When : Saturday February 22 2025, 12.30pm
Where : SCL, Reading, RG2 0FL
Capacity : 24,161
Next up is the impossible dream to beat, not just the league leaders, but the team that has smashed all division/tier 3 transfer records as well as no doubt having a salary budget that is equal to the rest of the division put together. There are also a couple of stretch goals on this one for Reading which are to a) at least avoid defeat to further damage Brum’s charge towards beating 106 points for a football league season and b) contribute towards delaying their inevitable promotion until after the clocks go forward
Usually Reading v Birmingham is the one fixture that has been the most miserable piece of turd on the fixture list both in terms of Reading’s performances and the final result. On top of it all Birmingham are usually not much to write home about either and all in all it generally turns out to be an awfully dull battle about who can be the least incompetent on the day. Sadly, given the way Brum are financed now, and how Reading are financially positioned, this would appear to be a game about as equal as a fight between Tyson Fury and Dame Judi Dench. Still at least that means there’ll be nothing for Reading to lose.
Given the disparity between Birmingham City’s (£25million) squad and the rest of the squads in the division it’s probably no surprise to learn that the Blues are currently 15 league games unbeaten but they have only won 12 of those games and dropped 6 points in that run. Their last defeat was 3-2 at Shrewsbury in November, and they last dropped points 5 games ago at FC Hollywood in January.
The major threats are Alfie May and Jay “£15million” Stansfield who have banged in 26 goals between them so far, keep them quiet and the problem then becomes the usual right royal pain in the arse of Lyndon Dykes but that little lot does mean that an appearance from the other right royal pain in the arse, Lukas Jutkiewicz, will be all the more unlikely. Kristin Bielik is still pulling strings in midfield and Grant Hanley was added to the squad from Norwich late in January (but then they had conceded a couple of goals that month so obviously needed to take some urgent action).
The Reading squad is almost full strength, Dean, Dorsett and Elliott are the only senior casualties while Yiadom may actually make the bench if there’s no reaction after his hour of game time with the Academy at Sunderland last night.
Lastly, it’s back to the 12.30 kick offs for some good old TV coverage to allow the rest of the world the chance to see either what shooting fish in a barrel or the greatest 3rd division footballing upset of this season might look like.
Referee
Alex Chilowicz
Previously...
01 Oct 24 > Reading 3-1 Burton Albion
06 Apr 24 > Reading 1-1 Lincoln City
Historically
Well at least this one doesn’t present much to live up to. Previous home league games with Birmingham have generally worked out to be utter disasters with Reading usually handing in performances that at best can only be described as shambolic.
Games with Birmingham only go back 35 years or so and in that time Birmingham have turned up in Reading on 20 occasions and won 8 times while Reading have struggled to a mere 5 victories. Most depressing are the last 9 games played at home to Brum which has seen the home team manage a fantastic return of 6 points while serving up some quite clueless and utterly inept performances (e.g. that dreadful 0-2 of January 2018).
So, if I were you, I’d actually avoid this one like you would avoid a crawl through a working sewage pipe in an Indian restaurant specialising in Vindaloos.
However if you are a masochist, this is how to follow the game
- Use your favourite ticket obtainment procedure followed by whichever suitable means of travel enablement is preferred
- Listen to Radio 5 Live and/or a myriad of other radio stations for score flashes
- Ring/text a mate for updates
- Use a RoyalTV subscription
- Red button/NOW App
- BBC Radio Berkshire (FM : 104.4, 104.1 or 95.4 depending where you are in the area)
