RELEGATION SHOCK?
1 April 2001

The Football League Records Department operates a 30 year rule on the release of records and correspondence. Details for the 1970/71 season are now available and reveal for the first time the shocking story of how Reading were relegated that year by a League mistake.

When Reading travelled to Aston Villa on 4th May 1971 they believed they needed a single point to stave off relegation to Division Four. 20 minutes from the end of their final match of the season, with the score at 1-1, Reading's centre forward and player of the season Terry Bell scored from a corner. The goal was hotly disputed and worse still in his own net. Reading went down.

Yet the story now emerges of an even greater tragedy - that Bell's own goal should not have resulted in relegation and that Reading were already safe when they took the field at Villa Park. In fact, it was the Secretary of the Football League, Alan Hardaker, not Terry Bell, who decreed that Reading went down.

Had the full and sensational story come out at the time the storm would have been the League shaken to its foundations. As it turned out the League's cover-up worked, until now, when the full story of this classic case of bureaucratic inefficiency and lack of communication can be revealed. There was, and is now, no suggestion of malice especially directed at Reading FC in the case of 'The Missing Point.'

The matter turned on events not at Villa Park but at Prenton Park, Tranmere, on 26th April 1971, 8 days earlier at about 9.12pm. On a wild and windy night two relegation candidates fought out what looked to be a 0-0 draw in front of a paltry 2,800 or so. With the last kick of the match something bizarre happened in Rovers' goalmouth that led to referee Sheppard (of Pwllheli) to award Reading a goal, a sliced cross that he thought carried momentarily over the line perhaps or one of those near post Les Chappell headers that never quite reached the net. Whatever it was is not recorded in any press report and the goal award went unseen by players and spectators. (Just 4 years later referee Galbraith awarded Reading a goal for a Youlden shot that clearly hit the side-netting but in that instance there was plenty of time for Rochdale to re-start the game). At Tranmere the game did not re-start.

The press, and there would have been only 3 or 4 or present, reported to the world a 0-0 scoreline whilst the referee informed the League Reading won 1-0. Pwllheli seems to be the kind of place where the morning papers don't carry the previous night's results and so referee Sheppard never saw discrepancy between the two scorelines.

There now existed an official version of events (known only to Sheppard and therefore the League) and an accepted public version (the newspapers). The difference may not have come to light but for the inimitable way in which the Football League used to work. The League tables you read every week in the press were not compiled and issued by the League but by the newspapers themselves. The League completes its table only once a season, in May when all the results are in. And they don't just copy out the newspaper version - they construct one from their own records.

This seemingly pointless task was carried out by a minor official called Peter Beard. He eventually discovered that the records of the referees' match reports did not tally with the tables in his newspaper. He asked his boss, Alan Hardaker, to check his calculations. They were right. It took a moment's analysis to reveal which scoreline was the discrepancy - Tranmere v Reading - and a further moment to grasp the significance of the difference.

Hardaker called for the referee's report of the match. These reports tell very little; the date of the match, the teamsheets, the score, the bookings - but no details of goals scored. The League then checked against every newspaper and they all told the same story - the game had been reported as a draw and Reading were relegated on goal average from Walsall.

Hardaker was enraged and it did not help that it took him a week to get hold of referee Sheppard. Sheppard had been on an end-of-season refereeing blitz of local and schools finals and was rather hazy about the Tranmere match. But there was no way he could or wanted to retract his match report. All that Hardaker had achieved was letting someone else in on the secret and now he faced an appalling dilemma.

Either he had to be fair to Reading - and thus undermine confidence in the Football League - or he had to bite his lip and hope the problem never came to light. Could he ring the chairman of Walsall a month after the season had ended and tell them, in fact, they were now relegated instead of Reading? Obviously he did not take this course of action. He felt it would be better for the game as a whole to keep quiet and let the newspapers' version of events stand.

The 'missing point' affair caused a minor innovation in league regulations. Hardaker ordered all Football League referees thereafter to re-start the game from kick-off no matter how late in stoppage time a goal had been scored. There were to be no more League matches won, or not, with the last kick of the game. Interestingly, neither the FA nor FIFA applied this directive.

Who 'missed the point' most of all as a result of this amazing April incident? Was it Reading - 5 long years in Division Four, Sheppard - who never reffed in the League again or somebody nearer home and not quite awake?