Best Set Piece Takers - Past and Present

[Wimb]

Our recent run of penalty misses and a few shanked free kicks has got me to thinking,

Who was the best dead ball specialist you've seen at the club and who do you feel most condfident with now.

In terms of the past, for pens, I remember Quinny being pretty deadly.

Free Kicks - Harder to say, Caskey and Shorey were both pretty decent, I'll plump for Caskey.

Corners - Shunt seemed to have them nailed for a long while but then faded towards the end of his time here.


Now though it seems Siggy is the best for all three, though I do feel we miss a really decent free kick taker to challenge the keeper more (not that Sig's that bad) I really don't rate Howards efforts as of late :/

[bobbybottler]

I used to enjoy Dylan Kerr's little dinked free-kicks, just lobbed over the wall and in the corner of the goal at a gentle pace - I can recall him doing that especially well at Carrow Road to cap a comeback from 1-3 down to 3-3.

[Fox Talbot]

Trevor Morley never missed a pen.

Denis Allen was pretty good on free kicks - not as good as Shorey tho'.

Bruce Stuckey - last Reading player to score direct from a corner?

Sonko on long throws

Feds on goal-kicks!

[Salford Royal]

Caskey was a better free-kick taker than Shorey, and Sigurdsson has potential to be a lot better than both. imho.

[Isaac Hunt]

I only remember Stuart Beavon missing one penalty. I also liked his corner routine with Steve Wood, the latter making a late run to the edge of the box where Beavon would drop the ball on to his head perfectly.

I believe this set piece came back many years later, under the name "The Dill".

Agreed about Quinny taking good pens.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Best at Corners or Wide Free Kicks - S Hunt

Goalscoring Free Kicks - Caskey

Pens - Caskey/Morley

Dont recall Quinn as being that hot at pens, used to smash them in but missed 3 or 4 for us including against a stand in keeper and at York, which is still in orbit.

[SteveRoyal]

Sigurdsson on all three.
He will be our best player ever.

Uhh... man-crush/exaggeration over.

[Forbury Lion]

Caskey aka the fat Beckham.

Best routine was the one where two players went for the kick and over ran before pretending to argue about who should have taken it whilst the third player blasted it over a distracted defence. Can't believe it worked as often as it did.

Bring back the dummy argument free kick routine!

[Don Finch]

Caskey could hit some cracking free kicks. Was it against Bournemouth that he came on and scored one with his first touch? Might have been the 3-3 crackerjacker of a game??
Agree with all above though, Gylfi is looking like something else, hope we can hang on to him for at least one more season.

[Still Hate Futcher!]

Bruce Stuckey - last Reading player to score direct from a corner?

I remember Craig Maskell scoring direct from a corner at Orient, only for Orient to equalise direct from a corner shortly after. Both goals came in the 1st 10 minutes - pretty much nothing happened in the remaining 80 dire minutes!

[SWLR]

Hicks vs Chelsea.
If there were no net and Town End, it would still rising as it went past Woodley.

[rhroyal]

I remember Caskey's first touch against Bournemouth; class.

[Big Foot]

Steve Brown on free kicks. 7 years ago today he scored one of my favourite RFC goals - his free kick under the wall vs Palace

[Uncle Andy]

Bruce Stuckey - last Reading player to score direct from a corner?

I remember Craig Maskell scoring direct from a corner at Orient, only for Orient to equalise direct from a corner shortly after. Both goals came in the 1st 10 minutes - pretty much nothing happened in the remaining 80 dire minutes!

I remember seeing Kevin Dillon scoring from a corner in a 6-1 win over Torquay at Elm Park when Justin Fashanu played for them in early 90's.

[Uncle Andy]

Hicks vs Chelsea.
If there were no net and Town End, it would still rising as it went past Woodley.

Rubbish - it never moved more than an inch off the ground

[readingbedding]

Trevor Morley never missed a pen.

Denis Allen was pretty good on free kicks - not as good as Shorey tho'.

Bruce Stuckey - last Reading player to score direct from a corner?

Sonko on long throws

Feds on goal-kicks!

I'm sure Beavon scored from a corner against Stockport, same game as a very quick hat-trick from Senior.

[leww_rfc]

Used to love SHunt's corners

Siggy now however can take anything from anywhere

(As mentioned before, *Man Crush mode off*)

[bobbybottler]

Dont recall Quinn as being that hot at pens, used to smash them in but missed 3 or 4 for us including against a stand in keeper and at York, which is still in orbit.

He missed three in all:
Stand in keeper was Birmingham in a live on TV FA Cup match - keeper was Trevor Magretson?
York in orbit - the best bit about that one (apart from the woeful decision) was the ball sailing directly over the heads of the travelling support on its merry way out of the ground. I'm going to go off at a tangent here but.....England were bowled out for 46 by West Indies that night. We went for a few bevvies after the football in Tadcaster (home of the John Smiths brewery) and England lost two wickets between pulling into the pub car park and receiving our pints.
The other one was away at Bradford City in 92/93, one of Quinny's previous clubs - they enjoyed that.

[cmonurz]

I remember Caskey's first touch against Bournemouth; class.

^^This.

Caskey was a class free-kick taker, Shorey wasn't in the same league, and Sigurdsson has some way to go before he is. Old school too - none of this banana-ball-smacking-bendy-dippy shit, just curled, or floated, gracefully right into the top corner.

[OldBiscuit]

I remember Caskey's first touch against Bournemouth; class.

^^This.

Caskey was a class free-kick taker, Shorey wasn't in the same league, and Sigurdsson has some way to go before he is. Old school too - none of this banana-ball-smacking-bendy-dippy shit, just curled, or floated, gracefully right into the top corner.

Worst taken penalty i ever saw was Caskey versus Oldham back in 1999. He looked at the goalkeeper and just rolled it to him. Thankfully Polston turned up on 96 minutes to save the blushes that day.