Reading Roars!

The FA Cup replay between Reading and Man United promised to be an exciting affair. And so it proved.

Reading roared into life after just 30 seconds, searing up the pitch as a thrilling wave of noise cascaded from the Madejski stands. Mark Lawrenson, commentating on BBC1 alongside John Motson, reminded us that the Royals will never have a better chance of making it to the quarter-finals.

But then it all went horribly wrong.

First Heinze shocked Reading, scoring from outside the box. It was a strike that really should have been stopped by Federici. But, no, it went in and the clock read just 2 minutes.

Worse was to follow. In less time than it took to boil an egg, Louis Saha doubled Man United’s lead, angling the ball past Federici, and Reading were beginning to crack.

And then another goal: Solskjær made the score 3-0 to the visitors. Six minutes gone and woeful Reading were being routed.

The Reds were quite simply rampant – and the Royals were risible. Reading’s game plan looked as muddy as the Madejski pitch.

Motson got excited. “I don’t believe it,” we were told. “I really don’t believe it,” he added, as if we didn’t believe that he didn’t believe it first time round. The crowd seemingly didn’t believe it either, and began the lame, unmotivating chant “Que sera, sera”.

But then things began to change.

Reading took on a different formation, 4-4-2, and the reward was immediate: an Oster corner (taken in what looked like a sandpit), led to an unmarked Kitson scoring from a header.

Oster continued to threaten, and was later responsible for two opportunities that found Kitson offside and Bikey heading wide.

At this stage I was thinking of the great Liverpool comeback against Milan (that comeback). Could Reading achieve something similar?

Much of the second half was uneventful. The last 10-15 minutes were, however, electrifying. Reading were, all of a sudden, making all the right moves, shaking United (who now had Rooney and Ronaldo on the field) and creating opportunities. Substitute Leroy Lita’s headed goal in the 84th minute was almost inevitable, and Gunnarsson rattled the crossbar with a fierce strike in the 92nd minute.

Sadly, however, as Reading valiantly pressed on, in search of that important third goal, the final whistle blew and the drama was over. The first quarter of an hour of the game was unfortunate. The final quarter produced perhaps the best Reading performance I’d ever seen.

And now for something completely unrelated to football.

A new Latin American night is to be launched on Saturday 24 March at the LV Lounge, a rather swish venue opposite The Oracle’s HMV/Waterstones entrance and next to the George Hotel.

Offering rhythms and music such as salsa, reggaeton, bachata, rumba and more, the party begins at 8pm and ends at 2am.

The entrance fee is a reasonable £4, with a free beginners salsa lesson bunged in.  There may be the added bonus of catching a certain blogger there, grinning like an idiot and tripping over himself.

The possibility of Steve Sidwell departing Reading FC at the end of the season persists. The midfielder, whose contract expires in the summer, has been offered £25k a week, but has yet to put pen to paper.

Manager Steve Coppell said:

He respects our position and I respect his. It’s an exciting time for him and if he can get something elsewhere that tickles his fancy, then we’re resigned to losing him.

If Sidwell does leave, perhaps the club would consider putting in an offer for another highly influential midfielder: troubled genius Ronaldinho. The wonderful Brazilian, now no longer smiling, reportedly wants a change of scenery. They just need to find that billionaire backer first…

In today’s Guardian, Richard Williams poses the exciting question: “Could a new Manchester United or Arsenal be arising in Royal Berkshire?”.

Williams points out certain advantages that the club possesses: a catchment area to be envied, which includes wealthy parts of the South; plans to increase the stadium capacity to 38,000; and Madejski’s desire to sell the club to a billionaire.

Daniel Taylor, also a Guardian sports writer, commented yesterday:

Reading deserve more than to be patronised as just another small club who got lucky. This is a team whose artillery is far more advanced than a sling and a stone.

As for the club’s ambitions, Taylor wrote:

When Gunnarsson was asked whether he would rather play in an FA Cup final or the Uefa Cup he instinctively replied: “FA Cup, of course.” Wrong answer. He should have said: “Both.

Reading will be rewarded with either Middlesbrough or West Bromwich Albion, far from difficult opponents, if they overcome Man United at home.

Royals boss John Madejski said:

There’s just the small business of Manchester United before we get too excited about the Quarter-Final, but we’re confident we can take any side on.

We’re delighted United are coming back to Reading, it’s what The Cup’s all about, and it’s great to get a second bite of the cherry on our own turf.

We’ve beaten Boro recently so we would be up for playing them or West Brom, but we’ve got a herculean task in-front of us first.

Reading memorably defeated Boro 3-2 in their Premiership opener and had knocked out West Brom in the FA Cup a little more than a year back.

With Reading successfully holding Man United to a 1-1 draw this afternoon in the FA Cup, ensuring a replay at the Madejski, let’s remind ourselves of the Royals damage inflicted last time on the Red Devils, thanks to fans’ video action:

• Kevin Doyle’s penalty puts Reading ahead, videoed by a spectator – Watch the video
• Doyle penalty, filmed by a fan from the North Stand – Watch the video
• Doyle penalty, seen from the East Stand – Watch the video
• Crowd reaction after the same penalty – Watch the video

“The Reading fairy story goes on”, said Gary Lineker (actually, Gary, it’s fairy tale), “With scripts like this, it’s more Coppola than Coppell.” I’m assuming he didn’t mean Sofia-directed Lost in Translation. Actually, I’m not sure what he meant exactly, but it sounded good.

Gary’s words followed this afternoon’s televised FA Cup encounter between Reading and Man United which ended in a 1-1 draw. I’m pleased – no, very pleased – to add that my prediction of a draw was spot on.

Reading took control of the game early on, but it was United who scored first. Cristiano Ronaldo, who had tormented the Royals previously in the Premiership, teased Dave Kitson with his trademark stepover trick before passing to Michael Carrick. Carrick duly drove the ball into the net.

As the game wore on, Ronaldo continued to cause Reading problems, delighting the Old Trafford crowd with some nifty moves against Seol Ki-Hyeon (twice) and Nicky Shorey. Furthermore, the Portuguese player had three great opportunities to score – his first shot on goal was deflected off a Reading player, and his second was touched out of play by reserve Reading keeper Adam Federici.

The really exciting football, however, came in the final 30 minutes, with the Royals equalising via a beautiful Brynjar Gunnarsson header, swooping over a crowded box.

Both sides played with extra urgency. Substitute Stephen Hunt in the 90th minute was tearing down the middle of the pitch surrounded by five red shirts. A minute later Louis Saha struck wide in his bid for glory.

Super sub Henrik Larsson also had a couple of good opportunities to settle the game, but ultimately he could not transform proceedings as he did for Barcelona in last season’s Champions League Final.

Now we can look forward to a replay at the Madejski, and how about this for a new prediction: Reading to defeat Man United and progress to the next round.

So Reading lost to Man United, who scored the only goal of the game through Louis Saha. The slender scoreline was surprising, as the Royals had three players sent off (Sonko, Sidwell and Kitson) for seemingly no apparent reason (the Konami Difference, perhaps?).

Of course, it was difficult to argue with the ref when the players were merely well-drawn characters on a Samsung screen, for I was playing Pro Evolution Soccer 6 on the Xbox 360.

Yes, in anticipation of the weekend’s hot encounter with the Red Devils, I was guiding the Berkshire Blues, as Reading is termed in Pro Evo, against Ferguson’s men in the hit console game. There wasn’t an Old Trafford to play at, and certainly no Madejski, so instead I played in front of a packed Santiago Bernabeu crowd.

The game was realistic enough: I picked up all the cards (3 reds, 2 yellow), while Man United escaped the wrath of the ref. And there was plenty of time added on.

As for the real clash between the two sides, I predict a draw.

So the big story of the day, splashed on the front page of both the Reading Chronicle and Evening Post, is Reading’s gleaming new Station Hill skyline planned by football boss John Madejski.

Madejski commented on the project:

I am a great believer in the future of Reading and its desire to be recognised as a European city.

“Our Premiership football team has put the town on the world map and I am keen to reinforce this achievement through this property development.

These are lofty (no pun intended) ambitions! Of course, we do need this project, to replace the embarrassing concrete eyesore currently greeting Reading arrivals, but it will take more than shiny buildings (the tallest, at 32 storeys, isn’t even that high – and yes, size does matter when it comes to buildings) to bring the town recognition on the international stage.

I would like us to focus more on cultural efforts, as I believe that it is through cultural expression that the biggest impact is made. Reading is already successfully winning international attention through music and arts festivals, and of course sport (thanks again to Madejski).

Last year the town lost a limb, with the departure of WOMAD to Wiltshire. Let’s fill that void, support our other festivals and invest in other cultural areas, and watch our recognition grow.

I have been toying with new Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 recently. One of the things I like best about it is that it supports RSS (Really Simple Syndication), a way of having news from sites such as this one conveniently delivered to you, pretty useful if you like your news from more than one source.

With Outlook 2007, to my surprise, adding a news feed is really straightforward. I did it with Reading Roars! in 3 steps – click on RSS Feeds, right-click and Add a New RSS Feed, then lastly “enter the location of the feed you want to add”. And that’s it.

Then the fun begins. Articles are added to Outlook in the form of email, and labelled with author name, article title and publication date. As email, you can flag it, or drag it into your To-Do Bar.

You can also configure Outlook so that full article content is downloaded as an attachment to RSS messages.

Changing times, eh.