As The Dust Settles - The Sombre Thread

[fred sharpes nose]

Circle of life and all that.

Supporter since 1970 - at the Wigan game I wondered if that would be my last ever Championship match as a Royal.

We have had a fairly uneventful history since 1920 - and endless time in Div 3 bar a 4 year spell in th 20s in Div 2 then relegation to Div 4 1971 (I think it was) and now back at our "normal historical level" after some, but not that many, interesting times in the last 2 decades.

Us Oldies ain't getting any younger and with an average of 7 years for something "interesting" to happen (as I commented a while ago) time is not on our side. If that is the case well so be it - lets just hope we have some excitement on matchdays to come with some optimism for the future

The one I feel most sorry for is actually Sir John - 30 years or so of hard effort to bring us right up there and its all got pissed away in relatively short time.

I'm sure he is reflecting on his decisions to sell (multiple times) and choices made - clearly with hind sight I suspect wishes he had stuck with it and be foresighted about being a yo yo club - up down up down rake in the parachute payements and very slowly build for the long term future. Its hard to see how we would be any worse off if he'd stay in charge - at least we'd have a ground to call our own

Sad times but c'est la vie

[Webster750]

Don't give up hope just yet. There's a Papa John's Trophy to be won.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Good post Fred

Sir John should not bear any brunt of what is going on at the club right now.

Yes, he sold out to weasels, but that would always have happened eventually, sadly football draws weasels. We have been sold to an assortment of them since 2012. Football in general is full of them (Wrexham aside, so it would seem and so we are told).

Have seen Reading exceed all of my childhood expectations (forget the Wembley trips and the Premier League), I was loving the hoops a long time before replica shirts even existed).

My wildest dreams were first exceeded away at Ipswich 1987 when Steve Richardsons goal guaranteed us 13th place in the old Division One….our highest ever league place finish. Now that was something to really celebrate. The relegation in 1988 having won the Simod Cup still hits home harder than anything that has/is going on now.

The Sky etc. footballing £ has dampened the appetite….and sadly the interest too.

[CountryRoyal]

Circle of life and all that.

Supporter since 1970 - at the Wigan game I wondered if that would be my last ever Championship match as a Royal.

We have had a fairly uneventful history since 1920 - and endless time in Div 3 bar a 4 year spell in th 20s in Div 2 then relegation to Div 4 1971 (I think it was) and now back at our "normal historical level" after some, but not that many, interesting times in the last 2 decades.

Us Oldies ain't getting any younger and with an average of 7 years for something "interesting" to happen (as I commented a while ago) time is not on our side. If that is the case well so be it - lets just hope we have some excitement on matchdays to come with some optimism for the future

The one I feel most sorry for is actually Sir John - 30 years or so of hard effort to bring us right up there and its all got pissed away in relatively short time.

I'm sure he is reflecting on his decisions to sell (multiple times) and choices made - clearly with hind sight I suspect wishes he had stuck with it and be foresighted about being a yo yo club - up down up down rake in the parachute payements and very slowly build for the long term future. Its hard to see how we would be any worse off if he'd stay in charge - at least we'd have a ground to call our own

Sad times but c'est la vie

I don’t feel bad for SJM, sold us to the first shit owner which snowballed this whole bollocks.

[AthleticoSpizz]

If it weren’t them, it’d be the next ones

You are aware of this modern game business aren’t you?

[CountryRoyal]

If it weren’t them, it’d be the next ones

You are aware of this modern game business aren’t you?

Well no, that’s the whole point. Had he taken more time to sell us to a better owner then who knows but his heart wasn’t in it anymore and history is history.

[Sutekh]

Good post Fred

Sir John should not bear any brunt of what is going on at the club right now.

Yes, he sold out to weasels, but that would always have happened eventually, sadly football draws weasels. We have been sold to an assortment of them since 2012. Football in general is full of them (Wrexham aside, so it would seem and so we are told).

Have seen Reading exceed all of my childhood expectations (forget the Wembley trips and the Premier League), I was loving the hoops a long time before replica shirts even existed).

My wildest dreams were first exceeded away at Ipswich 1987 when Steve Richardsons goal guaranteed us 13th place in the old Division One….our highest ever league place finish. Now that was something to really celebrate. The relegation in 1988 having won the Simod Cup still hits home harder than anything that has/is going on now.

The Sky etc. footballing £ has dampened the appetite….and sadly the interest too.

Couple that with all the greed driving everything and every decision made or not made has to be analysed by a bunch of tedious, vapid non entities plus the idiot way FIFA keep adjusting rules to wreck what is a simple game. Lot to be said for getting rid of TV money and also for letting some of these big clubs all naff off and play with themselves somewhere so the rest of us can get back to enjoying the game.

[Snowflake Royal]

Good post Fred

Sir John should not bear any brunt of what is going on at the club right now.

Yes, he sold out to weasels, but that would always have happened eventually, sadly football draws weasels. We have been sold to an assortment of them since 2012. Football in general is full of them (Wrexham aside, so it would seem and so we are told).

Have seen Reading exceed all of my childhood expectations (forget the Wembley trips and the Premier League), I was loving the hoops a long time before replica shirts even existed).

My wildest dreams were first exceeded away at Ipswich 1987 when Steve Richardsons goal guaranteed us 13th place in the old Division One….our highest ever league place finish. Now that was something to really celebrate. The relegation in 1988 having won the Simod Cup still hits home harder than anything that has/is going on now.

The Sky etc. footballing £ has dampened the appetite….and sadly the interest too.

Division 2 in 87. Didn't become Division 1 until actual Div 1 became the Premier League in the 90s.

[Orion1871]

I've never worn one, but with global warming I suppose we may start copying the fashion choices of countries like Mexico.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Good post Fred

Sir John should not bear any brunt of what is going on at the club right now.

Yes, he sold out to weasels, but that would always have happened eventually, sadly football draws weasels. We have been sold to an assortment of them since 2012. Football in general is full of them (Wrexham aside, so it would seem and so we are told).

Have seen Reading exceed all of my childhood expectations (forget the Wembley trips and the Premier League), I was loving the hoops a long time before replica shirts even existed).

My wildest dreams were first exceeded away at Ipswich 1987 when Steve Richardsons goal guaranteed us 13th place in the old Division One….our highest ever league place finish. Now that was something to really celebrate. The relegation in 1988 having won the Simod Cup still hits home harder than anything that has/is going on now.

The Sky etc. footballing £ has dampened the appetite….and sadly the interest too.

Division 2 in 87. Didn't become Division 1 until actual Div 1 became the Premier League in the 90s.

yes

[blythspartan]

Going back to the days of walking up Grovelands Road with my dad on the way to Elm Park, getting promoted to the old Division 2 was a dream neither of us thought would be realised.

I remember reading Sir John’s comments years ago about taking us to the promised land and I just remember thinking what a load of rubbish but he proved me wrong.

Since 1973 to 2011/12 supporting Reading has been really exciting and exceeded my wildest dreams. The last 10 years has been utter torture and we’re now back to where we started.

I am still confident of better times to come but accept there will be more bumps in the road ahead. I’ll will always support my hometown club and I wouldn’t swap it for for the big guns in the Premiership. I am looking forward to winning a playoff final in the next year or two.

[South Coast Royal]

Going back to the days of walking up Grovelands Road with my dad on the way to Elm Park, getting promoted to the old Division 2 was a dream neither of us thought would be realised.

I remember reading Sir John’s comments years ago about taking us to the promised land and I just remember thinking what a load of rubbish but he proved me wrong.

Since 1973 to 2011/12 supporting Reading has been really exciting and exceeded my wildest dreams. The last 10 years has been utter torture and we’re now back to where we started.

I am still confident of better times to come but accept there will be more bumps in the road ahead. I’ll will always support my hometown club and I wouldn’t swap it for for the big guns in the Premiership. I am looking forward to winning a playoff final in the next year or two.

Did you never walk along the Oxford Road and up Wantage or Wilson Road?

There must have been something about coming into the ground from Waverley Road as my normal route was to go up Beecham Road (even though we lived nearer the bottom) and come in that way when going along the Oxford Road was probably equi-distant.

A bit of nostalgia , I do remember for the odd evening game it taking nearly all the way home before my feet thawed out.

As for now, I get Fred's point that for some of us time is not on our side so we may have to accept that we started watching Div 3 football and will go out watching the same level.
Some great moments along the way but it was a surprise to read Dirk's posting in another thread listing the many relegations-I guess we just wipe away the disappointments and become the classic football fan, the eternal optimist.

[Snowflake Royal]

When I was at uni and we were mid-table in tier three and I was saying I was confident we had a good chance to make the Prem in 5 years everyone thought I was an idiot.

We did it in six.

We've been a club clinging on to the Championship by our finger tips, lurching from crisis management to crisis management with a stated aim of returning to the PL but no plan or strategy behind it other than panic spend and pray.

I think we'd be in a better state now, and have had a more enjoyable time the last few years if we'd gone down in the Adkins/Clarke or Clarke/McDermott season.

Or kept McDermott over bringing in Stam, maybe even Bowen over Paunovic.

Hopefully we're through the worst of it thanks to the FL's action to force our finances into a semblance of order, because relegation with the crazy spending we were doing and loads of rubbish players on huge long contracts would have been bad a year or three ago.

Now we're in almost perfect reset territory. We're a bigger club than the tier three side of earlier decades now. We have excellent infrastructure and are a much better sell to prospective and ambitious L1 level owners, L1 level players and L1 level managers and coaches.

I haven't gone into a new season with much hope of a fun time for I don’t know how many years at this point. I'm actually looking forward to next season and I hope our player and management recruitment and transfer dealings can keep that up over the summer.

Relegation is shit. But now we have a much more realistic prospect of an enjoyable promotion chase followed, if successful, by not just guaranteed losing and being patronised the next season. Which is what follows a Championship promotion.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

SJM didn't have the funds no more to continue running the club, that's why he sold up. Easy in hindsight to say it was the wrong decision, he sold to a man with deeper pockets than his own and studied at Bearwood College down the road. It's just a shame his Dad told him to go home, he followed that and it put us, in part, as to where we are now. It's tough being a football club scrambling around for investment.

Hopefully this proves to be the proper reset we need. We definitely want to be fighting at the top end of League One next season which shouldn't be unachievable, especially considering how good the new recruitment structure and people behind the scenes are believed to be by themselves and our fanbase.

[Royal_jimmy]

When I was at uni and we were mid-table in tier three and I was saying I was confident we had a good chance to make the Prem in 5 years everyone thought I was an idiot.

We did it in six.

We've been a club clinging on to the Championship by our finger tips, lurching from crisis management to crisis management with a stated aim of returning to the PL but no plan or strategy behind it other than panic spend and pray.

I think we'd be in a better state now, and have had a more enjoyable time the last few years if we'd gone down in the Adkins/Clarke or Clarke/McDermott season.

Or kept McDermott over bringing in Stam, maybe even Bowen over Paunovic.

Hopefully we're through the worst of it thanks to the FL's action to force our finances into a semblance of order, because relegation with the crazy spending we were doing and loads of rubbish players on huge long contracts would have been bad a year or three ago.

Now we're in almost perfect reset territory. We're a bigger club than the tier three side of earlier decades now. We have excellent infrastructure and are a much better sell to prospective and ambitious L1 level owners, L1 level players and L1 level managers and coaches.

I haven't gone into a new season with much hope of a fun time for I don’t know how many years at this point. I'm actually looking forward to next season and I hope our player and management recruitment and transfer dealings can keep that up over the summer.

Relegation is shit. But now we have a much more realistic prospect of an enjoyable promotion chase followed, if successful, by not just guaranteed losing and being patronised the next season. Which is what follows a Championship promotion.

If things pan out like your optimism then I'll be happy and excited but there's so much uncertainty over the short and medium term with relegation which makes me feel nervous and concerned. For every Southampton and Norwich City there's a Bradford and Charlton. The next year or 2 will be massive in ensuring we bounce back than bobbing along in the lower leagues or drop to non-league. It's why it's important for Dai or even Dayong Pang to make an address to the fans. Otherwise it'll just make the fans think that they don't care and have no plan.

[Jackson Corner]

When foreign owners take over. We as fans never know what we are going to get. You may get lucky like City, Wrexham or Newcastle. But the list of bad ones is endless. You rely on the EFL and there fit and proper owners test to protect the club from financial meltdown. We were sold a Chinese family with billions and we all thought everything was great are future secured. The EFL had somehow missed there two previous clubs were ran into the ground into bankruptcy. We never see these people we know nothing about them what they will do next what there plan’s are?

And right now the future of the club hangs buy a thread. It’s times like this I wish we were that rubbish team at Elm Park life was a lot easier.

[blythspartan]

Going back to the days of walking up Grovelands Road with my dad on the way to Elm Park, getting promoted to the old Division 2 was a dream neither of us thought would be realised.

I remember reading Sir John’s comments years ago about taking us to the promised land and I just remember thinking what a load of rubbish but he proved me wrong.

Since 1973 to 2011/12 supporting Reading has been really exciting and exceeded my wildest dreams. The last 10 years has been utter torture and we’re now back to where we started.

I am still confident of better times to come but accept there will be more bumps in the road ahead. I’ll will always support my hometown club and I wouldn’t swap it for for the big guns in the Premiership. I am looking forward to winning a playoff final in the next year or two.

Did you never walk along the Oxford Road and up Wantage or Wilson Road?

Yeah, when I started going with my mates we always went up Wantage Road. I went to Wilson School so normally avoided that way.

I bought my first house in Albany Road so that was Prince of Wales Avenue onto Norfolk Road and then the Spread Eagle for a pint or two. From there it would either be the Tilehurst End or a walk up to the South bank.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Veteran of several relegations back to 1971 when we dropped into the 4th division, this one maybe feels a bit worse than some as its a long time since we've been third tier.

But in a way the last few seasons have been draining, Saturdays have stopped becoming enjoyable and I won't miss dull games against the likes of Birmingham, Cardiff and Stoke every week.

[Horsham Royal]

... an enjoyable promotion chase followed, if successful, by not just guaranteed losing and being patronised the next season. Which is what follows a Championship promotion.

Agree. 100% not fussed about the PL, but (eventual) promotion from L1 will be sweet.

[Snowball]

... an enjoyable promotion chase followed, if successful, by not just guaranteed losing and being patronised the next season. Which is what follows a Championship promotion.

Errrr, Leicester, Brighton, West Ham