 points from the last 12 games. Going down with us (indeed we relegated them by beating them on the last day) were Wrexham who on this day 40 years ago had 42 points and were 12th.

I guess this shows anything can still happen....

[Sutekh]

41 years ago today...Reading 1-1 Southend, a third tier game watched by circa 2500 at Elm Park. For those interested, Gary Donnellan scored a late equaliser. For anyone moaning about our wide players today, believe me Donnellan was twice as bad.

Why call this game out? Because there are remarkable parallels with this season. Some guy on a football Facebook group posts random fixtures and tables from today's date through the years and from 1983 today:

Reading were in 16th place and 5 points above the relegation places, having played a game or two more than the sides below them.

Another parallel the club was for sale. The chairman, a certain Frank Waller was looking to sell the club having lost interest, initial interested parties earlier in the season included Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. A few weeks later he agreed to sell to a guy up the road at Oxford, which is more than adequately covered on other posts. The only positive compared to Dai was that at least the wages and tax were paid on time.

Fast forward to the end of the season, the bottom two sides, Preston and Millwall, 11 & 12 points behind us on this day, survived comfortably and we were relegated on the last day with 53 points, our form following the Southend game wasn't even amazingly bad with with 14 points from the last 12 games. Going down with us (indeed we relegated them by beating them on the last day) were Wrexham who on this day 40 years ago had 42 points and were 12th.

I guess this shows anything can still happen....

Oddly if the league had still been playing 2 points for a win that season (3 points had come in the season before) then both Wrexham and Reading would have safely stayed up at the expense of Wigan and Orient.

[Sutekh]

18 years old today.

[stealthpapes]

Happy "Give us the fucking results you wankers" Day one and all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxW-Sxa3fTY

[WestYorksRoyal]

Funny we always show the picture of Doyle when the key goal was Asaba scoring against Watford.

[Franchise FC]

Funny we always show the picture of Doyle when the key goal was Asaba scoring against Watford.

Yep, we could have lost that day and it would still have been the day we were promoted

[Sutekh]

Funny we always show the picture of Doyle when the key goal was Asaba scoring against Watford.

Yep, we could have lost that day and it would still have been the day we were promoted

I always liked Asaba.

[windermereROYAL]

Happy "Give us the fucking results you wankers" Day one and all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxW-Sxa3fTY

Can`t watch that without shedding a little tear considering where we are now, glad I was there, they`ll never take that away from me.

[Greatwesternline]

18 years old today.

Still makes me laugh to think that season our home kit was blue and white, our away kit was blue, and then when faced with the obvious problem this brought about we had a third kit that was white.

If we'd played a team in dark blue and white we'd have needed a 4th kit.

[Sutekh]

18 years old today.

Still makes me laugh to think that season our home kit was blue and white, our away kit was blue, and then when faced with the obvious problem this brought about we had a third kit that was white.

If we'd played a team in dark blue and white we'd have needed a 4th kit.

Don't teams kit colours for each season have to be approved by the FL or is it all at the behest of the referee for each game that's played? i.e. a club could technically decide to have 46 strips, one for each league game and as long as the ref is happy on match day all is well and good?

[SouthDownsRoyal]

18 years old today.

When I read this I said out p loud no, no way

But it really is, god, 18 years ago

[Brogue]

[rabidbee]

Oh look, blue shorts.

[Uke]

Oh look, blue shorts.

[Sutekh]

Oh look, blue shorts.

Blue's too bright though.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

What a team, what a manager what a time to be a Reading fan

[Hendo]

Oh look, blue shorts.

Oh look, white shorts

[South Coast Royal]

Oh look, blue shorts.

Oh look, white shorts

The previous posting to yours showed our greatest ever team wearing blue shorts-I prefer them but would go with white-only socks.
What about boots-should they all be the same colour?

[rabidbee]

Black boots should be mandatory.