Att: 10,000 (roughly 2,000 away ones)
READING TEAM: Woods, Brown, Gooding, Lambert, Bernal, McPherson, Gilkes,
Parkinson, Nogan, Lovell, Holsgrove.
SUBS: Codner, Swales, Jones.
Game Statistics:
Attempts On Target
Royals: 4 Birmingham: 4
Attempts Off Target
Royals: 4 Birmingham: 7
Corners
Royals: 4 Birmingham: 10
Free Kicks Conceded
Royals: 16 Birmingham: 15
Offsides
Royals: 1 Birmingham 4
Bookings
Two each. Gooding and Kenny Brown for the Royals (why not Parkie??)
Oh dear. I went home for this one and then due to an amazing (ish) run of events couldn't go to the match. So at least we lost. Kind of. I've got my copy of the EP so I'll stick some stuff from there on here shortly. For now heres a report from Paul Ilsley. Cheers!
Actually managed to get home on saturday and see the Royals take on Birmingham. First half was pretty naff for both sides, not many chances and the ref was letting anything go. Birmingham took a risk by bringing on all three subs at the start of the second half ( why does Jimmy only ever bring subs on with 5mins left? ) which almost paid off straight away. After the first five(ish) minutes of the second half the Royals started to dominate and Archie wasted an easy chance as the keeper could only parry a long range blast from Micky Gooding. Nogan also missed an easy shot. Gilkes was his usuall lazy self and his unwillingness to tackle let one of the Birmingham subs score against the run of play. Gilkes failed to convert an excellent cross about 10 mins later which should have equalled the score.
The ref was crap, he couldn`t keep control of the game and let numerous elbows and pushes go unpunished, as well as allowing Micky Gooding to be kicked in the head whilst on the floor without even booking the offending Birmingham player! This eventually lead to various scuffles near the end of the match and a couple of bookings ( oh, and some nice kneecapping kicks by Phil Parkinson :) )
RFC TEAM:
1) Chris woods - played a good solid game, made several excellent saves and could not be blamed for Birmingham goal.
2) `That bloke on loan from West Ham' - Sorry can`t remember his name but he looked quite useful and was prepared to push forward and provided a few good crosses, could be worth signing.
3) Mickey Gooding - Played well again, chased every ball and we should have scored as result of his long range shot which the goalkeeper could only push away to Lovell ( who passed it gently back to him :* )
4) James Lambert - Showed some excellent skill on the ball and some lovely passes but didn`t stand much chance agaisnt the large Birmingham defenders due to the lack of support he was(`nt) given.
5) Andy Bernal - Skippy had a reasonable match filling in for Ade Williams ( who was looking very uninjured at Utopia last saturday night ! )
6) Keith McPherson - Was solid in defence.
7) Michael Gilkes - Lazy git, gave away the goal because he didn`t want to get his nice white shorts muddy, was very unwilling to run wwith the ball.
8) Phil Parkinson - Had quite a good game, nice use of the elbow :)
9) Lee Nogan - Ran his little legs off as normal but he had an easy chance in the second half which he should have scored from.
10) Stuart Lovell - Archie had a poor game, still can`t time his jumping to reach headers.
11) Paul Holsgrove - Played OK, some nice passes but almost lost the ball in front of goal on several occasions.
13) Steve Swales - Replaced Archie for the last couple of minutes, brought on too late to be able to do anything.
Birmingham:
OK, so Birmingham have a squad of over 50 professionals and I can`t remember the names of any of them! They were all very big, didn`t deserve three points and why Oh why would no one tackle their number 12????????
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