Worst three matches watched

[Coley Park Mark]

Away at Wycombe in the Hokey Cokey Cup (I think). We lost. Paul Holsgrove played sweeper. We were terrible. My Dad (a Plymouth supporter that I'd brought along to educate in the ways of proper football) laughed at us; it still haunts me.

That Wimbledon one

Not technically a match as it got abandoned. It was a cup game at EP 95,96 (Bury possibly?) it pissed down, and for some reason I was on the Tilehurst end with no coat. The ball wouldn't roll, we were one nil down and the ref had mercy. I had a cold.

[The whole year inn]

Thrashings at home to Bristol Rovers and up at Tranmere.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Port Vale at home 1982- lowest league home crowd for Reading ever, and I was there! lost 2-3!
Got a program in the roof I believe- to be honest I can hardly remember the game itself, it was almost Immaterial !

So bad was the game in fact that you can't even remember the opposition. It was Preston North End.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Thrashings though can be fun though as I think there comes a point when its just hilarious and gives you the opportunity to celebrate madly when your team wins a tackle, throw in or corner. As a result I don't include the excellent 0-6 to Bristol Rovers or the 1-5 on that miserable Tuesday in Stockport.

That Wimbledon 3-0 is number four for me and number 5 is the excuse we got for football back in 1982 when we managed to lose at home to Bishop's Stortford in the cup.

Anyway my 3 are:

THREE

Wrexham 3 - 0 Reading circa August 1998

First day of a new season and the realisation that Tommy Burns had no clue about English football, and wouldn't know a player if one came up and introduced himself.

TWO

Reading 1 - 3 Notts County circa March 1989

Branfoot out, enough said.

ONE

Oxford United 3 - 0 Reading circa March 1998

Quite possibly the worst ever performance by a Reading team. Remember seeing Caskey in the stands and wondering why on earth he wasn't on the pitch. Game characterised entirely by Michael O'Neil being substituted and walking into the flag that Oxford used have marking the halfway line as he went off. If ever a performance deserved the "You're not fit to wear the hoops" chant that was it.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

1) Wimbledon 0-3, the last in the run of 3 0-3 losses which included ANdy Johnson giving us the run around for palace at home and a shit Dutch midfielder getting a hat-trick away at Stoke

2) Swansea away in the cup in 2005. was a replay on sky on a cold monday night and the vetch was a dingy as it could of got. Nothing happened at all until Forster popped up in extra time. that was a yawn fest

3)Reading 0-1 Watford 2003. Last day of the season, chance to get into the play-offs and we didn''t create anything, was so boring. 3000 Royals and i think we had one shot on target all match

[PlasticRoyale]

Luton in the Carling Cup a couple of years ago. Nearly went to extra time, i'd have been happy if Luton had scored just to avoid that.

[Schards#2]

Spoilt for choice. The worst three results have been

Chesterfield 7-1

Bristol Rovers 0-6

Bishops Stortford 1-2

But the three most depressing were

2-1 away to Wealdtone

3-0 at Oxford, all hope was gone

1-1 at home to Blackpool who'd lost about 10 on the spin and had about 15 players out injured. Desperate

[Franchise FC]

Cardiff away one year. Can't even remember the score, but it was so cold that the Police made us go into the covered stand with the Cardiff fans for fear of us dieing of exposure!

Port Vale at home 1982- lowest league home crowd for Reading ever, and I was there! lost 2-3!
Got a program in the roof I believe- to be honest I can hardly remember the game itself, it was almost Immaterial !

Last is a run of games rather than one in particular, but in the early 80's I seem to remember Reading set a record for the most amount of 0-0 draws on the trot, and we would spend the whole game chanting "all we are saying is give us a goal" to the tune of Give peace a chance.

That 1982 game was so memorable that you've forgotten the opponents - it was Preston. Attendance was c1,700 and Elliott of Preston scored all three to Kerry Dixon's two. Can't have been that bad - I can remember more about that game than a lot of others.

[Dirk Gently]

Are we talking worst match or worst performance here?

For me a bad match is one where absolutely nothing of note happens all game - like the Walsall FC Cup reply.

Worst performances are something else - there must be lots of them, but I can't agree that a couple of games : Oxford away (with the injured keeper, abuse of TB1 and the pitch invasion) and any match that ends 7-4 were bad matches. We might have put in crap performances, but at least notable things happened.

[Tilehurst End]

Worst I can remember was Woking at Elm Park, second replay I think, miserable wet night, awful game, was just praying someone would score in the 90 minutes.

[Beelzebub]

Not technically a match as it got abandoned. It was a cup game at EP 95,96 (Bury possibly?) it pissed down, and for some reason I was on the Tilehurst end with no coat. The ball wouldn't roll, we were one nil down and the ref had mercy. I had a cold.

Yup it was against Bury. I must admit I thought we were two down when the match was abandoned, but then seeing as I got mixed up between Preston and Port Vale earlier in the thread, what do I know!

Bury would hoof a long ball up field and it would stop dead in a puddle, I have never seen a match go ahead in such terrible conditions.

Still after the game we piled into the Royals Rendezvous and got hammered!

[T.R.O.L.I.]

Not technically a match as it got abandoned. It was a cup game at EP 95,96 (Bury possibly?) it pissed down, and for some reason I was on the Tilehurst end with no coat. The ball wouldn't roll, we were one nil down and the ref had mercy. I had a cold.

Yup it was against Bury. I must admit I thought we were two down when the match was abandoned, but then seeing as I got mixed up between Preston and Port Vale earlier in the thread, what do I know!

Preety sure it was 2-0 when the game was abandoned. At the re-arranged game I also remember Phil Stant coming onto the pitch for the pre-match warm-up with a pitchfork

[Beelzebub]

Not technically a match as it got abandoned. It was a cup game at EP 95,96 (Bury possibly?) it pissed down, and for some reason I was on the Tilehurst end with no coat. The ball wouldn't roll, we were one nil down and the ref had mercy. I had a cold.

Yup it was against Bury. I must admit I thought we were two down when the match was abandoned, but then seeing as I got mixed up between Preston and Port Vale earlier in the thread, what do I know!

Preety sure it was 2-0 when the game was abandoned. At the re-arranged game I also remember Phil Stant coming onto the pitch for the pre-match warm-up with a pitchfork

The best thing about that abandoned game was after in the Rendezvous, some bloke who I didn't know from Adam, came up to me and thanked me for being the main entertainment in the Bar after the Play off final defeat and bought me beer!

[Thaumagurist*]

.

[LUX]

Chesterfield 7-1

my God I was at that one too. 1979? I was a student down the road in Leicester.

We scored first. Ollie Kearns I think. Steve Death was at fault for none of them.

Happy days(?)

ps was at Wealdstone too. Bet I beat you back to the coach..........

[Schards#2]

Chesterfield 7-1

my God I was at that one too. 1979? I was a student down the road in Leicester.

We scored first. Ollie Kearns I think. Steve Death was at fault for none of them.

Happy days(?)

ps was at Wealdstone too. Bet I beat you back to the coach..........

chased back to the coaches after losing to a non league club. The end of a perfect day.

At Chesterfield we played downwind of a gale in the first half and were 2-1 down at half time, I correctly predicted 7-1 at that point. The next away game was Blackpool, 10 hour round coach trip, 4-0 down at half time, finished 5-2. They were desperate times when I questioned my faith. I only ever did that again under Burns.

[LUX]

but there's the myth. Were we really chased? There were about 50 Aldershot trouble-makers there supporting Wealdstone, trying it on with us. They even started off in our end, but got escorted out.

Trudging back to the coaches someone said "they're coming" and we all ran. I never saw if anyone really was after us.

[Tilehurst Mike]

Can't be specific as to when but both matches were at Elm Park in the seventies. One was a league match at Elm Park in front of 1,912 fans against Preston which we lost 2-0 I think. It was a televised match or at least the highlights were which was quite a novelty for a Reading match at the time. The game was so bad I remember counting the away fans behing the goal--something like 52 fans!

The other game that springs to mind was a 7-0 thrashing by Man City in the FA Cup after we had drawn 0-0 at maine Rd. We were absolutely taking apart by a rampant City team but as a lad I remember goin home and feeling utterly distraught that we had been beaten so badly.

The o-1 defeat to an already relegated watford team was also pretty dire last season which I why I am not getting carried away about a Reading banker away win at Derby!

[readingbedding]

A lot easier to think of top 3 best games than 3 worst.

We had whole seasons, probably years of consistant dross.

[Wealdstone at home]

Without doubt - Reading 2 Northampton Town 4 - relegation year 1976/77 - Northampton were bottom and crap - the game was crap (Despite the misleading scoreline) - we were undeservedly winning 2-1 after a veery fortunate penalty converted by John Murray - and a win may have created a chance of survival. A certain Derek Christie was brought on as sub for the cobblers and made Stewart Henderson look ridiculous and they scored three in the last 20 minutes - and it could have been five or six. This was a month or two after selling the best number 9 I've ever seen - I remember John Turner in goel for us having a mare and him having a stand up row with one or two of our fans behind the goal next to me at the time. All the joy of the previous season had evaporated into abject misery. We didn't even have a manager - the bus journey home was awful and the walk home from the bus stop at the top of Donkin Hill was so depressing I contemplated suicide. (I was 13 at the time)