End Of Season Awards 2004/2005 Season

Central defender Ivar Ingimarsson has been voted player of the season by Hob Nob Anyone? voters. Ingimarsson, nearly ever present until the last part of the season, picked up well over a third of the vote to beat off runner up Marcus Hahnemann and third placed Dave Kitson. For nearly all voters it was clearly a straight choice between one of those three players with the massive majority of votes shared between the three and the rest of the squad picking up just a sprinkling of votes. Hahnemann had an excellent season in goal for Reading, and for many Kitson was hard to resist after he banged in 19 goals during the season despite injuries. Kitson's dip in form towards the end of the season probably saw him drop to third place after an impressive overall season.

Ibrahima Sonko didn't have any competition in the biggest improvement of the season category - winning with approaching half of the vote. The places behind were made up of the top three in the player of the season vote but in a different order with Dave Kitson, Marcus Hahnemann, and Ivar Ingimarsson behind Sonko. There's no doubt Sonko made his mark this season, coming from nowhere to secure a first team place that saw him keep Keown and Ingimarson on the bench. Sonko was still prone to the odd costly mistake, but generally looked very solid - a massive improvement from last season.

For the second season in a row, the home win over Alan Pardew's West Ham United was the highlight of the season for most. West Ham ended up sneaking into the play-offs at Reading's expense at the end of the season - but at least we stuffed them at the Madejski Stadium in March. Kitson bagged a hat-trick on the day, and there was only ever one team likely to win it. The away victory at Sunderland was a clear runner up. Our 2-1 victory at the Stadium of Light was a huge shock for the home side in front of the Sky TV cameras, and a result that made us seem strong play-off contenders.

It all went wrong shortly after the Sunderland win however, as Reading missed out on the play-offs after losing the last three games of the season. If we'd picked up four points from those last three games then we'd have been in the play-offs in place of West Ham - but three straight defeats condemned us to another season in the Championship. It's no surprise to see all of those final games feature in the top nine worst performances of the season. The home defeat against Wolves effectively ended our chances before the final day of the season and that game stuck in the mind as the low-point of the season. The defeat at Cardiff the week before was runner-up. In third place, the defeat at bottom of the table strugglers Rotherham was a early sign that we simply weren't good enough to finish in the top six.

Votes were collected between 3 May 2005 and 13 May 2005.
All result figures are expressed as percentages of the total vote.

2004/2005 SEASON - Player of the season award
1	Ivar Ingimarsson	39.00%
2	Marcus Hahnemann	28.12%
3	Dave Kitson	19.73%
4	Steven Sidwell	5.22%
5	Nicky Shorey	3.17%
6	Graeme Murty	0.91%
7	Ibrahima Sonko	0.68%
	Others	Remainder

2004/2005 SEASON - Biggest Improvement of the season
1	Ibrahima Sonko	43.76%
2	Dave Kitson	13.61%
3	Marcus Hahnemann	11.79%
4	Ivar Ingimarsson	11.56%
5	Andy Hughes	5.22%
6	Paul Brooker	3.17%
7	Nicky Shorey	2.49%
8	Dean Morgan	1.36%
9	Ricky Newman	1.13%
	Others	Remainder

2004/2005 SEASON - BEST Performance of the Season
1	Reading 3-1 West Ham	62.36%
2	Sunderland 1-2 Reading	16.55%
3	Reading 4-0 Crewe	4.08%
4	Leicester 0-2 Reading	3.63%
5	Reading 3-0 Watford	2.27%
	Others	Remainder

2004/2005 SEASON - WORST Performance of the Season
1	Reading 1-2 Wolves	20.18%
2	Cardiff 2-0 Reading	18.14%
3	Rotherham 1-0 Reading	16.10%
4	Reading 1-2 Coventry	10.43%
5	Wolves 4-1 Reading	7.71%
6	Leeds 3-1 Reading	4.99%
7	Cup - Reading 0-3 Watford	4.31%
8	Preston 3-0 Reading	4.08%
9	Wigan 3-1 Reading	2.95%
	Others	Remainder

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