Reading, 28 February 2009

Off, then, to Reading for the first time in a while. I don't like coming here at all. Not that they're unpleasant souls, they even e.mailed back in the affirmative when I asked for parking, but the Madejski is a soulless place, they keep moving the press room, they charge for wifi, the food is inedible, the drink is from a vending machine and while you might not need oxygen for the press box, Kendal Mint Cake is required, but not supplied. Oh, and you - or at least I - can't read the numbers on Reading players' shirts.
No, it's just that the journey is horrible - not long but treacherously difficult to time - and just visiting the place brings back dark memories of really bad times, twice over. There’s no other ground I feel like that about, this side of Chasetown, but I can’t shake it.
Anyway, life is good and there can be no darkness if you’re sat next to Harry Pratt of the Star. The game against Nottingham Forest (no link, alas, if you can find it on the net, well done because I can’t) is fascinating. Reading have no confidence, Forest look as though they couldn’t believe their luck at facing such a despondent shower.
Afterwards, Steve Coppell is at his most annoying. I ask if it’s a crisis, which might be a bit of a tabloidy way of putting it, but it’s a fair point. He takes the ludicrously sanctimonious it’s-only-a-crisis-if-you’ve-got-cancer line, which is obviously a manoeuvre to deflect any serious discussion of their - ha! - crisis. More to the point, if I’d lost a nearest or a dearest (and surely someone in the room has) to what he called “the Big C”, then I’d be mortified by his trivialising it. After he’s gone, I pop to the toilet. When I emerge, he’s coming in the opposite direction. He gives a giant, knowing grin.
In sort-of contrast, Forest’s Billy Davies is the happiest I’ve seen a manager all season. He’s glowing, as well he might be. He’s never short of an opinion or three and so he rails against Reading’s multi-ball system, he claims he was never going to resign last week and he even admits to time-wasting, before he dances off into the night. When I leave after 6, the Forest team coach (far from lavish Hallmark) is still there. It might still be there now.