Beetley Yellow

A couple of Reading fans just called into 6-0-6 and to be fair, what is going on there is catastrophic- I’m not surprised the fans have acted today, it is obvious that unless a change of owner happens soon, the club is very much on the brink of going out of existence. Given the owner’s history of liquidating 2 clubs previously, how on earth did he pass the ‘fit and proper’ tests that (I assume) would be in place? The issues their fans have had to endure and the very obvious emotional impacts these are having really did put our current problems into perspective.

Extremely happy to be wrong on this, especially about the minimal effort- a real rearguard team effort to get the win, well done all. Superb commitment, but I don’t think my nerves can take too many similar ‘smash and grab’ wins like that.

We’ll park the bus, grind out a 0-0 for the first hour, then concede 2 inside 5 minutes and then show minimal effort / spirit, eventually losing by the 2 or 3-0. And the ‘20%’ will gain even more numbers.

…. “You’re going to get what Jimmy Rimmer got”, was quite a popular chant in the Barclay in subsequent matches I seem to recall. I don’t recall what the ‘threat to our very existence’ was all about. Were we that much on the brink financially back then that a hefty fine would have bankrupted us?

Another “he felt the touch so had to go down”…., Bruno Fernandes for Man Utd at Wigan. Minimal contact, never enough to cause the theatrical collapse to the floor that ensued. Pathetic cheating yet now taken as ‘business as usual’ in the modern game.

No doubt it will be justified by the usual “he felt the touch, so had the right to go down…”, or other similar b*****ks, as so often espoused by ex-professional so-called ‘pundits’. Blatant cheating like this makes a mockery of the current game, the fact that VAR reinforces it only makes it worse.

Coventry….., the complete lunacy that is the modern PL will see Robins sacked when they are bottom and only 3 points from safety in October ‘23. Just in time for us to appoint him with us in the lower half Championship and looking completely clueless. (* Disclaimer - there is a lot of complete guesswork and supposition in this prediction *)

Too many influential people at the Club are too comfortable. Mediocrity is becoming accepted in many areas. A ‘90%’ commitment attitude tends to result in such.

It was onside, to be fair a very good call (… lucky guess?) because I was convinced it was off at ‘live’ first view and even after seeing the first replay.

Two very poor teams in today’s game IMO. As others have said if SU are the second best team in the Division, it’s a real indicator as to the actual quality of the Championship. That we are still in touch with the top 6 I suppose confirms this opinion. Seeing the team selection before the game was quite intriguing, we could not fathom how it would work. As it turned out, to have so many attacking players and still show so little creativity and guile was nothing short of alarming. All it takes is a well organised defence and we’re totally negated. I’d like to think it’s because we’re missing Dowell and Hernandez, but I’m not really sure they are the answer either. It’s difficult to see what we can do about improving matters without significant investment (and somebody to spend it wisely this time).

Also remember it well. Turned up late to a packed CR, the only place left was the ‘no man’s land’ segregation pen in the Barclay, so had the joy of 2 hours of being gobbled at by the neanderthal away support, did leave a few quid richer due to the constant barrage of coins from our left hand side. Remember it being a glorious sunny day, Leicester were already down, but were well up for it on the day, we were just a bit ‘along came Norwich’. I think we needed Liverpool to beat Sunderland at Anfield to help save us (… if we could draw) and even they managed to lose.

The goalkeeper catching the ball and throwing himself on the ground is now an almost universally used time wasting tactic. It becomes painfully obvious as soon as you become aware of it, it usually wastes 20s+ and I cannot believe it has not been picked up and made a bookable offence. That and the seemingly interminable substitutions we now have in the game. It was always annoying when used as a tactic to break up play in the final minutes of the game, it is even more so now the numbers available have increased. I always wondered why a simple rule of no subs to be made after 80/85 mins could not be introduced or at the very least not allowed during injury time. That and/or add a more realistic time for subs made. 30s for each occurrence is now a joke, when 3 are made at once, invariably each player (on the winning side), do the ‘who me?’ charade, applaud the crowd and only then slowly trudge off, a procedure sequentially repeated for players 2 and 3 being replaced. Independent time keeping and a ref with an option to declare ‘time off’ (as per rugby union) would be quite startling I reckon.

Chris Woods catching the ball a minute into injury time and launching it up field for an attack rather than theatrically throwing himself on the ground to waste 30 seconds……, simpler times!!

Certainly was. Me and a mate bunked off evening lectures at City College, supposedly ‘to get his car fixed’, to which the lecturer replied “going to the match are you lads?”, with a knowing grin. I think I and several thousand of us in the River End lower terrace surged forward with SB to nod it in. It was mayhem, never seen before (… or since?) in the RE. I know we won the Final and that was special, but the very fact it was ‘them’ in the SF makes it that little bit better.

Having so much (relative) quality to bring off the bench is a massive advantage in this division, the 3 subs today changed the game, we seemed so much better on the ball and moved their tired defence around, which is how the goal came. Resolute defending kept us ‘to nil’ to be fair, an awesome job especially big Grant and Andy O who were under intense pressure at times.