Issue 11 - August 1999
Up the Rs previews the new season

The nervous anticipation, the expectancy, the underlying feeling of excitement and hope. Yes, that's right - Christmas is not far away but before that we have to endure five months of footballing torture. After last season's uncannily accurate predictions (see Issue 4), Our Royals Correspondent adopts the schizophrenic approach.

The Optimistic view.

Last season was predictably one of change and consolidation after the debacle of the closing days of the Bullivant era. A seriously sinking ship struggled to right itself but finally managed to re-float and achieve something approaching stability. The task now is to build on those firmer foundations.

The Reading squad, providing injuries can be avoided, has a solid look about it with reasonable cover in most positions, apart, perhaps, from an attacking left-sided player and another striker. At the moment, much is expected of new signing Nicky Forster as the back-up team of McIntyre, Brayson and Scott is hardly likely to have opposition defences quaking in their boots but a partnership with Williams will hopefully prove fruitful.

Injury problems, perhaps more than anything else, contributed to last season's inconsistency. A side undergoing rapid change in the summer needed a period of stability at some point - over forty players used over the year indicated that this never happened. I doubt if there was one occasion last season that Tommy Burns was able to pick his first eleven and there were changes almost every week. Little wonder that we hardly ever performed like a coherent unit.

With Graeme Murty still in plaster following his injury at Kenilworth Road last March, the omens may not be too promising yet again. Hopefully, however, he's only a month or so away from first team action and we can look forward to the injection of some pace into our rather lacklustre attacks.

On the positive side, Polston, Hunter and Evers should be fit to take their places right from the start. Polston should add a touch of calmness and authority to the defence and Evers will bring a more dynamic approach to the midfield.

Hunter, so nearly sold at the end of last season, could be crucial. In a team seemingly lacking in character (or "bottle" or will-to-win, or whatever you want to call it), Hunter is at least a leader, someone who shouts, cajoles and tries to inspire the rest of the team. A bit more grit and determination is needed this season and Hunter could be the man to provide it.

Given some relief from the injury affliction, a settled side could see Primus, Casper, Polston, and Hunter battling for the defensive positions, Murty, Caskey, Brebner, Parky and Evers doing the same in midfield with Forster and Williams up front. Back up comes in the shape of Gurney (who's surely not as bad as his God-awful performance at Blackpool last April), Gray, McLaren, Hodges and, just perhaps, Brayson, if he find some confidence from somewhere.

This isn't a bad squad and has a solid look in the defence and midfield. The key to success will be whether last season's patient possession can be turned into chances and whether the strikers, whoever they may be, can stick them away. At the moment, this is the biggest question mark and the form of Forster will be closely watched in the first few games. If he's the player some Birmingham fans believe him to be, Reading could well be on the verge of a very successful season.

The Pessimistic View

Hmm, now let me see. The last ten games of last season - seven defeats, two draws and a solitary, magnificent victory over the mighty Millwall, whose season had long since ended. In the big games, we were comprehensively beaten by Man. City, the Gills and Fulham. In the not so big games, we were dire against Oldham and Wigan and just possibly the worst we've ever been against Blackpool.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that scarcely seems like solid credentials for promotion challenge this time out, does it? It certainly doesn't inspire me to pour yet more of my hard-earned into the bookies cash register.

Of course, had there been significant changes over the summer, it might be easier to claim that future looked rosy. A clearout of the dead wood, has beens and never weres and injection of fresh blood, a transfusion, as it were.

So, er, we've lost Houghton to old age, Barras to eccentricity (just why the hell was he signed in the first place) and Glasgow to stupidity. And we've gained…..a striker. Just one.

Houghton - gone and quickly forgotten

Some might claim that the tail end of the season was simply the loss of concentration after the play off chances disappeared. In fact, if you took those results away and ignored the poor start when we struggled to adjust to the pace of division two football, Reading actually had a reasonable season.

This view, however comforting, is just plain silly. You could equally well claim that, if you ignored that reasonable spell in the middle, we were bloody relegation certainties. Bung in the first ten games and you have a record that reads: W4, D4, L12.

Twenty games, sixteen points. Repeat that across the season and we'd have been relegated by February.

The fact is that last season Reading were not just poor, they were awful, pathetic, hopeless. They had no spirit, no fight, no discernible game-plan (apart from playing so slowly they seemed to be hoping the opposition would fall asleep) and turned the first season at the magnificent Madjeski Stadium into a shambles.

Not once, in the entire course of the season, did we dominate the opposition. We outplayed Northampton at Sixfields Stadium but created far too few chances and just scraped a one-nil win. All the best games (about three of them) were tight affairs, which could have gone either way: Stoke and Bournemouth at home, Wycombe away.

The sheer, unremitting dullness of the football was something to behold. Or rather, it was for a few games until the rival attractions of having your teeth pulled out without anaesthetic or watching fifteen episodes of Noel's House Party back-to-back seemed so much more appealing. The most sensible decision of the entire year came at the Northampton home game from one of the Whiff sellers: he turned up at 1 o'clock, sold for two hours and then buggered off to the pub whilst we all endured another abysmal two hours of "entertainment".

Let's face it, we were crap last season and what's changed? Sod all, as far as I can see so why on earth should we be promotion candidates this time? I hope to God I'm wrong but there were no signs of the team "gelling" (to use that favourite expression from this time last year) at any stage. Indeed, in his interview in Four Four Two, Burns said that often the players were trying so hard to do what they thought he wanted them to do that they forgot to play football - why not just teach them to play bloody football then?

So there you have it - which view do you think more closely resembles our chances this season? Write and let us know. Whatever, the Whiff reserves the right to claim "we told you so" no matter what happens over the next ten months.