It was the worst of games, but it was the best of seasons at the Madejski as Reading ended their home games with a dismal performance against an equally poor Watford.
Before the game, Kingsley genuflected before the passing referee and linesmen, before stating his innocence via the medium of T-Shirt
Before the game, there were quite a few announcments and awards. The reserves won their division of the Premiership (and later the Premiership title by beating Bolton 2-0)
Then Ivar Ingimarsson was awarded the Player of the Year with Nicky Shorey 2nd and Stephen Hunt, 3rd. All justified IMO. Well done, Ivar.
Then onto the game and the entertainment more or less ended. First half was all Reading, but no end product. We hit the bar, and England/Man United goalkeeper Ben Foster was impressive in stopping anything else hitting the net.
The second half really dragged and Watford’s physical play started to get the upper hand. They scored from a freekick where Reading’s offside trap didn’t work, although actually there was a foul on Michael Duberry as he was held and stopped moving so he was keeping the other’s onside.
The 2nd goal, on 85 minutes was a mistake from Marcus Hahnemann where he simply misjudged the flight of the cross and his slip fell into Watford hands.
This provoked a mass exodus from the home support, despite their being a sceduled lap of honour after the game. The bloke next to me explained that he had a bus to catch. Well, so did I but I stayed to watch and clap and cheer on the team after a great season.
I was disappointed that half the support had disappeared but was near furious to get outside to discover my bus has actually left. The 74 and 76 had buggered off without anyone who’d watched the lap of honour.
There was talk of them coming back, or another bus being arranged to take everyone left behind home, but given the lack of organisation I wondered what time that might be. So, I called the wife and we got home only 30 minutes later than normal. I guess I was lucky but that is typical organisation. I wonder why no one told the bus drivers.
Apologies for the delay to this post, but I have been away and didn’t have time to post this before leaving
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