Rumour - Ben Watson

[Royal Rother]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

[Agent Balti]

But that's OK, we'll still be brilliant next season.

[Agent Balti]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

What's wrong with facts? What's wrong with actually saying what's desperately wrong with the club? Optimism is one thing, being prepared to learn lessons is one we're yet to hear/see/feel from RFC.

[Royal Rother]

Nothing at all.

It's the pathetic "unambitious chairman", "one out one in" type of stuff that is just so much bullshit, deliberately making the worst possible interpretation of every single thing that the anyone connected with the club says or does that I find so irritating after what has been an incredible journey over the last 16 years.

As if lessons haven't been learned in the past, and won't be learned again!! We could not possibly have had the pretty sustained success over the years if the people running the club were not shrewd, intelligent, astute operators, but tell you what, let's forget all that because some mistakes were made last season shall we. And then let's repeat the same fcuking message on every thread in the Team Board for months and months just to make sure evertyone knows how utterly crap the club is.

In many many ways this is one of the best run clubs in the country but because it is run as a business first and foremost with very little gambling with the future muppets think it's unambitious etc. Pathetic really.

[howser]

Sadly whether rightly or wrongly football is a results game and all supporters, however muppet like and pathetic thay are, want success and to see thier clubs prosper in the league in which they compete. Yes we have had a rollercoaster 16 years, but a pretty bland time prior to that, we had a decent fan base at Premiership level and it is common knowledge that we were one of the lower salaried clubs, so we have been financially successfull in the top league, but we failed to sustain our Premiership position because we wern't prepared to, for whatever or whoever reasons to go the extra mile, as other clubs in our situation at the time, Fulham, Bolton and Wigan did, and because of it they are still Premiership sides. A fact that has been more than often spoken about by many authors (or muppets) on this site.

[Roger the Rabbit]

It was a post dated 18th June !!
And followed by other posts updating the numbers !!

I know you like looking on the black side but that's a cracking example ....

I dont know about the "black side" but last season we didnt strengthen in the close season when we needed to........fact

Coppell admitted we were going to struggle after we got beat at home by West Ham in September and we didnt strengthen in January.......fact

The same side was being picked week in week out when we were struggling after January alledgedly due to loyalty..........fact

You surly cant deny any of those.

Well first off I was commenting about your amazing ability to take a 2 week old post which was obviously date sensitive and turn it into something negative !!

Secondly of course I can deny several of those points. The second and the third are obviously wrong and the first is debatable, correct in hindsight but not an easy one to call back last summer when the addition of a £2.5 million player we'd been tracking for a long time, a decent looking player from a decent Portugese side and a well thought of young English player didn;t look that bad !

[Royal Rebel]

Only 6k season tickets so far ??

I think it's closer to 12k

All those "free" scarfs. Mr Mad will have a heart attack !!

[Roger the Rabbit]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

What's wrong with facts? What's wrong with actually saying what's desperately wrong with the club? Optimism is one thing, being prepared to learn lessons is one we're yet to hear/see/feel from RFC.

Other than in the various interviews where Coppell talks about what mistakes he made last season and how doesn;t want to repeat them ?

[winchester_royal]

Nothing at all.

It's the pathetic "unambitious chairman", "one out one in" type of stuff that is just so much bullshit, deliberately making the worst possible interpretation of every single thing that the anyone connected with the club says or does that I find so irritating after what has been an incredible journey over the last 16 years.

As if lessons haven't been learned in the past, and won't be learned again!! We could not possibly have had the pretty sustained success over the years if the people running the club were not shrewd, intelligent, astute operators, but tell you what, let's forget all that because some mistakes were made last season shall we. And then let's repeat the same fcuking message on every thread in the Team Board for months and months just to make sure evertyone knows how utterly crap the club is.

In many many ways this is one of the best run clubs in the country but because it is run as a business first and foremost with very little gambling with the future muppets think it's unambitious etc. Pathetic really.

'greed. There are too many supporters who spend the whole time whingeing about lack of money spent, and lack of ambition, seemingly forgetting where we came from, and what the current management has done.

[Agent Balti]

Nothing at all.

It's the pathetic "unambitious chairman", "one out one in" type of stuff that is just so much bullshit, deliberately making the worst possible interpretation of every single thing that the anyone connected with the club says or does that I find so irritating after what has been an incredible journey over the last 16 years.

As if lessons haven't been learned in the past, and won't be learned again!! We could not possibly have had the pretty sustained success over the years if the people running the club were not shrewd, intelligent, astute operators, but tell you what, let's forget all that because some mistakes were made last season shall we. And then let's repeat the same fcuking message on every thread in the Team Board for months and months just to make sure evertyone knows how utterly crap the club is.

In many many ways this is one of the best run clubs in the country but because it is run as a business first and foremost with very little gambling with the future muppets think it's unambitious etc. Pathetic really.

True...but what staggers me (and disillusioned me enough not to renew my ST) is that whilst we have great long term memories we rest on them for far too long. We worked our way out of the Championship admirably, I was proud to be associated with MY club. People who had no affiliation to the club marveled at how we did it. I told them, we spent little money, we used what we had and used it well.

The same people ask me what went wrong last season, I told them, we spent little money and used what we had and we DID NOT learn that lesson. THE most important season was the second season; we all knew it. Where were the shrewd, intelligent, astute operators then? Too afraid to do it when it mattered. If we never ever wanted to mix it with the big boys because we couldn't afford it then fine; Madejski should have sold up before the heat got too much. Yes, yes, all praise to where he got us, I've no quarrel with that...but ever since we got to the hallowed Premiership, we cocked it up, on and off the field. Coppell, as brilliant a man manager he is, one of which we'll not see the likes again, admitted himself - he stayed too loyal to the players - he did the same at Palace and damn well said so. AAAAH...he did it once, and he did it again!!! Where is the club telling Steve that surely we need to invest in new players? No. Madejski et al sit on their hands and watch us 'hope for the best'.

I love my club, but last season was criminal. We, as fans, we're shafted. I may expect too much, yet I expected so much more. And I still do. I don't want us to be a Wolves or QPR, chucking silly money at bloody anything that moves, we have principles, sure, but we need action/consequence - currently we just seem to be shrugging our shoulders and moseying on into next season. All the time we were in the Premiership, I asked myself, as a fan of 20 years "Do we really want this or are we just here for the ride?" Sadly, it seemed to be the latter, and therefore so does this season or that's the way *I* feel.

[howser]

Well said Balti, I have been around this club since 1963 and feel very much the same as you say, last year we had the perfect base and just didn't do it !!

[Ian Royal]

And neither can you deny that we had almost 12,000 Season tickets sold at least a week ago, if not 2.

[Ian Royal]

Bigger clubs than us, with more infrastructure spending more money on more players have gone down.

We played it too safe and tried to rely on our excellent team spirit. Unfortunately they deserted us and we were left marginly not good enough. That doesn't mean that the decisions made or management was appalling. It could have been much better certainly. In Hindsight it was pretty bad.

Equally we could have splashed the cash (at our sort of level) still gone down and ended up with a few more high earners not wanting to be here any more.

Whats done is done. It's time to focus on the season ahead and how we rebuild and prepare. Just because we aren't in the papers unsettling this person a and chucking moeny at that old pro doesn't mean we arn't working hard. Nor does it mean we won't get anyone decent in. If we've made no signings at all by the end of July then I'll start to get nervous.

[RobRoyal]

Nothing at all.

It's the pathetic "unambitious chairman", "one out one in" type of stuff that is just so much bullshit, deliberately making the worst possible interpretation of every single thing that the anyone connected with the club says or does that I find so irritating after what has been an incredible journey over the last 16 years.

As if lessons haven't been learned in the past, and won't be learned again!! We could not possibly have had the pretty sustained success over the years if the people running the club were not shrewd, intelligent, astute operators, but tell you what, let's forget all that because some mistakes were made last season shall we. And then let's repeat the same fcuking message on every thread in the Team Board for months and months just to make sure evertyone knows how utterly crap the club is.

In many many ways this is one of the best run clubs in the country but because it is run as a business first and foremost with very little gambling with the future muppets think it's unambitious etc. Pathetic really.

Right on. This post needs to be lasered on the inside of the eyelids of some of the fools on here.

[Royal Rother]

We worked our way out of the Championship admirably, I was proud to be associated with MY club. People who had no affiliation to the club marveled at how we did it. I told them, we spent little money, we used what we had and used it well.

The same people ask me what went wrong last season, I told them, we spent little money and used what we had and we DID NOT learn that lesson.

On the face of it yours is a good post because it sums up many people's feelings very well, with passion and eloquence - however this extract just sums up perfectly what really pisses me off.

You were very happy when the policies worked brilliantly in 2005/6 and 2006/7, proud to be associated with the club, because everyone admired us, and proud to explain that we did it differently.

Yes, mistakes were made (and subsequently acknowledged) but the club continued to operate within the exact same framework of principles in the very next season, yet when it didn't work so well you became so disillusioned that you won't renew your season ticket.

It's up to you of course but can you not see how fickle that makes you sound? Real men, real supporters don't swing from loving something one minute so much that they tell everyone about it with great pride, and then go all hissy the next minute when it doesn't work so well. It's childish and it's feeble.

[TheMaraudingDog]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

Some of them don't even ever go and just watch all the games on the internet.

[Royal With Cheese]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

Some of them don't even ever go and just watch all the games on the internet.

I think we're getting a bit confused with "Supporters", "Posters on an internet forum" and "Fishermen"

[Royal Rother]

Reading FC really is blessed with some great supporters.

Some of them don't even ever go and just watch all the games on the internet.

And some of them probably spend all their spare time on a Man Utd fans' site.

Actually no, no Reading supporter would be that fcuking stupid.

[Southbank Old Boy]

We worked our way out of the Championship admirably, I was proud to be associated with MY club. People who had no affiliation to the club marveled at how we did it. I told them, we spent little money, we used what we had and used it well.

The same people ask me what went wrong last season, I told them, we spent little money and used what we had and we DID NOT learn that lesson.

On the face of it yours is a good post because it sums up many people's feelings very well, with passion and eloquence - however this extract just sums up perfectly what really pisses me off.

You were very happy when the policies worked brilliantly in 2005/6 and 2006/7, proud to be associated with the club, because everyone admired us, and proud to explain that we did it differently.

Yes, mistakes were made (and subsequently acknowledged) but the club continued to operate within the exact same framework of principles in the very next season, yet when it didn't work so well you became so disillusioned that you won't renew your season ticket.

It's up to you of course but can you not see how fickle that makes you sound? Real men, real supporters don't swing from loving something one minute so much that they tell everyone about it with great pride, and then go all hissy the next minute when it doesn't work so well. It's childish and it's feeble.

Different times and different circumstances demand different approaches.

Edit: I would love us to get Watson by the way.

[Royal Rother]

Indeed, but if the underlying principles gave such pride when they brought success, how the hell can you have a hissy fit when they bring relative failure, and be so utterly convinced that application of those self-same principles cannot possibly bring success again within our lifetimes? And that the people who brought such fantastic success are now a bunch of unambitious incompetents?

Exaggeration of course, but that still encapsulates the feeling of many posts I've read on here.