After an almost three-week gap since the last home game, it was back to the South Reading Arena for League One carnage! A disappointing loss to a team in eel country (you know they eat those in East London, don’t you?) meant a response was definitely on the menu for the boys in blue.
Speaking of menus, the folks over in hospitality got a real treat. I’m not sure if you were aware, but this game was dubbed “Louisiana Day” and, for most of us, that meant nothing. Some nice tie-ins with a far-away tourist
board, yes, but the extras seemed to centre around selling premium tickets for the game.
I’ve no issues with this in principle (listen, it’s football, it’s business), but to try to shift tickets off the back of something that very few in the crowd could experience and take part in seemed a bit misjudged to me. It felt very “un-Reading” and I can’t really explain it any better than that currently. We aren’t a corporate machine but the game and the build-up felt just that.
The counter-argument of course is that this stuff pays for new players, and Haydon Roberts and Ryan Nyambe were both in the squad, with the former starting. It’s what we needed: no one reading this would argue we didn’t need full-backs and, if you did, you are completely wrong and out of order. We need chaps who can get up and down their lines; attack but also be disciplined defensively.
I had a swift Spanish pint in the hotel beforehand and, as I left, I was met with colourful explosions from around the ground, almost like someone was setting off fireworks in broad daylight to celebrate something. There was no way that could be the case I thought, as setting off fireworks outside of night-time would be demented.
Temperature-wise, it was OK at kick-off. I wouldn’t have said warm, but certainly OK. My new Columbia jacket (#ad) was certainly doing the business while the sun was semi out.
We started reasonably well, but not spectacular, with both teams settling into the game like a middle-class person settles into their new Simba mattress.
Roberts looked like prime Roberto Carlos, bombing up and down the left flank like he was trying to impress his new club or something. That eagerness eventually paid off with a goal for the ages (it wasn’t for the ages, but still worth a second look).
Having gone ahead in the game, it was absolutely vital we went into the water break in the lead. Vital. Of course, 50-year-old David McGoldrick had other ideas, taking full advantage of some appalling defending like a man abusing the time limit on an all-you-can-eat hot-fork buffet. That equaliser sent the Reading faithful glumly into the half-time entertainment.
On that note, I was delighted to see it back. Was I upset I wasn’t asked to host it, given that I’d done it for a few seasons a while back? Did my heart twinge slightly when the guy I barely know but have sat near for the past 15 years came up to me and said: “Why aren’t you doing that?” Did I vow there and then to never, ever buy anything again from the club in protest?
I can’t answer these questions, I really can’t, and to be honest I wish you’d stop asking and bringing it up. To console myself, I ate a Mars bar which I may or may not have got from the concourse.
The second half rolled around and, much like the performance in front of me, the temperature dropped. It had become cold and barren up there in the Dolan, not helped by the visitors taking the lead.
We showed a little bit more impetus in getting forward and big Jack Marriott knocked in his 63rd goal of the season to salvage a point. We looked dangerous from that point on, but it was too little, too late and we had to settle for a draw.
Before the Leyton Orient game, talk was rife of playoffs. While it’s still to play for, I’m not sure we can develop the consistency needed for a top-six finish and, as such, perhaps mid-table is where we realistically land.
Of course, there is still plenty of soccer to play but we need to defensively shore up – we aren’t a team that can score freely and we aren’t helping ourselves by conceding as many goals as we are.
I was really looking forward to this game and being back in B13, but much like Louisiana Day, it all felt a bit flat and washed out.
A busy week awaits in RG2 with the visit of Exeter City and then a trip up the road to Northampton Town. For me, it has to be at least four points to keep the playoffs alive. Anything less and we can probably start planning for life in League One again next season, barring a collapse of the other teams above us.
Until next time.
