Unofficially, I bumped into Brian Carey at the season-ticket holders’ event at the Purple Turtle on Thursday evening.
Carey and Joe Jacobson had just finished their set of answering the pre-vetted questions but I had the former (almost) to myself for a good 10-15 minutes or so. What was very much apparent was that he had absolutely no qualms or limits as to what he told us. Nothing seemed to be held back or was restricted info. Obviously, he was holding back to an extent, but never said that he couldn’t
answer that or deflected in any way.
My own feelings on Brian have always been that he’s just a straight-up man who speaks it as it is. He’s cemented in Reading folklore with his “no dickheads” mantra from a previous event at Blue Collar several years ago with Mark Bowen (now director of football at Forest Green Rovers) and Jared Dublin (now sporting director at Hull City).
At that time - April 2023 - we were all feeling pretty positive that we had “taken our medicine” and these three fellows would take us onto better things. Yet now only one remains and that’s Brian.
So much water has flown murkily under the Reading bridges since then, but Brian was still here at Reading FC. I asked the obvious question that came to mind.
“Why are you still here after everything that went on?”
The basic answer was that it comes down to potential. He cited the infrastructure that we know is up there with the very best in the country, as well as the people at the club, some that we know little about or often see, who are Premier League class.
He waxed lyrical about Noel Hunt in that he is, first and foremost, a people person; he’s off the chart when it comes to man-management. Hunt’s mindful of how the players are day to day, but he knows everything about them. He knows their family environment, who surrounds them, how they are and if they’re OK. If they need anything then they know where he is.
The impression was that Hunt looks after the human before he thinks about the player. It’s a trait that can often be lost when most of us deal with everyone day to day.
Do we treat people right? Do we treat others like we would like to be treated? Do we foster relationships with people in our lives in a positive way? It would appear Hunt embodies these attitudes constantly with his players and who he trusts to be around him.
Brian certainly gave off nothing but good vibes about who he works with on a daily basis to improve our football club. The triumvirate of himself, Jacobson and Hunt is one that appears to work well together, understanding the landscape of Reading FC and the challenges that we face in the post-Dai era.
On the slight downside, he indicated that it will probably be a good 12-18 months before we’re truly absolved of anything related to the Dai era. There’s still stuff that’s coming out of the woodwork.
As we’re all too aware, there’s no endless pot of money to fritter away frivolously. We still have to run a very tight ship, so these unexpected surprises are of no help at all when you’re trying to steady that ship and navigate onwards.
“You’ve got your club back,” he mentioned several times. He, like Jacobson had said in the Q&A, pointed out that the fans did this: we fought for everything and our reward is having days like this when we have surprises like the signing of Paddy Lane (not that he could mention Lane, but many of us at the event had heard the whisper by then!).
To me, after spending some time with him, something I’d wanted to do for a long time, I felt that he and the team around him are the best chance we have to succeed. I mentioned to him that we just need to “join the dots” and get that much-needed stability again, for the first time in eons. He nodded with what I had suggested. That was enough for me, I shook his hand and thanked him for his generous time.
The main takeaways from the whole evening are that, despite some viewpoints, those behind the scenes are working constantly to improve the club. We do have really, really good people here, but it all takes TIME. There are no quick fixes; not everything is known and unpleasant surprises still occur. But ultimately, there are no dickheads. Not under Brian’s watch.
