Strap's Stats 3 - November 1997

Royals Versus Other Clubs...

>Strap
>
>Can you do us a little feature for the Euronet website
>of completely useless facts about Reading and their records
>against other Clubs that have Euronet teams

Mark, this is quite a task you've set, especially as you want it ASAP! I'll limit myself to 2 hours in total, and try to give you one or two weird bits on Reading v. each of the teams mentioned in your e-mail! If this isn't what you want, you'll have to g ive me a bit more time I'm afraid!!

Ok.

1. QPR We shared many a happy season with QPR in div3s, but the best must have been 53 to 58. We won all six home games, with a 15-3 aggregate, incl 3 successive 3-1 wins!

2. Southampton Our favourite cup team of the past 20 years! They managed a lucky FAC3 win at EP 1-0 in 88, but revenge was sweet in 97 3-1! Funnily enough we lost in LC4 after a replay 0-2 in 78, and then we whipped 'em 2-1 in LC4 in 95! So I'm hop ing they beat us 2-1 in the FAC final this year, thus guaranteeing us the FAC and hence Europe next year!

3. Stockport It is alleged that Stockport brought the first ever instance of crowd violence to Elm Park when we beat them 3-0 in the opening game of 67/68. Surely not!

4. Sunderland Just mention one man - the great, and often under-rated Mr Charles Hurley. Funnily enough, a certain Mr Joe Cochrane has a connection between our great clubs. He resigned the managers job at Roker Park in 1939, was appointed our Manag er, and promptly left after 13 DAYS! I kid you not.

5. WBA Bit of a Bury here I'm afraid folks! Just look at our league record from 1927 to 1997! Home

	P 11  W 2  D 3  L 6  F 16  A 25
	Away
	P 12  W 2  D 1  L 9  F   9  A 24
	SHIT !!

7. Leicester OK, seeing as it's EuroNet, I won't mention the fact the Foxes stole the best manager we ever had! We 've barely crossed swords with Leicester in the league, not meeting them until 1988! So I'm deeply indebted to the wonderful Alan Sed unary for unearthing this gem, from the Royals programme of the second season against them in 1996. Apparently Leicester's historical connections with Elm Park go back to January 1897, when the guarantee of £30 attracted Leicester Fosse to EP for a friend ly in EP's first ever season. Trouble was, the league side turned up 3 players short! Despite borrowing some replacements, we still beat them 4-2! It was possibly the same missing trio who, about that time, lost a penalty shhot out ... to an elephant! (Th at's what Alan's article says anyway!). Sangers Circus had challenged 4 Leicester players to face their start elephant(!), and the footballing jumbo beat the first 3 but could only draw against a fourth Leicester man Bill Keech 2-2. I've got no idea what this is all about, so I think the Leicester EuroNetters should buy all the Royals a round unless they can come up with a plausible explanation! Just remembered, Leicester beat us 5-0 to register our record LC defeat back in 66-7.

8. Wolves We are to Wolves what Bury used to be to us! Since the Fat Scottich one left us, check out these results ! :

		Home			Away
	18/12/94	  WON	4-2	
	30/04/96	  WON	3-0	09/03/96	  DREW	1-1
	12/04/97	  WON	2-1	05/10/96	  WON	1-0
	14/10/97	  WON	4-2

9. Middlesbrough It seems that whenever we're in the same division as Middlesbrough, they end up getting promoted! See what I mean :

	1926/27	old Div 2	Boro fiinshed ... 	1st
	1928/29	old Div 2	Boro finished ...	1st
	1966/67	old Div 3	Boro finished ...	2nd
	1987/88	old Div 3	Boro finished ...	3rd (and yes, went up!)
	1994/95	new Div 1	Boro finished ...	1st

10. Leeds Not much of a history between us. And anyway they tend to beat us, so let's get our own back on Nov 17! For the record, all league matches were in Div 2

	Home
	P 3  W 1  D 0  L 2  F 2  A 3
	Away
	P 3  W 0  D 1  L 2  F 4  A 9

11. Birmingham Did you know we had to wait 66 years before meeting Birmingham for the first time in the league or cup! (If you accept that the War Time League Cup tie on May 4 1940 doesn't count - oh and they beat us then too!). We finally got to m eet them on Boxing Day 86, when a 2-2 draw, with hindsight, was a great result! Apart from our FACup victory in 1992 in front of Sky, (hello Jamie !), we've never won in 9, count them 9!, other visits! Shit man, they even beat us a pre-season friendly bac k in Jack Mansell's time! Mark, there are far too many Bury's in Euronet 98 for my liking!

12. Arsenal There is quite naturally only one chant suitable for this team ...Ok Lucky Lucky ...... Lucky Lucky Lucky Ars-e-nal!! Arsenal, never having risen to our levels of achievement in th league, our meetings have been restricted to Cup matches .. and every bloody time they've somehow managed to sqeeze out a win ... I mean for Christ's sake we even all scored all 3 goals in our match in FAC4 71/2 and still lost 2-1! For the record our tale of woe is ...
16/02/35 FAC5 Arsenal beat Reading 1-0, and check this out .. "Reading's Billy Wright allowed the ball to cross the line knowing it would give Reading a goal kick - only for the ref to award The Arsenal with a corner. There was no luck about the resulting corner though - Beasley's cross being struck perfectly on the volley by Cliff Bastin (who?) to fly through a crowded penalty area into the Reading net for the only goal of the game." "We just scrambled home" - Arsenal Director Out of interest, this game was the first Reading game to be filmed, the newsreel being shown at the Pavillion and Vaudeville cinemas during the following week. Arsenal's next game at EP was the subject of both BBC Radio's live second half commentary, and was the featured match on ITV's Big Match (If anyone has a video of that I will pay a lot of money for a copy! Particularly as videos weren't invented then, but you know what I mean!). This made it the most featured Royals match ever covered up to 72.
05/02/72 FAC4 Reading 1-2 Arsenal. I know 'cos I was there, we woz robbed! Barrie Wagstaff's lob had Bob Wilson clutching at thin air! Alan Ball was eclipsed by Will Dixon, and Gordon Cumming just ran the match! I won't mention 10/01/87 'cos I've run out of space!

13. Derby I think I like Derby. In the 5 league encounters at EP, they've managed a solitary draw! It took until the fifth game to even register a goal! Even more weird, until Derby scored at EP, the only Royal to score AGAINST them at EP was Trevo r Senior! Spooky. Just for the record, in the last of the 5 EP games , we won 3-2 with Lee Nogan, Archie Lovell & Trevor Morley netting.

14. Man Utd. Love 'em or loath 'em, you've got to admire them for the last 5 or 6 years. My mind goes back to the Watney Cup 70/71, when we were unlucky to lose 3-2, against George Best , Bobby, Denis Law et al - my second ever Reading match if you must know. Great - I'm the div waving the silly green school jumper behind the Tilehurst End on the Big Match! Never met them in the league, but have crossed swords a few times in FAC - Mr Cantona administering the coup de grace in our last encounter if memory serves! I'm afraid we're little more than cannon fodder, although the famous babes got a scare in 54/5 sq ueezing out a 1-1 before despatching us 4-1 in a snow bound replay.

15. Tottenham When Spurs won the Cup in 1901, they should never have passed the third round! Tait handled on the line to deny us a victory, but the ref didn't see it, and waved play on - some things never change! Unrelated fact - I think that Spurs have provided us with the most loan players since loanees were allowed. Need to check, so look out for a future piece in Strap's Stats at Hob Nob Anyone! (Knew I could get an ad in here somewhere! Sorry Mark!)

16. Bradford Sorry guys, nothing much of interest here. Played each other a few times, with honours evenish. Oh, did have to face each other an incredible 5 times in 1987-88!

		Home				Away
	24/10/87  D2	DREW 	1-1	24/11/87	LC4r	LOST 0-1
	18/11/87  LC4	DREW	0-0	20/04/88	D2	LOST 0-3
	10/02/88  SC4	WON	2-1aet

17. Huddersfield Whenever they're around with us in Div2/1, you can bet you bottom dollar that we'll always finish above them!

	1986/87	Huddersfield 17th	Reading 13th
	1987/88	Huddersfield 23rd	Reading 22nd (ok we both went down!)
	1995/95	Huddersfield 8th	Reading 19th (bugger!)
	1996/97	Huddersfield 20th	Reading 18th (hey hey back on track!)
	and of course right now (@27/10/97 ...)
		Huddersfield 24th	Reading 18th

19. Portsmouth I won't bother with our league or cup stats v pompey, but just remind them that they actually turned down both Ronnie Blackman AND Trevor Senior, thinking both were not up to the mark as goalscorers!!!!!!!! Between them they went on to score 312 league goals for us, (Mr Blackman 158 and Mr Senior 154). Tee Hee!

20. Man City Sadly whenever Man City's name is mentioned, we all think back to Jan 68, FAC3 replay, when City murdered us 7-0 at EP! How come we missed out on selling Keith Curle to Man City? We let him go to Wimbledon for 0.5 million. They kept hi m for 2 years and then sold him on for 2.5 million!

21. Sheffield W. Arguably our greatest ever cup win came in January 1929 when as 2nd div strugglers caused the shock of the season by beating runaway leaders of the 1st div Sheff Wed 1-0 with Bill Johnstone goal in front of 29,248 fans at EP. Way t hings are going, we could be meeting the Owls in Div 1 next season!!

22. Aston Villa This team of cheats always reminds me of one Reading player - Terry Bell! Ask any loyal Royal about the last game of 70/71! Div 4 hurt like hell! Say no more!! (Although to be fair, I did start to watch the Royals week in week out f or those five years in the wilderness!)

23. Colchester God bless 'em! Colchester's highest ever attendance at Layer Road is 19,072 in the FAC1 on 27 Nov 1948 against ... yes you've guessed it ... the MIGHTY Reading! We won too! Utd got their own back though. As a non-league side, (had to get THAT in!), they tonked us 2-1in FAC1 at Layer Road in Nov 90. Apparently we were absolute shite, and should have been creamed. There will be a feature on our performances against non-league opposition in Strap's Stats in Hob Nob Anyone!, (Two commercials Mark!), so don't forget to tune in!

24. Notts Co. On 24th September 1949, Notts Co, led by England International Tommy Lawton, helped set Elm Park's record League attendance of 29,091. Just what was an England International doing in the 3rd division! Wouldn't happen in our day! BTW, whilst with County, former Reading goalie Roy Brown, (who spent part of 69/70 on loan to Dartford - regular readers may appreciate the significance, but I doubt it!), created a then league record by saving six consecutive penalties. Hi Mark. Thanks for the note, I did see your web page, and was most impressed. Keep up the good work. In view of the friendly nature of EuroNet, I've re-done Leicester, and have stuck to stats for Swindon, Oxford, Watford etc!! Thought it wiser to keep ou t any thing controversial!

25. Swindon Poor Swindon, we hate them and they just can't understand why! Putting aside such friendly rivalry, we must mention the fact that Swindon for years had a record for unnerving averageness (such a word?!?) ! Throughout the entire life of Division 3 South, (1920 to 1958), the Robins were so attached to the division that they could not bear to be away from it for one single season - that's right, 38 years of it! At least we had the sense to clear off to Div 2 for 5 seasons! Our first ever g ame under floodlights was against Swindon at the County Ground on 8th Oct 1951. Naturally for the time we won, thanks to a first minute goal from Ronnie Blackman. We also drew 1-1 at EP against them in 81-2. Nothing weird in that? Except that both goals w ere scored by the respective keepers! And finally, couldn't forget the Mighty Quinn. We must thank our red cousins for giving the great Jimmy Quinn his start in league football.

26. Rangers This is worse than Celtic! I can't find too many connections here, except of course the one and only Terry Hurlock finding his way to Ibrox after he left us! I could also tell you a story about a family friend who was banned for driving , yes driving, around the Ibrox terraces back in the mid sixties whilst p*ss*d as a newt - but he never talks about it so I'm not going to !! (Sorry John blush blush :} )

27. Oxford Won't hear a bad word against them as Maurice Evans is still General Manager, president of the Royals Supporters Club too isn't he? Bit of an upstart of a team though. At least we and Swindon had the temerity of languishing in the lower reaches of the football league for a good 40 -50 years before heading towards Div 1!! Blimey , Oxford barely broke stride, invited to join Div 4 in 1963, they were in Div 1 by '86! Mind you our best win was defeating that overweight, loadmouthed, ..... an d the rest is censored, partly because I'm a pension fund trustee (really!) ..... Mr Maxwell when he tried to kill us both to form Thames Valley Royals!! I mean, can you imagine how long a league club would have lasted in DIDCOT! (Opps, have I upset their fan here? Look I know the Hellenic League is a really high standard, and I know your ground holds 5000, with cover for 200 and even has 50 seats - wait a minute - that's more than Oxford's new ground! What odds on a ground share there for next season!!! Another Tee Hee!!

28. Watford For years Watford had the distinction of inflicting more league defeats on Reading than any other club. They've actually been overtaken by Gillingham now (who total 35), with Watford having to be content with equal second place with Sou thend, (each with 33).

29. Nottingham Forest Forest very kindly provided us with our first ever win in Division 2, when we beat them 4-0 at EP on Sept 4th 1926. To make up for it though, they stole Ronnie Blackman from us in the mid/late fifties!!

Most anecdotes, facts, figures etc can be found in Alan Sedunary's excellent A-Z Reading Football Club, and David Downs' Biscuits & Royals. Other stuff came from various home and away programmes, Rothmans and various publications of the Association of Football Statisticians.

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