Ready to be the "Cup Final" for most teams we play nxt yr?

[retro royal]

How many seasons have we played in the second tier of English football, 8 I would guess for a quick guess, so 10 years above the third tier, 126 at in the bottom two, there can only be a few clubs in the CCC with less experience than us.

All the same that's history and I'll be glad when some players go, and can get on and rebuild the 'Reading way'

[rhroyal]

Do you remember playing in the Championship? When the likes of Norwich, Leceister, West Brom and many more came down we didn't treat them like a Cup Final. West Ham were given that treatment but they were far bigger and there was the Pardew thing. However, if I'm wrong the players became very used to everyone's cup final in 05/06. When we started running away at the top we were the people to beat and we coped then. Likewise if we run away at the top this season we will be the team everyone wants to beat again.

[SCIAG]

How many seasons have we played in the second tier of English football, 8 I would guess for a quick guess, so 10 years above the third tier, 126 at in the bottom two, there can only be a few clubs in the CCC with less experience than us.

All the same that's history and I'll be glad when some players go, and can get on and rebuild the 'Reading way'

I'd guess we've spent a lot more than 8 years in the second tier. I think we spent 5 years there last time around? There had been more than 3 years there before that.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

How many seasons have we played in the second tier of English football, 8 I would guess for a quick guess, so 10 years above the third tier, 126 at in the bottom two, there can only be a few clubs in the CCC with less experience than us.

All the same that's history and I'll be glad when some players go, and can get on and rebuild the 'Reading way'

I'd guess we've spent a lot more than 8 years in the second tier. I think we spent 5 years there last time around? There had been more than 3 years there before that.

26/27 to 30/31
86/87 to 87/88
94/95 to 97/98
02/03 to ?

so this will be our 18th season in the top two divisions.

We also didn't play 126 in the bottom two. There was no league at all for the first 16 years we existed, and no competition in 11 years of war time. There also weren't any lower divisions of the league to play in until 1920/21.

Overall we have played 65 seasons in the lower divisions, so we've got a long way to go to catch up. We do at least live in the most interesting times of the football club. Imagine some poor soul born in 1920, just too young to take in promotion in 1925/6. He's have been 56 before he got to see Reading promoted again - and we went straight back down.

That 50 year gap between promotions isn't quite the record for professional clubs though (excluding the likes of Arsenal & Everton who haven't been promoted for over 50 years because there's nowhere to promote to). Southend hold that "honour". They joined the league at the same time as us in 1920, and didn't acheive their first promotion until 1972.