Match of the day

[International Royal]

Stumbled across on the BBC website, done to death but maybe deserves a wider read...........

Hello Match of the Day...
Premiership | Reading
by Lineandlength 04 January 2007

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I'm not a real Reading supporter but have a footie mad 7 year old son who is, and I feel for him. Every week he sees his team achieving fantastic things - holding Chelsea to a draw, beating the Hammers 6-0 - and every week he sees the panel on MOTD talk about not how Reading won, secured a draw or lost while playing brilliantly entertaining football, but how their opponents - Big Team FC - LOST the game.

Take the Chelsea and Hammers games. Alan Hansen, talk us through for twenty minutes why Chelsea didn't beat Reading here. Oh, and Alan Shearer, the last two seconds are for you to say 'Didn't Reading play well'? And the Hammers match? Alan, have twenty minutes to analyse the failures of West Ham, covering the colour of their socks and the direction of the wind...and Alan Shearer, you win the booby prize and have two seconds to mention that 'Reading are a good side'. That should do it.

The fact is that for the broadcasters and journalists (no this isn't JUST a MOTD thing) Reading are not fulfilling their role. Their story is MEANT to be of a plucky side, out of their depth, struggling to avoid relegation by Christmas, losing by appallingly naive tactics and skill to 'better' teams.

Now I'm not saying that the Royals are the best side in the world - but there must be a better story in this than that. How about the story of how a Chairman with his head screwed on and a sensible set of ambitions for his club, and a tactically shrewd and quiet Manager got a team of committed, hardworking players to win the Championship and then get to 9th in the Premiership by the following Christmas? Isn't that phenomenal? And didn't they do that by playing well, not just happening to be on the pitch when Big Team FC imploded?

Come on Gary. My 7 year old thinks - as I do - that you are selling a terrific side short. And so are the national dailies and the weekend papers, the radio commentators....

[Lieutenant Pigeon]

Thanks for that - DEFINITELY worth a wider audience - could have been plucked from almost any thread on here though!



C.

[SpaceCruiser]

I pretty much agree with the sentiment of that post.

[Yorkshire Royal]

Yeah, he's right, but isn't it about time we all got over this. Sadly we are little old Reading and until we win something significant that will be always be the case...

Besides it helps motivate the players....

[LoyalRoyal22]

Totally agree with that.

[Trigger]

I don't think Reading have been under-represented in the media. The "success-of-the-quiet-man" angle has been played repeatedly in the written press at least.

West Ham's problems went deeper than that single match and so the debate was all about that, but in fact Reading got plenty of praise that particular MOTD. Motty was going bonkers.

[anR]

I'm happy with the media ignorance. Removes all expectation and pressure. I hope Everton do not fufill their great club potential on Sunday...

[SpaceCruiser]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

[Huntley & Palmer]

Why do people get so worried about our coverage in the media. With the exception of a certain Daily Mail over the Cech incident, it's been spot on.

[Stranded]

Who cares.

[Gordons Cumming]

The longer they underestimate us the better.

[Shevchenko]

I don't think that's quite true. They usually do mention how good we played, but they're getting used to it by now. We've been playing well since the start of the season. It isn't good television (for non-Reading fans) to talk every week about how much effort we put in, or how fairly we play.

Sadly, though, most premiership referees are still siding with the big teams when making decisions. Perhaps it's my bias as a Reading fan, but it does seem that a lot of referees give more decisions to the big clubs. Like Sonko's alleged foul on Lampard (resulting in the free kick, from which they scored), when even the most loyal Chelsea fan would have had to admit that Lampard was half way to the ground before Sonko was even close to him.

[Gordons Cumming]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

Cottee is just an ex-player with little or no training in commentary.

[TBM]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

- you must have been watching a different channel to me then

Cottee was praising us whilst stating the facts, which was that West Ham were absolutely dire at the back.........

[SpaceCruiser]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

- you must have been watching a different channel to me then

Cottee was praising us whilst stating the facts, which was that West Ham were absolutely dire at the back.........

Well, the subtitles must have been poor then!!!

[Forbury Lion]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

- you must have been watching a different channel to me then

Cottee was praising us whilst stating the facts, which was that West Ham were absolutely dire at the back.........

Well, the subtitles must have been poor then!!!

The person doing the subtitles must have been biased.... Did they appear on the screen in claret and blue?

[biscuitsrus]

Who cares.

Agreed. We do our talking on the pitch and long may it continue.

[londinium]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

Lol...is that supposed to be a joke? If the 'Salad' had done the commentary you would, as shown in the past, had a completely one sided report in our favour.

It is something that all stations do which really annoys me. They try as hard as possible to get the reporter for the game to have some affinity to one of the clubs. This only leads to bad, biased, reporting.

Salako is a legend, but is as biased toward us and Palace as much as Cottee is to West Ham, Thompson to Liverpool, McInally to Villa, Le Tis to Southampton etc.

[TBM]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

Lol...is that supposed to be a joke? If the 'Salad' had done the commentary you would, as shown in the past, had a completely one sided report in our favour.

It is something that all stations do which really annoys me. They try as hard as possible to get the report for the game to have some affinity to one of the clubs, this only leads to bad bias reporting.

Salako is a legend, but is as biased toward us and Palace as much as Cottee is to West Ham, Thompson to Liverpool, McInally to Villa, Le Tis to Southampton etc.

Le Tis also seem to favour us for some reason - all his predictions seem to be "Reading win" and when he does our games he always praises us.

Chris Kamara seems to do the most un-biased reports if you ask me.

[londinium]

On Sky Sports during the Wet Sham game, Tony Cottee was the man in the studio reporting on our game. He was totally bollocks and biased. He gave Reading little credit and moaned all the bloody time about Wet Sham. Not very objective reporting and I wondered why John Salako didn't do it instead.

Lol...is that supposed to be a joke? If the 'Salad' had done the commentary you would, as shown in the past, had a completely one sided report in our favour.

It is something that all stations do which really annoys me. They try as hard as possible to get the report for the game to have some affinity to one of the clubs, this only leads to bad bias reporting.

Salako is a legend, but is as biased toward us and Palace as much as Cottee is to West Ham, Thompson to Liverpool, McInally to Villa, Le Tis to Southampton etc.

Le Tis also seem to favour us for some reason - all his predictions seem to be "Reading win" and when he does our games he always praises us.

Chris Kamara seems to do the most rubbish reports if you ask me.