Reading fans-little club mentality

[Royal Rother]

All supporters of all clubs moan about poor decisions that supposedly cost them the game so to suggest in this case it has something to do with an interiority complex is daft.

The point I would like to make is that Coppell very rarely complains about decisions whereas Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal only have to draw a match for their graceless whinging managers to spew vitriol in the direction of the match officials. What sort of complexes do they have?

And Gerrard is an over-rated whinging diving git. I would of course love him if he played for us but as he doesn't I reserve the right to find him an unpleasant scowling scouser. In real life I'm sure he's very nice though.

[sucatraps]

This whole sorry state of affairs started with Manure, schooling their players to appeal for everything regardless of how blantantly and obviously wrong the decision might be. This led to refs giving some decisions incorrectly, in the way that any human would do to balance the law of probability! Scummers bending, but not breaking any rules

[The whole year inn]

Hasn't every club got its fair share of rabid, clueless and predictable 'fans'?
Why have some people just realised this?

The referee wasn't biased, he was just awful in the 2nd half.

Yeah, he was absoutely useless, and another thing - you should only have enough room in your heart for one team....preferably local.

xxx

Replying to you and Quagmire,like a lot of fans brought up following perennial lower division clubs I had two clubs-Reading where I was growing upand Liverpool due to a family connection and at the time Liverpool were a 2nd division side.
I knew that at some stage I would have to "come out" and nail my colours to the mast and for me the date was March 11th 1970.
That day I had gone by train for a job interview in Southampton and that night Liverpool were playing at Saints and we were at home to Luton.
I made the decision to get back to Reading as RFC needed me more and to this day I have spent thousands of pounds following my club and the habit has passed on to my son,daughter and grand-daughter with differing degrees of support on their parts.

That night we lost the crucial game v Luton and with it our hopes of promotion and of course Liverpool won at The Dell.
Although it has been strange these past 2 years to see Reading taking on Liverpool I feel it more important for Reading to get what points they could and was delighted with the home win back in November.
In the other games I have wanted Reading to play well and to show that we belong at this level and that no Liverpool players get injured as I would also like to see them win the Champs League again-Reading aren't involved so there is no question of which team gets the support and if Reading ever were in the competition they would get my full support.

Going back to Quagmire's post I agree that most fans of most clubs are bad losers but this is the only fans site that I look at so that is why I posted the topic.
I can only hope that we will be in this division long enough and become bigger and more successful to the extent that other fans and managers start to complain about not getting decisions against Reading but in the meantime I expect the small club stuff to be spouted out to the nth degree if the odd decision goes against us at Newcastle or Arsenal and let us be prepared here and now for the pitch at Wigan and not suddenly shocked and amazed when we play there.

BTW Ronaldo is still the King of the divers followed closely by Joe Cole and Andy Johnson-Gerrard in my view is nowhere near as consistent as those.

Thanks for the life story, very moving.

Not quite sure what it has to do with anything?

[MartinRdg]

Ok, fair play Victor - apologies for my rant as you do not need to justify your match going habits to me or indeed anyone, but I was rather frustrated to read your post as (for once) those who travelled up genuinely had a fair bit to grumble about.

BTW did any of our players in the whole 90 minutes in any way try to con
the ref or indeed foul anybody?
I thought I read that we had 5 booked,surely not?

One booking was dissent IIRC; Matejovsky was presumably only telling the referee what he thought of him. Bad discipline sure, but the frustration was understandable. Bikey's booking was entirely thanks to cheating from Gerrard. I cannot recall the other three without checking to be honest. I do agree that we have one or two players who go down rather easily in our team, but sadly as they are not England captains they don't tend to get those iffy decisions in their favour 100% of the time.

RFC fans might have small club mentality and perhaps an sprinkling of that same spirit which kept Wimbledon in the top flight for so long is no harm at all at our club. Probably galvanises us against the lack of decisions in certain circumstances and keeps up behind our own team, no harm in that.

I believe Ivar's booking was down to Gerrard's cheating as well.

[MartinRdg]

The foul given against Rosenior on Torres for the winner was certainly debatable.

As was the one given against Arbeloa on Hunt for our goal. Strange how that hasn't been talked about much - inconvenient, I guess.

Not sure about Arbeloa's challenge. Never saw it from the right angle - always from behind.

[Huntley & Palmer]

ALOL at this thread. Where were the moans about Ingimarsson's foul on Johnsons against Citeh in our last home game? You know, the one where Ivar thought he had given away a penalty only for Uriah to book him for diving. Funnily enough, Ivar later admitted that he did make contact with Johnson and it should have been a penalty. Let's face it, at home you generally get the decisions going for you most of the time it's just the way it goes and it mainly evens itself out over a season. Like the Hunt goal against Sunderland that never was and could never be seen as over the line in real time by the linesman

[Huntley & Palmer]

The foul given against Rosenior on Torres for the winner was certainly debatable.

As was the one given against Arbeloa on Hunt for our goal. Strange how that hasn't been talked about much - inconvenient, I guess.

Not sure about Arbeloa's challenge. Never saw it from the right angle - always from behind.

It was a clean challenge, Hunt just rode it enough to engineer a free kick. Like Gerrard did, it's called conning the ref

[Forbury Lion]

So I say get over the big inferiority complex, enjoy these fixtures as we might not have many more of them and please don't come on here every time bleating about decisions and implying that we wuz robbed.

This comment is a "little club mentality" statement.

Agreed.

We when play the so called big 4 I actually believe we can win, I don't treat them as a nice day out. If we get robbed I'm going to moan about it!

[Hampshire Royal]

Wouldn't you if you had European Cup quarter-finals to come and didn't want to get injured in a non-descript game like Reading?

I spent some time working in Birkenhead and got to know a number of Liverpool fans. I have never met a more arrogant self-obsessed bunch of fans in my life. The Everton fans, on the other hand were a lot better.

Anyway, just suppose for one moment that Liverpool don't win the CL (and, IMO, there are four better teams left in the competion) and they don't finish fourth in the Prem, they will not qualify for next season't CL. I wonder if they will then cast their minds back to the game against non-descript little Reading, when they took off Gerrard and Torres (their biggest threat to us) to save them for their CL game.

How good would it be if Liverpool fail to qualify by three or less points?

[Huntley & Palmer]

I think you will find that Liverpool fans would probably lambaste the general rotation policy that was in play for the majority of the season, rather than one fluke away result at Reading

[Hampshire Royal]

The majority of Liverpool fans support Benitez and, by definition, his rotation policy.

The fact remains that they should have beaten us, but to try and save themselves for the CL, effectively gave up. It's sort of indicative of how clubs like Liverpool disrespect their own domestic league in favour of some competition which, if we're honest about it, is little more than an interminable series of exhibition games between the richest clubs in Europe played for the benefit of TV.

[brendywendy]

The majority of Liverpool fans support Benitez and, by definition, his rotation policy.

The fact remains that they should have beaten us, but to try and save themselves for the CL, effectively gave up. It's sort of indicative of how clubs like Liverpool disrespect their own domestic league in favour of some competition which, if we're honest about it, is little more than an interminable series of exhibition games between the richest clubs in Europe played for the benefit of TV.

didnt they play a full strength team?
i thought at least one of gerrard and torres stayed on until we were 3-1 up?and the other only went off after 2-1

its no surprise this is forgotten, as most of the press pundits have forgotten it too

[Huntley & Palmer]

Yep, though hampshire seems to overlook this fact

[Archie's penalty]

ALOL at this thread. Where were the moans about Ingimarsson's foul on Johnsons against Citeh in our last home game? You know, the one where Ivar thought he had given away a penalty only for Uriah to book him for diving. Funnily enough, Ivar later admitted that he did make contact with Johnson and it should have been a penalty. Let's face it, at home you generally get the decisions going for you most of the time it's just the way it goes and it mainly evens itself out over a season. Like the Hunt goal against Sunderland that never was and could never be seen as over the line in real time by the linesman

Except that Sunderland never get any important decisions home and away. Which I am happy about!

[79Royal]

ALOL at this thread. Where were the moans about Ingimarsson's foul on Johnsons against Citeh in our last home game? You know, the one where Ivar thought he had given away a penalty only for Uriah to book him for diving. Funnily enough, Ivar later admitted that he did make contact with Johnson and it should have been a penalty. Let's face it, at home you generally get the decisions going for you most of the time it's just the way it goes and it mainly evens itself out over a season. Like the Hunt goal against Sunderland that never was and could never be seen as over the line in real time by the linesman

How do they even themselves out though? In terms of the number of decisions that go your way? That doesn't take into account the situations that are affected by a refs view on a foul/handball etc. It's all well and good getting a dodgy decision when you are already 3-0 up, but if the one that goes against you means you lose a game, that could be vital.

I'm not going to moan about the various inconsistencies during the Liverpool game, because I thought the best team on the day won the match. What is really frustrating though it the differing viewpoints of referees over a season's worth of games. A ref can make an awful decision without much punishment and it can cost teams dearly.

The fact that in general a team will get as many contentious decisions go for them as against them shouldn't be used a cover for the poor performances you see from referees each week.

[Huntley & Palmer]

It's called human error, without it this game would be very much more duller than it already is in this league. Yes, refs make mistakes and probably run a game to their interpretation of the law but that is impossible to eliminate. As I said, I see no-one moaning when decisions go out way which makes it even funnier

[Platypuss]

The majority of Liverpool fans support Benitez and, by definition, his rotation policy.

I'd say it's more like despite his rotation policy.

[BR2]

Wouldn't you if you had European Cup quarter-finals to come and didn't want to get injured in a non-descript game like Reading?

I spent some time working in Birkenhead and got to know a number of Liverpool fans. I have never met a more arrogant self-obsessed bunch of fans in my life. The Everton fans, on the other hand were a lot better.

Anyway, just suppose for one moment that Liverpool don't win the CL (and, IMO, there are four better teams left in the competion) and they don't finish fourth in the Prem, they will not qualify for next season't CL. I wonder if they will then cast their minds back to the game against non-descript little Reading, when they took off Gerrard and Torres (their biggest threat to us) to save them for their CL game.

How good would it be if Liverpool fail to qualify by three or less points?

You really shouldn't tar your limited range of associates with the same brush as our esteemed manager-surely you don't think he is arrogant?
So you would prefer wimpish Everton who yielded 3 points to our competitors yesterday and put us much nearer relegation to have that place instead?
All so that you can dislike a few Liverpool fans from Birkenhead?-sad or what.

[Hampshire Royal]

Oh, sorry, i do beg your pardon. Yes it's true that Torres was taken off when we were 3-1 up with 20 minutes to play. So instead of trying to salvage something from a game which they should have tried to win, or at least draw, they took off their two most effective players in favour of the CL.

As far as the die-hard Liverpool fans i met in Birkenhead, I didn't dislike them, they were a great bunch of people. It's just their view on football. If you weren't talking about Liverpool, you weren't talking about football. It was the season when we were running away with the Championship, but they just didn't want to talk about it, let alone even humour me when I wanted to talk about us. They came up with comments like 'You'll come straight back down' and 'You'll do a Sunderland'. I know this is only a small section of Liverpool fans who were going on about winning 5 European Cups (many of them weren't born when Liverpool were a good team). The Everton fans, on the other hand, wished us luck and 'hoped we'd do a Wigan'. As for the Tranmere fans, well, I only met two. Imagine that, supporting your local team when it is so easy to travel acroos the water to watch the two best teams in the world in the home of the heart of English football.

Do people really do that, BR2, you know, support a team with which they have little or no real connection, just because their local team is in the lower leagues?

And, oh yes, there are hoardes of Liverpoll fans in Belfast who show the same sort of arrogance surrounding Liverpool as do the more local fans.

[Victor Meldrew]

Oh, sorry, i do beg your pardon. Yes it's true that Torres was taken off when we were 3-1 up with 20 minutes to play. So instead of trying to salvage something from a game which they should have tried to win, or at least draw, they took off their two most effective players in favour of the CL.

As far as the die-hard Liverpool fans i met in Birkenhead, I didn't dislike them, they were a great bunch of people. It's just their view on football. If you weren't talking about Liverpool, you weren't talking about football. It was the season when we were running away with the Championship, but they just didn't want to talk about it, let alone even humour me when I wanted to talk about us. They came up with comments like 'You'll come straight back down' and 'You'll do a Sunderland'. I know this is only a small section of Liverpool fans who were going on about winning 5 European Cups (many of them weren't born when Liverpool were a good team). The Everton fans, on the other hand, wished us luck and 'hoped we'd do a Wigan'. As for the Tranmere fans, well, I only met two. Imagine that, supporting your local team when it is so easy to travel acroos the water to watch the two best teams in the world in the home of the heart of English football.

Do people really do that, BR2, you know, support a team with which they have little or no real connection, just because their local team is in the lower leagues?

And, oh yes, there are hoardes of Liverpoll fans in Belfast who show the same sort of arrogance surrounding Liverpool as do the more local fans.

There was a lengthy topic on here recently about fans' "other" club.
Going back to your Birkenhead experience did you not find that the Liverpool and Everton fans have a soft spot for Tranmere which is my experience,as City/Stockport fans have the same rapport?