On this day......

[From Despair To Where?]

https://royals.org/matdoc/130507.html

One of the best away games I've ever been to.

[MartinRdg]

https://royals.org/matdoc/130507.html

One of the best away games I've ever been to.

Shame we didn't invest in the second season in the premiership....

[East Grinstead Royal]

Yesterday was also the 24th anniversary of the play-off first leg away to Wigan. I know this because I had a prior engagement that day!

[MartinRdg]

Yesterday was also the 24th anniversary of the play-off first leg away to Wigan. I know this because I had a prior engagement that day!

And what a game to miss!

[stealthpapes]

https://royals.org/matdoc/130507.html

One of the best away games I've ever been to.

Shame we didn't invest in the second season in the premiership....

If anything, we did.

Bikey and Cisse was only our third and fourth ever million pound players (Lita, Seol, them, right? maybe Halford fits in at third place), then we smashed our transfer record on Fae, and brought in experience to cover in defence. January, we went over a million again with Matejovsky.

It was probably our highest spending summer ever at that point.

It was just ineffective and rushed, our number one target didn't come and our plan B seemed to be a prize winner not a player.
I don't know what else the club could have done, tbf, second season syndrome is a popular term because it affects so many clubs who approached it in different ways,

[Stranded]

https://royals.org/matdoc/130507.html

One of the best away games I've ever been to.

Shame we didn't invest in the second season in the premiership....

If anything, we did.

Bikey and Cisse was only our third and fourth ever million pound players (Lita, Seol, them, right? maybe Halford fits in at third place), then we smashed our transfer record on Fae, and brought in experience to cover in defence. January, we went over a million again with Matejovsky.

It was probably our highest spending summer ever at that point.

It was just ineffective and rushed, our number one target didn't come and our plan B seemed to be a prize winner not a player.
I don't know what else the club could have done, tbf, second season syndrome is a popular term because it affects so many clubs who approached it in different ways,

Isn't fairly well excepted that we had a deal in place for Gary Cahill but Coppell decided against in the end?

Anyway, after 32 games, we looked realtively fine in 14th place after picking up 10pts in the previous 5 games before completely blowing it with a run of 1pt from 15 including that fatal 2-0 home defeat to Fulham.

We should have stayed up and if so, who knows where we would be now.

[stealthpapes]

I think that's the first I've heard of the Cahill thing, sorry Stranded

[Jackson Corner]

Yesterday was also the 24th anniversary of the play-off first leg away to Wigan. I know this because I had a prior engagement that day!

That was the orange day! Martin Allens idea to match our away kit at the time.

[Jackson Corner]

Can’t believe today 14th was 30 years ago we won 3-1 at Tranmere, in the first leg of the championship playoffs. Brilliant support that day packed the away end. Happy days.

[Dirk Gently]

We certainly had a deal with Hibs for Scott Brown as a Sidwell-replacement, but he was set on joining Celtic so "wouldn't get on the plane."

It's not that we didn't try - we just couldn't persuade the players we wanted to join us. "Little Reading" and all that...

The infuriating thing is that it would have taken so little for us to stay up





(Although no idea why that says Stephen Ireland - that's clearly wrong!)

[From Despair To Where?]

If we'd lost 1-0 at home to Fulham instead of 2-0, we'd have stayed up.

Then again, there's dozens of small instances which in isolation all seemed so insignificant, that would have made the difference between staying up and going down.

[Dirk Gently]

Also today (it came up in my Facebook memories) Steve Coppell's last day at Reading FC was 16 years ago today.

[Stranded]

If we'd lost 1-0 at home to Fulham instead of 2-0, we'd have stayed up.

Then again, there's dozens of small instances which in isolation all seemed so insignificant, that would have made the difference between staying up and going down.

Not quite, we would have gone down by 1 goal. (GD of -24 to -23)

It is a "fact" though that we lost 3-1 away to Fulham and 2-0 at home - the 3rd goal at theirs and the 2nd at ours were both 90th minute goals conceded whilst chasing for an equaliser.

If we had not conceding either of those 90th minute goals, we would have stayed up (GD of -23 to -24) but fact is, we got ourselves into a relatively safe position and then just collapsed.

[Ark Royal]

Can’t believe today 14th was 30 years ago we won 3-1 at Tranmere, in the first leg of the championship playoffs. Brilliant support that day packed the away end. Happy days.

My favourite away day ever and a fantastic performance against a team that had the best home record in the division that season and did the double over us. Clearly remember some sections of the Tranmere support applauding us off the field. Only Bolton to beat after that...

[Sutekh]

If we'd lost 1-0 at home to Fulham instead of 2-0, we'd have stayed up.

Then again, there's dozens of small instances which in isolation all seemed so insignificant, that would have made the difference between staying up and going down.

This. Or lost 2-1 at Fulham instead of 3-1. The annoying thing was that in both games Fulham scored their last goal in sodding injury time

[Jackson Corner]

If we'd lost 1-0 at home to Fulham instead of 2-0, we'd have stayed up.

Then again, there's dozens of small instances which in isolation all seemed so insignificant, that would have made the difference between staying up and going down.

This. Or lost 2-1 at Fulham instead of 3-1. The annoying thing was that in both games Fulham scored their last goal in sodding injury time

From memory they hit the woodwork 3 times! What made that performance worse was Fulham had the worst away record in the premiership. Yet they played us off the park that day.

[Dirk Gently]

If we'd lost 1-0 at home to Fulham instead of 2-0, we'd have stayed up.

Then again, there's dozens of small instances which in isolation all seemed so insignificant, that would have made the difference between staying up and going down.

This. Or lost 2-1 at Fulham instead of 3-1. The annoying thing was that in both games Fulham scored their last goal in sodding injury time

From memory they hit the woodwork 3 times! What made that performance worse was Fulham had the worst away record in the premiership. Yet they played us off the park that day.

They'd not won away in the previous 33 matches.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think that's the first I've heard of the Cahill thing, sorry Stranded

Yeah been pretty widely discussed. Was definitely an error.

We definitely spent big for us, though not that much for even the bottom of that league. So it's not that we didn’t invest, like you said. But that our transfer decisions were very poor.

Pursuing Brown (?) who had no intention of coming. Was it Lescott too or he the season before? Then resorting to Fae, who was poor and his attitude stank... Duberry on the decline, Rosenior for Seol, sticking and not twisting on Cahill, Matejovski wasn't up to the pace of the league, Kebe wasn't nearly ready for it ... etc etc.

[rfc8]

15/5/1982
Brentford 1 Reading 2

[Dirk Gently]

I think that's the first I've heard of the Cahill thing, sorry Stranded

Yeah been pretty widely discussed. Was definitely an error.

We definitely spent big for us, though not that much for even the bottom of that league. So it's not that we didn’t invest, like you said. But that our transfer decisions were very poor.

Pursuing Brown (?) who had no intention of coming. Was it Lescott too or he the season before? Then resorting to Fae, who was poor and his attitude stank... Duberry on the decline, Rosenior for Seol, sticking and not twisting on Cahill, Matejovski wasn't up to the pace of the league, Kebe wasn't nearly ready for it ... etc etc.

I may be verging on blasphemy, but it could be argued SSC made a number of errors that final season.

Not least, Wally Downes begged him to play five in midfield against Fulham to shut down the middle, but he was so stuck to 4-4-2 that he wouldn't change. As above, that was the crucial game.

Also, not going all-out attack away at Derby. They were there for the taking, and although we won 4-0, three more goals would have kept us up. But we didn't make any significant adjustments or really go for broke when we needed it.