2035

[Shevchenko]

Extract from The Sunday Times 13th May, 2035

Royals Take The Thrown

For the first time in their 164 year history, Reading FC won the English Premier League last night, with 3 games remaining, cementing their position as one of the nations most dominant teams, in the last decade.

7 Years after the events which sparked “Mubarak-gate” and the decline of the super-rich chairmen, Reading are one of only 5 teams which remain from before the bubble burst on European Football. After winning last year's FA cup and reaching the quarter finals of the Champion's League, many predict that the club's recent dominance will continue for many years.

Rewind back to 2010. Billionaires world wide sought investment in top-division European football, envisaging massive returns from the Premier League and Rupert Murdoch's Empire of live sport broadcasting. Transfer fees began to sky-rocket and as the pressure built on clubs to spend more and more, in order to obtain the same mid-table safety they had previously achieved, disgruntled fans began to feel disillusioned by the lack of immediate success. It wasn't until Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak famously walked out on the club after a tenth successive season without winning the Premier League, that the steady stream of money began to dry up.

The disappearance of their chairman left the club penniless, and despite borrowing millions from the banks to cover player wages, the club entered liquidation and eventually fell to pieces. The banks, scared of losing more money, instantly recalled the loans of 30 English football clubs, forcing many bigger clubs to attempt to offload their players to meet repayments. With nearly all English clubs suffering the same problems, players were forced abroad, causing the top 3 flights of English football to all-but collapse. Murdoch's millions were almost instantly withdrawn, following the players abroad and English football was left to die, withering slowly like a plant in the desert, as investors followed the money across the channel into mainland Europe.

Among the carnage and panic, hardly anyone had stopped to notice a small Berkshire football club had remained unaffected. A reluctance to spend big during football's heyday had kept the wage bill relatively low. Ex-chairman Sir John Madejski had refused to give in to pressure and compete with the higher spending clubs who were achieving only marginally more success. As club after club fell to pieces, the Royals (who's chairman had been sparing enough with the club's finances to ensure that the club always had enough to repay what it owed, much to the annoyance of the fans who complained almost constantly of 'a lack of ambition' or 'unscrupulous money pilfering') were left largely unaffected, having relied almost completely on its academy for new players. Young, keen and willing to play for the club they loved for small wages, Reading climbed steadily up the football league as those which had previously out-played and out-spent the royals fell into administration and faced points deductions and fines they simply couldn't afford.

And tonight, not just confined to a small town stretching from the M4 to just north of the river Thames, thousands pay tribute to a wise chairman, as they watch their team lift the Premier League trophy, not (as many expect) for the last time.

[Row Z Royal]

In the year 2525, if man is still alive...

[retro royal]

Link please, need the other results for my accumulator coupon

[SCIAG]

So 2035 is 17 years after the take over of Man City?

I don't think Man City fans would worry about Mubarak leaving either, it would be like Bruce Buck leaving Chelsea.

[SpaceCruiser]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

[Friday's Legacy]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

obviously not if we're premier league champions in 2035.

[Barry the bird boggler]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

21st December 2012 isn't it when something calamatous is supposed to happen according to Incan (or is it Aztecan) calendars.

Given this fact JM, you may as well throw every last penny at the club this season so at least we can all go out on a high....

[manny96]

I'm not sure if this is STG or RTG talk...all sounds pretty dystopian - especially the bit about paying tribute to SJM. I have a vision of him ruling a chaotic planet earth with Cilla from some kind of cryogenic chamber. The apocalypse will be old news by 2035...

*nods in brendy's direction*

[Franchise FC]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

21st December 2012 isn't it when something calamatous is supposed to happen according to Incan (or is it Aztecan) calendars.

Given this fact JM, you may as well throw every last penny at the club this season so at least we can all go out on a high....

Mayan

[floyd__streete]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

21st December 2012

Isn't that just typical of Reading FC's luck? The only team to finish 2nd place in the 2nd tier and not get promoted in around 100 years, relegated from the Prem on goal difference, 3 play off final defeats and now the end of the world doesn't come soon enough to save us from relegation from the Champ this season

[Ian Royal]

What about 2012? Won't the world have ended by then?

21st December 2012 isn't it when something calamatous is supposed to happen according to Incan (or is it Aztecan) calendars.

Given this fact JM, you may as well throw every last penny at the club this season so at least we can all go out on a high....

Mayan

And it's not a prediction of the end of the world, just a significant date in the repeating cycle of their calendar.

[royalhaven]

Shevchenko's prediction (perhaps tongue in cheek) is on a broader social, economic, and environmental scale known as "the great disruption". Long stroy short - growth dependant capitalism is dead. Steady state economics rule the day. For football, it means salary caps, local boys playing for local clubs, more emphasis on regional leagues with the FA cup the true pinnacle. Balance, equity, and zero net consumption are new mantras. Thg global game is going to get local again. If world economics goes pear shaped as many predict, Reading really could be the "big" winner.

In fact SJMs "well run club" could being hearlding in the new economic age.

[KEBEISTHEGREATEST]

Who wrote this?

[dogzbollox]

Iain Banks...... Irvine Welsh.........Schevchenko, I do enjoy a good bit of fiction

[Silver Fox]

I'm disappointed to discover that the "Champions" league is still a bloated competition, with Reading, never champions, reaching the 33/34 QFs

[royalhaven]

Who wrote this?

who wrote what?

[mr_number]

That's ridiculous. As if the Sunday Times will still be around then.

[Rawlie19]

If the top 3 English leagues did indeed 'die', as this post says, then who exactly is it watching Reading lift the Premier League trophy?

[Rawlie19]

21st December 2012 isn't it when something calamatous is supposed to happen according to Incan (or is it Aztecan) calendars.

Given this fact JM, you may as well throw every last penny at the club this season so at least we can all go out on a high....

Mayan

And it's not a prediction of the end of the world, just a significant date in the repeating cycle of their calendar.

It is a prediction of the end of the world in sorts, as that is the last date that they marked on their calendars, which they made thousands of years ago. It was a bit like Microsoft not realising that the world would continue after 1999 and buggering up their calendars on the computers they made.

[Snowball]

Xmas shopping 2012 is FOCKED.

Nobody is gonna spend until the 22nd (if there is a 22nd)
and you won't be able to get a parking space in the Oracle