Huntley & Palmer Article in the Times today from Russell Kempson
John Madejski wears a red badge on his open-neck shirt. “No, I was not playing football or skiing,” it reads. He is tired of people asking how he broke his right ankle, which he did while walking in Kent on Easter Monday. “Trouble is, I didn’t appreciate how poor people’s eyesight is,” he said. So he has had to explain, anyway, again and again.
The Reading chairman should wear another badge: “No, we are not going to get relegated.” He is trying to remain positive. “Suddenly, the world and his wife want to talk to me,” he said wearily. “They just want to pick over the corpse, the carcass, and it’s not very nice. But that’s the reality and I can’t hide from it.”
How thoroughly tiresome, now having to take the rough with the smooth. When things were going swimmingly well, he didn't seem too worried about media attention!
“You have more chance of selling in the Premier League than in the Championship,” he said. “If the unthinkable happens, the opportunity, that moment, might be gone. But, no, I won’t walk away. There would have to be cutbacks, of course, and we would have to do our best to emerge again.”
So here we go, shades of what happened after our Wembley playoff failure final. Cutbacks and the departure of our best players followed by a long time in the lower league wilderness. Only then, there was maybe some justification regarding lack of funds, infrastructure, support etc.
This time we will be dropping with a very hefty parachute payment plus whatever is left from the PL riches of the last couple of seasons (not to mention a very successful Championship season prior to that). However, rather than investing that in an extremely serious attempt to get back into the PL at the earliest possible opportunity we are being promised 'cutbacks'.
Yesterday BBCRB had a football pundit on from one of the Brummie radio stations. His view was that if the likes of Birmingham and Reading did not bounce straight back with the assistance of the massive parachute payments (£32M =?), their managers deserved to be fired.
Unfortunately it would appear that our manager (whoever that might be) is unlikely to see much of that money and, as a consequence, is going to be left trying to fight with both arms tied firmly behind his back!
