Reading are crap

[Ark Royal]

This isn't an over-reaction thread at all.

On the contrary, what Floyd and Ian Herring have crafted are outstanding soliloquies to the state of modern football.

Both these posts could relate to any club outside the top dozen of the Primmadonnaship. I bet you could knock on the door of hundreds of thousands of footy supporters throughout the land and find empathy with these offerings from Messrs Streete and Herring.

It's a sad indictment on the state of the game; the influence of The Digger; money-bags mystery 'benefactors' looking to build a global brand; and the aspirations of small time, small town chairmen.

I know I'll always be RFC - I may even turn up at the Rec next season - but these contributions encapsulate a wave of disillusionment with football generally and not RFC specifically.

ps: Floyd and Ian - hope you don't mind, but I've copied both your posts and added them as notes to my Slagbook page. Duly accredited, of course.

Author, author! Brilliant posts by Floyd and Herring, which encapsulate in far more urbane (and funny) terms ALL of what is wrong with football today. As alluded to in an earlier thread, I did go and get my coaching badges and I now have rediscovered the joy of the game by coaching kids. I get more enjoyment out of that than watching some preening, multi-tattooed twat performing synchronized goal celebrations with his barely literate teammates.

Football. Is. Dead.

[holsgrove breaks a leg]

This isn't an over-reaction thread at all.

On the contrary, what Floyd and Ian Herring have crafted are outstanding soliloquies to the state of modern football.

Both these posts could relate to any club outside the top dozen of the Primmadonnaship. I bet you could knock on the door of hundreds of thousands of footy supporters throughout the land and find empathy with these offerings from Messrs Streete and Herring.

It's a sad indictment on the state of the game; the influence of The Digger; money-bags mystery 'benefactors' looking to build a global brand; and the aspirations of small time, small town chairmen.

I know I'll always be RFC - I may even turn up at the Rec next season - but these contributions encapsulate a wave of disillusionment with football generally and not RFC specifically.

ps: Floyd and Ian - hope you don't mind, but I've copied both your posts and added them as notes to my Slagbook page. Duly accredited, of course.

Author, author! Brilliant posts by Floyd and Herring, which encapsulate in far more urbane (and funny) terms ALL of what is wrong with football today. As alluded to in an earlier thread, I did go and get my coaching badges and I now have rediscovered the joy of the game by coaching kids. I get more enjoyment out of that than watching some preening, multi-tattooed twat performing synchronized goal celebrations with his barely literate teammates.Football. Is. Dead.

mind you there was a fair bit of that in evidence at the kids half time shoot out in the Forest match... (minus the tatts)

[Alan Partridge]

Floyd, I <3 you.

May I sit next to you at the Coventry game when I come over in December? I would assume that matchday would be awesome around you.

Floyd = WIN.

You can't fail to not notice him, Foghorn Leghorn.

[Archie's penalty]

lol at the Floyd love. Look at me post # 3000.

[Royal Lady]

Have to agree 100% with Floyd and Ian Herring.

This is my first season in 22 years without a season ticket. Yeah I give the excuse of living 200 miles away and having 4 kids and not being able to afford the time or money to go but to be honest, I started getting bored of it half way through the first season in the Premiership. I think it was a dire 1-0 home win against Fulham that got me wondering why I was investing so much time and emotion in something that gave so little in return. I don't miss at all.

When Murdoch tried to merge us with Oxford, I marched because I cared and it meant something, when we went down in 1988 I was distraught, when we were 45 minutes away from Division 4 at Chesterfield I was paralysed with fear, when we were crap and broke under Porterfield I was angry and wanted answers, when we limped out of League 1 under Bullivant and Burns I was angry. Now, it's as much as I can muster to shrug my shoulders. I'm not even angry about the situation. We're shit and to be honest, I'm just not that bothered any more. It's a pantomime. I remember that Sky advert from last season with some jester hatted pillock and the caption "We know how you feel because we feel the same". Summed everything that's wrong with football. You have no idea how I feel and you certainly don't feel the same. Sky have turned football into just that, a pantomime. Football as entertainment, presented by braying idiots, for braying idiots. The comparison to X Factor is quite apt. Style and image over substance.

It wasn't Murdoch btw, it was Maxwell.

Whatever. I was just pointing out his mistake.

I'm sure he's aware of that.

[Alan Partridge]

Cheers. It was much needed.

[Arch]

lol at the Floyd love. Look at me post # 3000.

In fairness, it's a brilliantly crafted post. I think there's a glaring irony in this thread though. The inadequacy of a Reading team full of young relatively low-paid journeymen becomes an excuse to wax lyrical about how big money has ruined the game. I can't believe that anyone has the gall (or is it a tin-ear) to think floyd's post opens an opportunity to complain about Madejski's lack of investment. Surely the main lesson is that it would be altogether better if we were playing in Northampton's league at Northampton's prices. That would have been a great fourth division match, and a decent fourth division crowd.

Anyway, just like last year, and in 2005 and 2001 and even a bit in 2008, people will overreact the other way as soon as we start to put in some exciting displays. There a some short memories around here.

[havoc]

LOL @ Kes getting pwnned on the Team Board every day this week

LOL @ posting paragraphs

Don't recall being pwnned.

tbf, you get pwnned so much on here it must be tricky remembering which happened where

[Archie's penalty]

There's always going to be an overreaction when you lose at home to a team two divisions below you. No time to get too down yet, apart from the rain ceaselessly falling to mark the end of summer.

[Fubar]

Really, really good posts by Floyd and Ian Herring. Just about says it all for me and I've been watching the buggers for over fifty years.

[facaldaqui]

Yeah, Reading are crap. I could have supported Liverpool or Real Madrid, but I didn't. Football is life. LIfe is crap. Boilers are crap. The reason you can't stop supporting them is that you're under the influence of a biological imperative. If it wasn't supporting Reading, it would be something else, like collecting records. And records are crap.

[PlasticRoyale]

It is a truly warped mind which can't rest after a defeat in the Carling Cup, but after an abortive attempt at sleep I find myself turning Ben Hamer's goalkeeping over in my head as well as apparently more pressing concerns about needing a new boiler and pending appraisals with my team at work ("you've put here 'strengths - accounting'. That's your job though, isn't it?").

Quite why I thought that watching Reading play would improve another dire day spent at work after battling across Berkshire on First Great Western's tardy and expensive service, dodging lycra-clad oxf*rd with fold up bicycles in the vestibules is beyond me. At least at Reading I can tell everyone in no uncertain terms what I think of their wretched performance as opposed to work where I spend the best part of 8 hours a day keeping my tongue. And now the more I think about it, the more things trouble me, for instance:


- Why did I spend £350-odd on a season ticket to commit to watching Alex Pearce slice desperate clearances at 45 degree angles to his kicking foot and Jem Karacan donate the football to the opposition as if they were collecting sports equipment for flood-ravaged Pakistan? It's not as if I didn't already know back in the summer that these two - and a good many others on our books - are pretty absymal at football. It should be about £4 to get in to watch a football match really, tops. I blame Liverpool fans and Northern Rock.

- Why do we have a failed ex-Slough and Woking manager in charge? Don't get me wrong, I like Brian. He's quite clearly a thoroughly bloody nice bloke which is at least an improvement on his predecessor.

- Why is our best player Icelandic? Iceland is to football what, erm, Bejam is to Cricket.

- Why is my own personal favourite player - also Icelandic - a 34-year old who is slower than a mini-bus full of Chelsea fans with a flat tyre? Are we otherwise so devoid of quality and excitement that watching a man apparently made from granite smash foolhardily into the opposition is the most entertaining thing on offer?

- Why do I hate Adam Federici? Is it because he is seemingly the only Australian who is crap at sport? Or because every post-match mistake-denying interview is delivered in that chirpy accent after he has spaffed a couple of low, near-post dollies under his fat belly?

- When will Brian Howard ever make a tackle? He likes a physical challenge about as much as Walter the Softy does.

- Why is it a £3.50 return fare from Reading station to go and watch this sh*t? What am I getting for my money, a film showing en route? You f*cking crooks.

- Why (when we have the spackiest, most simperingly middle-class fan base in the land) do we have probably the jobsworthiest stewards in the entire country, who themselves are dictated to by an ex-fireman with a speech impediment? And why don't the stewards make themselves a little more jobsworthy outside the ground rather than erecting a safety fence to keep 250 gibbering Scunthorpe fans at bay and sending the home supporters off to walk all the way round the ground to get to their cars parked at a bargain £7 in Worton Grange.

- Why is it only at football that £7 for 2 hours parking is deemed an acceptable price? At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

- Why do I have to mind my p's and q's at football anyway? F*ck me, there are 8,000 empty seats most weeks; can't we sit all the kids in families in some sort of enclave with a sound-proof safety fence? At football, people shouldn't be thrown out for swearing, they should be ejected for doing the EA-SAY clap or for wearing face-paint or a jester's hat; these things are far more offensive.

- Why does modern football disenfranchise me so? Preening Premier League fancy-dans getting paid far too much and taking themselves too seriously. Sadly, in the Championship we seem to see the second-tier of this kind of c*nt which in a way is worse. SKY Sports News in HD bringing you the news that Barnsley have banned Vuvuzelas for next season. I hope all 92 league clubs go bankrupt, yes including Reading. It's all your fault, Jimmy Hill.

- Why, after 30 years trying, haven't I been able to find a more fulfilling hobby than watching a crap football team on a far too regular basis? Yes, there is another choice of hobby of course, but much more of that kind of thing and it'll fall off in my hand.


Oh well, at least this has stopped me thinking about the boiler for 5 minutes. And I suppose the biggest WHY here is WHY did I bother writing all this when I hold at least 90% in massive contempt anyhow.

[facaldaqui]

lol at the Floyd love. Look at me post # 3000.

In fairness, it's a brilliantly crafted post. I think there's a glaring irony in this thread though. The inadequacy of a Reading team full of young relatively low-paid journeymen becomes an excuse to wax lyrical about how big money has ruined the game. I can't believe that anyone has the gall (or is it a tin-ear) to think floyd's post opens an opportunity to complain about Madejski's lack of investment. Surely the main lesson is that it would be altogether better if we were playing in Northampton's league at Northampton's prices. That would have been a great fourth division match, and a decent fourth division crowd.

I remember one year when we got promoted from division four (1976?), we were third, and Lincoln and Northampton were above us. My first away match was Northampton v Reading, when they thrashed us. I could not believe how Mickey Mouse their ground was. Some great games against the promotion-hunting teams that year. But we were still crap.

[Royal Lady]

Was Northampton the one that was next to a cricket ground or somewhere and only had 3 sides or something? I went there some time in the 80s if so.

[pea]

See I was clever and saved my £2 ready for when SJM finally puts the club up for sale for that amount in five years. Then ill rent out the Mad Stad for fifty pence less an hour than the local Goals five-a-side pitches.

[No Fixed Abode]

LOL @ Kes getting pwnned on the Team Board every day this week

LOL @ posting paragraphs

Don't recall being pwnned.

tbf, you get pwnned so much on here it must be tricky remembering which happened where

I might try and fit in with you weirdo's then.

[papereyes]

How about a thread on AE where you hint that you're definitely not a virgin?

[Millsy]

Brilliant as ever, FS.

[Magnus]

lol at the Floyd love. Look at me post # 3000.

In fairness, it's a brilliantly crafted post. I think there's a glaring irony in this thread though. The inadequacy of a Reading team full of young relatively low-paid journeymen becomes an excuse to wax lyrical about how big money has ruined the game. I can't believe that anyone has the gall (or is it a tin-ear) to think floyd's post opens an opportunity to complain about Madejski's lack of investment. Surely the main lesson is that it would be altogether better if we were playing in Northampton's league at Northampton's prices. That would have been a great fourth division match, and a decent fourth division crowd.

Anyway, just like last year, and in 2005 and 2001 and even a bit in 2008, people will overreact the other way as soon as we start to put in some exciting displays. There a some short memories around here.

Completley agree with this.

Watch premiership football on the tele, go and support your local non or lower league side in person.

Reading are the worst of both worlds really - it's still expensive but they're a bit sh!t.

[facaldaqui]

Was Northampton the one that was next to a cricket ground or somewhere and only had 3 sides or something? I went there some time in the 80s if so.

Yes. On the cricket ground, people just stood watching in a row behind a rope, like they were over Coley Park on a Sunday morning.