[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Reading 
The Sky Bet Championship
Tuesday March 8th - 19:45 ko
at The John Smith's Stadium

David Wagner's Barmy Army welcome Baldy McDermott's Reading mob to the John Smith's Stadium on Tuesday night for a bit of a grudge match after they stole (via a couple of terrible referees) our place in the FA Cup 4th round. They play their quarter final match at home to Crystal Palace on Friday night, live on the BBC. Hopefully they will have their minds firmly fixed on the Palace and let us simply walk through their defences for an easy victory. Fat chance!



A brief history of Reading: All their best seasons have been recent, since the takeover by John Madejski in 1991. Before then they were mostly a lower league side, flirting occasionally with the 2nd division (what we now call the Championship). It was in one of those seasons in the relative big time that they won their first major trophy, the Simod Cup in 1988, beating Luton Town at Wembley. They did get relegated though shortly after.


Then Madejski took over, moved the club out of Elm Park, their home since 1896, and moved them into the stadium they have now, named after himself of course. That was in 1998 and soon they were to be promoted again. They finished runners up in 2003, a couple of years after losing to Walsall in the Play Off final. They made an immediate impact in the Championship, reaching the Play Offs, where they got beat by Wolves at the semi final stage.

Not to be deterred though, they won the 2005–06 Championship with a league record 106 points, scoring 99 goals and losing only twice. For the first time in their history, they were now in the top flight of English football. They defied the odds that first season by finishing a creditable 8th, but were relegated again the following season. 

They spent their time in the Championship at the top end, reaching the Play Offs the next two years, but being beaten by Burnley and then Swansea. In 2012 however, they won the title to return to the Premier League.

It didn't last though and they were straight back down again.


Honours board:



English 2nd tier:

Champions 2006, 2012, runners-up 1995

English 3rd tier:

Champions 1926,1986,1994; runners-up 1932, 1935, 1949, 1952, 2002

English 4th tier:

Champions 1979

Full Members Cup:

Winners 1988

Head to head



Reading lead in the overall head to head with 23 wins to Town's 13, with 11 draws. 


This will be the 4th meeting of the two clubs this season. We drew 2-2 at theirs in what turned out to be the last match in the Chris Powell era. We drew 2-2 at ours in the Cup, with Nahki Wells scoring a late penalty to save us after he should've had an earlier penalty to put us 2 up, but was harshly booked for diving.
Then in the replay, we were 2 up, before Jonathan Hogg was red carded and ended up losing 2-5.
Jamie Patterson has scored in all three of these matches. Can he make it four?


So what's new at The Madejski? Managed by former Town player, Brian McDermott. He played 4 matches in a loan spell at Leeds Road in 1986. He was an Oxford United player then, having started his career at Arsenal.
His playing career ended at Slough Town when he became their manager. After that he was at Woking, but after that he was out of management for nine years, working his way up the ladder at the Madejski, eventually landing the top job when Brendan Rodgers got the booit.
He was quite successful there, but eventually got sacked, leading to his brief spell in charge of Dirty Leeds. He did absolutely sod all there and was kicked out unceremoniously by new owner, Massimo Cellino, on the eve of the big West Yorkshire derby match, of which we won't comment further.
He returned to Reading at the back end of last year.

Notable players in their squad are:- Matěj Vydra, the Czech Republic international, who is on loan from Watford and was the one who got Hogg sent off in the replay before going on to bag himself a hat trick. Yann Kermogant, who has given us some pain in the past. Simon Cox and Latvian international Dennis Rakells are the other forwards at Baldy's disposal.

Welsh winger, Hal Robson-Kanu is another to watch out for, as are ex Blunt Stephen Quinn, Ola John (on loan from Benfica) and "not good enough for Town" Northern Ireland international, Oliver Norwood. 

In defence there are club skipper, Paul McShane, Chris Gunter, Jake Cooper, Jordan Obita and Michael Hector (on loan from Chelsea) to choose from.

Brian McDermott in his Leeds days

Recent Form: Town are 18th in the league with 39 points and Reading are 11th with 44. They come here unbeaten in the last six games. Their last defeat was at Ipswich on the 2nd of February. Town meanwhile, have lost the last two.

(Last 6 matches)

Derby 2-0 Town

Town 0-1 Ipswich

MK Dons 1-1 Town

Town 1-0 Wolves

Forest 0-2 Town

PNE 2-1 Town

Reading 2-2 Fulham

Charlton 3-4 Reading

Reading 1-0 Rotherham

Reading 3-1 WBA (FA Cup)

Reading 0-0 Burnley

Reading 0-0 Wolves

More of this please

And less of this

[theo_luddite]

Pffffttt Snoots, come on - they stole our place in last season's Wemberlee semi and may well do it again this season. Have they got the same ref and lino combo as Palace v Liverpool had today at Palace? If so those two blindest of blind mice would do well to join me at Specsavers for an eye test on Thursday. If that were a penalty .... mmmm, no, no, no ..... I won't show my bare behind on anyone's Town Hall steps anywhere soon. Not with winter finally arriving anyway.

Other than that, top hole thread ol' bean.

Did someone mention 2-2 again a week or two back? I don't do predictions mind.

[Lord Snooty]

Bit ironic Pardew complaining about that, eh Theo? His boy Zaha never goes over that easily. 

[WakeyTerrier]

Top thread M'Lord

This will be a very easy 3 points for the Terriers because I have no doubts they will rest more than half the 1st team in preparation for the cup

3-0 Town

[EastLondonTerrier]

Was going to comment on the Derby thread but completely skipped my mind but was Guna say how we miss big Sean scannell. His physicality, pace and direct style would have hurt Derby and he comes on tonight and sets up a goal straight away. People need to get off his back and let him play. His final ball is getting better and that goal just shows it. Twitterazi do my nut in.

[Lord Snooty]

First half was a bit dull. Nahki fluffed his lines again. But credit to him, he kept going and was on hand to intercept a poor back pass early in the second half. This time he rounded the keeper and took his time to slot it into the open net.
Great to have Scanz back, setting up the second goal within a minute of coming on. Jamie Paterson's fourth goal in the four games against Reading this season.
Nice to see FloBo tapping in for his first goal after another superb team passing move. SSN called the Reading consolation goal the goal of the night but it had nothing but a shot on target. If they'd watched the moves that led to FloBo's tap in, they would've seen a proper team goal. Much better.

Reading are awful. Baldy McDermott's bunch of cheats. I hope Palace stuff them on Friday.

[WakeyTerrier]

I knew we'd win and comfortably but by eck' it should've been all over at half time.

Nahki has improved his game in so many departments but his finishing is woeful. He should've been walking away with the match all last night in fact by my reckoning he's missed at least three real gobbers. I do have doubts as to if he can take us to the next level. In fairness to the lad he's the only experienced 1st team striker we have available right now and hasn't been rotated at all.

Rest of the team, I thought we did ok but nothing more. We passed the ball around and tried to draw Reading out, patient build up which some Town fans still can't get their heads around (hoof it,get it in the box.....Zzzzzz)
I thought Wagner got his subs bang on. Scannell on for Bunn who was having a off day, at least Lolley looked lively when he got the ball. Bojaj on for a tired Wells, I mean if at 2 up at home to Reading reserves we can't give the lad more than 30seconds then I'd have been tempted to tell him to pack in.

Crowd? No idea what the attendance was but I'd be amazed if we more than 7500/8000 actually there last night.

Vital win given Rovrum are catching those outside the bottom 3 up but nothing to get carried away by

[jjamez]

See what happens?

[theo_luddite]

Well done jjamez. Brilliant timing.

How much do we need to raise to keep your beer funds topped up to extend this trip? You only have to stay where you are until we beat L666s a week on Saturday as we don't have another game then until after Easter. 

Yup - no Easter games. Which idiot set up and who the hell at the FA agreed to an Interntational Friendlies weekend for Easter? Was this Septic Bladder's final taking the piss out of the fans leaving prezzie to us all?

[WakeyTerrier]

Don't knock the Easter break it gives me a chance to visit Berlin and take in the Germany v England match at the Olympic Stadium