Guardian Championship 2011-12 Fans Blog...

[gazzer, loyal royal]

Here's our bit:

Dream or nightmare? I think it's safe to say that Reading's season, in particular the second-half of it, has been an absolute dream. The form that we've been in since Christmas has been almost unbelievable and, pessimist that I am, I was waiting for the game where it would start to unravel. But that game never really came and to first win promotion and then the Championship trophy as well — incredible. It would be fair to say that the signing of Jason Roberts was a turning point in our season — his experience and guile helped to eke out victories where we might otherwise have struggled to complete the job. And it's clear that he has been an important figure in our dressing room as well. And with a new owner coming in, the future looks bright. Anton Zingarevich has made all of the right noises so far, so we hope he will build on the good work that Sir John Madejski has done for the club.

Top marks Officially our player of the season was Alex Pearce but, for me, it was his partner in central defence Kaspers Gorkss who deserves the plaudits for organising our back line, making it the meanest in the division and his experience has rubbed off on younger players around him.

Bottom of the class Hard to pick a donkey after a season like this one, but Simon Church has perhaps been our weakest player. The signing of Jason Roberts showed how much we needed the extra quality in attack and I'd be surprised to see Church feature much next season.

The gaffer I can't praise Brian McDermott highly enough. After taking us to the play-off final last season, before losing his best players in Shane Long and Matt Mills, the gaffer has created a title-winning team, despite having to rebuild the side. And he turned down Wolves, where I live and commute to the games from. Legend.

Best moment An easy one this – the pitch invasion when we were promoted was the season's highlight. I couldn't make the game when we won the Championship six years ago, so personally it felt great to be involved in the celebrations this time around.

Worst moment The loss at home to Watford in September was our fifth in a row and, I'll admit, did make me question my decision to buy a season ticket and drive down from Wolverhampton every other week for the games …

Best fans I was amazed at how many Nottingham Forest fans stayed behind to applaud us after we beat them at the Madejski Stadium to secure promotion. Even during the madness of the pitch invasion, that stuck with me.

Worst fans A small portion of the Crystal Palace visiting fans to the Madejski didn't exactly cover themselves in glory, ripping up advertising hoardings and trying to offer everyone out for a fight. But the ones I met outside the ground later were fine!

Todd Nash, Reading fan (@toddnash)

Pretty much spot on here!

i believe the guy works at the guardian, so should have enough to write a decent write up

[floyd__streete]

West Ham United

and waving to Southampton and Reading as they sink back down next season, whilst doing the double over Sheffield United, it will be worthwhile just for that.

Wow, a sentence that manages to be both bitter and ignorant all at once! Reading thrashed West Ham twice and Southampton look a worthy promoted side to me. And such ignorant billy big-b*ll*cks towards a Sheff U side who were cheated by the Hammers dodgy transfer dealings? No wonder everyone wants this tragic club supported by mockney w@nkers to get royally r@ped in the play offs.

[westongeezer]

When i read those reports and the way we are berated for being sht fans sht stadium, i can't help think why us, every game i have been to the fans have been exactly the same as us with the exception of posssibly 2 or 3 clubs and most new model stadiums are identical to ours, i realy think they are jealous of the way we operate and the success we have had on little more than a shoe string budget. In a way this only bolsters my belief in Reading and as much i have always supported Reading for the same reason, i have never followed the crowd and givern the easy answer to be popular with the gang and as many would agree when we where at school it took balls not to follow Leeds Liverpool and such likes, and you may have well as told everyone you where a Jehovah witness than admit to following Reading, but after 30+ years of following the club and seeing the rise albeit slow ist great to be here now and as already noted " like i care what other clubs think" i now see it for what it is, Envy is a cruel mistress!

[Stuka]

When i read those reports and the way we are berated for being sht fans sht stadium, i can't help think why us, every game i have been to the fans have been exactly the same as us with the exception of posssibly 2 or 3 clubs and most new model stadiums are identical to ours, i realy think they are jealous of the way we operate and the success we have had on little more than a shoe string budget. In a way this only bolsters my belief in Reading and as much i have always supported Reading for the same reason, i have never followed the crowd and givern the easy answer to be popular with the gang and as many would agree when we where at school it took balls not to follow Leeds Liverpool and such likes, and you may have well as told everyone you where a Jehovah witness than admit to following Reading, but after 30+ years of following the club and seeing the rise albeit slow ist great to be here now and as already noted " like i care what other clubs think" i now see it for what it is, Envy is a cruel mistress!

Indeed, it would be interesting if the Olympic stadium deal goes through and they move there- with potentially poor acoustics, bad feeling from having moved from Upton Park, and a running track around it could be worse than 'Highbury Library'.

[Gordons Cumming]

Who really cares what West Ham fans think,.............. really?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

When i read those reports and the way we are berated for being sht fans sht stadium, i can't help think why us, every game i have been to the fans have been exactly the same as us with the exception of posssibly 2 or 3 clubs and most new model stadiums are identical to ours, i realy think they are jealous of the way we operate and the success we have had on little more than a shoe string budget.

I think it's deeper than that. We used to be a small club that had achieved little of note, playing out of an unremarkable town.

Clubs like ours are meant to stay like that forever. They are meant to "know their place".

Instead we've grown beyond recognition, and fans just can't hack it. They can't get their heads round the fact that we aren't that little League One club any more, so any larger crowds must be some kind of smoke and mirrors illusion - fake in other words. The "new" fans aren't real fans, even though our crowds have been much higher for nearly one and a half decades now.

As it's a modern things, we get associated with all the crap around modern football. Goal music, even though most of the leage does that. Rumblestix, even though they were never seen at the ground after once free offer ten years ago (and even those "proper" Man City fans had them on Monday night).

The one thing you can have a go at us about is poor away support. Up until the West Ham game we apparently had the 2nd worst away following in the division. I'm not going to slag off those who don't go as I rarely go away these days, although I used to go regularly in the past, but it is odd that such a low percentage of our fans have got the bug for going away.

[Z175]

I think it's deeper than that. We used to be a small club that had achieved little of note, playing out of an unremarkable town.

Clubs like ours are meant to stay like that forever. They are meant to "know their place".

Instead we've grown beyond recognition, and fans just can't hack it. They can't get their heads round the fact that we aren't that little League One club any more, so any larger crowds must be some kind of smoke and mirrors illusion - fake in other words. The "new" fans aren't real fans, even though our crowds have been much higher for nearly one and a half decades now.

As it's a modern things, we get associated with all the crap around modern football. Goal music, even though most of the leage does that. Rumblestix, even though they were never seen at the ground after once free offer ten years ago (and even those "proper" Man City fans had them on Monday night).

The one thing you can have a go at us about is poor away support. Up until the West Ham game we apparently had the 2nd worst away following in the division. I'm not going to slag off those who don't go as I rarely go away these days, although I used to go regularly in the past, but it is odd that such a low percentage of our fans have got the bug for going away.

I agreed with your post. But I would imagine its because fans are "new" that they are only just starting to bolster the numbers of our away support. Unless you have royals supporting family/wife/girlfriend its harder to commit to 46 games than 23, but as our 8,000 new home supporters grow up and spread the bug, their familes etc might be ever more committed and the away attendance will grow, just it will lag behind the explosion in home games.

I also think we do have a unique problem as a "second team". Comments such as our fans wear other clubs shirts aren't far off the mark - one guy at our trophy presentation had a Man city hat on! Being so close to London, and, unlike most top two tier clubs, with a history almost solely in the bottom two divisions, this is probably more of a fact about Reading than others.

Its easy to criticise "new" fans too, "non league" Wigan get 19k a game now, and the "franchise" MK Dons are now averaging almost 9k a game, at what point do we acknowledge these clubs fanbases are here to stay? The real test would be the how many would we get in League two? Probably around the Oxford/Swindon mark of 7-8k I would imagine - not a return to Elm Park era attendances at all. So in short, I would accept any criticism by fans of Bradford City (average attendance >10k in League two), but every other clubs fans are plastics too!

[under the tin]

I think it's deeper than that. We used to be a small club that had achieved little of note, playing out of an unremarkable town.

Clubs like ours are meant to stay like that forever. They are meant to "know their place".

Instead we've grown beyond recognition, and fans just can't hack it. They can't get their heads round the fact that we aren't that little League One club any more, so any larger crowds must be some kind of smoke and mirrors illusion - fake in other words. The "new" fans aren't real fans, even though our crowds have been much higher for nearly one and a half decades now.

As it's a modern things, we get associated with all the crap around modern football. Goal music, even though most of the leage does that. Rumblestix, even though they were never seen at the ground after once free offer ten years ago (and even those "proper" Man City fans had them on Monday night).

The one thing you can have a go at us about is poor away support. Up until the West Ham game we apparently had the 2nd worst away following in the division. I'm not going to slag off those who don't go as I rarely go away these days, although I used to go regularly in the past, but it is odd that such a low percentage of our fans have got the bug for going away.

Agree with most of that, but might add that the evolution of RFC is an ongoing thing.
Our home support is growing first, and I would suspect that our away following will eventually do the same.
The statistic about being the 2nd worst in the division should be veiwed in the context of the "competition"
I would suggest that if you take a dispassionate look at the Champ this season, and then eliminate what could be loosely described as our historical "peer group"; Doncaster, Watford, Blackpool, Barnsley, Peterborough, Milwall, Burnley, then you can see that we are knocking heads with clubs that have built up a large historical fanbase owing to on pitch glories. There are League and European champions in there, multiple FA Cup winners, etc etc.
These clubs did not start taking thousands away from day one, it's been built over time.
We are still on the journey, and if the future turns out to be as bright as Zingarevich's ambitions, then there is no reason why we will not be matching these other clubs down the line.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I agreed with your post. But I would imagine its because fans are "new" that they are only just starting to bolster the numbers of our away support. Unless you have royals supporting family/wife/girlfriend its harder to commit to 46 games than 23, but as our 8,000 new home supporters grow up and spread the bug, their familes etc might be ever more committed and the away attendance will grow, just it will lag behind the explosion in home games.

Do away fans go away as families though? My experience was that the bulk of away fans weren't married, which gave them the freedom to go away every other weekend rather than trudging round Tesco or taking the kids to see their aunty.

I also think we do have a unique problem as a "second team". Comments such as our fans wear other clubs shirts aren't far off the mark - one guy at our trophy presentation had a Man city hat on! Being so close to London, and, unlike most top two tier clubs, with a history almost solely in the bottom two divisions, this is probably more of a fact about Reading than others.

You certainy find the Jazz Cafe packed earlier if there's a "big 4" game on early, but kids apart, I doubt it's Reading that are the second team. It's not uncommon for those who grew up outside Reading especially to have supported "a club off the telly" as a kid, but got into Reading as they got older.

To be honest, you never see anyone (beyond the odd kid, and even that's incredibly rare) wearing another club's shirt at the Madejski. I think it's just one of those criticisms that people like to assume about a set of fans, without requiring a shred of evidence for it actually being true.

Some fans just have odd preconceived ideas about what other clubs' fans are like. I saw a thread on a Birmingham City forum on Sunday where someone had linked to a thread from here, quoting someone saying Birmingham was a dump. There then followed a whole trail of outrage about what a terrible place Reading is, how bad the club and fans are etc, by people who'd clearly not clicked on the link.

Its easy to criticise "new" fans too, "non league" Wigan get 19k a game now, and the "franchise" MK Dons are now averaging almost 9k a game, at what point do we acknowledge these clubs fanbases are here to stay?

For me, it's easy to accept, but for a Leyton Orient or Bournemouth supporter, the temptation to deny you've been completely left behind by one of your peers, or for the Bristol City or Burnley fan who'd have look down on Reading and has a determination to deny they've been overtaken, always appears too strong.

It's a little like the achieve-nothing-ever waster on the council estate always assuming those who leave and better themselves are snobs who've forgotten where they've come from and arrogantly look down their nose at the people they once knew, or the untalented unambitious guy in the office who resents the younger, more recently employed worker who passes him on the career ladder.

[Terminal Boardom]

Don't dismiss the cost of a family of 4 going to an away game. Finances and economy being what they are at present, it is no surprise if there is a reduction in the number of people who regularly travel to away games. Those that do go, I applaud. Those that don't, I accept. Those that moan, I ignore.

[reading_fan]

Another factor in away attendances might be that teams have good away attendances because they are places that the economically upwardly mobile move away from, whereas Reading would be a town you would move to - ie a club like Plymouth has a lot of people/fans who have moved away from the area for career reasons to say Reading or London or Bristol or Brum, and so for many of them it is easier to go to the away games than it is to make the trip to Home Park and so they would have a bolstered away attendance. Reading would be the opposite, people would move to the area for work reasons so our fans are more concentrated in the Reading/London area rather than spread around the country, as there would be fewer career reasons (potentially) to move elsewhere. Hence a long away trip to say, Burnley, for Plymouth fans might attract a larger following as there would be more coming from Manchester/Birmingham rather than the majority of our fans coming from the home counties.

Using myself as an example of this, I can do the whole country from Brum in about 3.5 hours max, and a home game is just under 2 hours for me, which is no real difference to going to say Sheffield for an away game, so I don't have the 4-5 hour trips from Reading that you guys do. So a trip to Sheffield might put some off due to the distance, but for me it makes no difference to getting down for a home game so I am equally likely to go.

I realise this argument falls down a bit for the big city teams, but then they have a greater population to draw a fanbase from anyway. Plus, the larger city teams have tended to be the more successful over the years anyway so have built up the natural increase in fanbase that success brings.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Don't dismiss the cost of a family of 4 going to an away game. Finances and economy being what they are at present, it is no surprise if there is a reduction in the number of people who regularly travel to away games. Those that do go, I applaud. Those that don't, I accept. Those that moan, I ignore.

How many families of any club are away regulars? How many families of four do you see at home games for that matter?

I just think we've never really had a strong culture of away support. Even in the Elm Park days our support wasn't great away, even considering the size of our crowds.

[Deadlock]

Those that do go, I applaud. Those that don't, I accept. Those that moan, I ignore.

I agree with this web.

[Jackson Corner]

Lets face it anyone who follows Reading away comes from Reading. We don't have pockets of fans dotted about all over England like a Forest Derby or Boro. It's a very time consuming not to say very expensive commitment to travel away to every game. The one's that do it have my upmost respect I wish I could do more but I just don't have the time or money.

[winchester_royal]

Lets face it anyone who follows Reading away comes from Reading.

Wronggggg.

[under the tin]

I just think we've never really had a strong culture of away support. Even in the Elm Park days our support wasn't great away, even considering the size of our crowds.

I'd disagree with this statement to an extent.
Back in the seventies/eighties, when I was single, and had a proper disposable income, I used to go to away games.
Then, there were always 2 coaches. Coach 1 was basically a mobile old folks' home. If a third coach was booked from Smith's, the regulars used to call it "the promotion coach". Anyway, enough of the nostalgia.
Where I would take small issue, regarding our historical away support, is that it varied according to where the fixture was. From my memory, we were usually well represented at all Derby games, OX, SN, HP, and most of the games away at the London clubs, Brentford, Fulham and Palace. Milwall was left alone for the obvious reason.

Looking back, I can't remember that many clubs bringing more than a few hundred to EP.
Villa, Sheff W, Pompey, Swansea, The Bristol clubs, Northampton (once), and the local rivals.
To me, it seems that the larger following in the away end we tend to notice at the Madstad these days says more about the stature of the clubs we are now pitting our wits against than our own following.

Away games are a good laugh, but they represent an occaisional jolly for people like me with burgeoning post-divorce mortgages. Last time in the Prem, my son attended about 6-7 away games. Not once did he spend less than a hundred quid.

[westongeezer]

I tend to agree Winchester, im my home there are 8+ that travel and my work town upwardly of 10 and im Somerset, i travel to away games and so do many that i know. but in context no where near as many as other clubs im sure.
Btw ofc there could be more, but those are the ones i know and frequent the motorways with

[Royal With Cheese]

Lets face it anyone who follows Reading away comes from Reading.

Pre Permiership I would have agreed. Post Prem we've picked up a growing group of supporters with no affiliation to the area.

[PieEater]

Interestingly (or perhaps not) the Mad Stad was the most popular destination for away support (on average) last season.

They're obviously on here for the Kebe.

[pea]

Lets face it anyone who follows Reading away comes from Reading.

Pre Permiership I would have agreed. Post Prem we've picked up a growing group of supporters with no affiliation to the area.

Don't agree with either of those statements, the evidence is here on this board and others, there are thousands of exiled fans who have been supporting the club from an early age who haven't lived in Reading for years