When A Win Is Ultimately A Loss

By: jacob | May 14th, 2008

A Reading Fan Cries As We Go Down, Down Down So.

I think it goes largely without saying the weekend of May 10th, 2008 won’t be fondly remembered in Berkshire. I think I, like many others, was hoping that the feared “Second Season Syndrome” would result in a 15th place finish at worst. This was…. less than pleasant.

Credit to Reading, who performed as admirably as I wish they had for the rest of the year, albeit, in all honestly, beating Derby 4-0 should be a basic competence test in the Premiership. If you can’t, go home, please try again. So kudos there. If only the team had gotten some desperately needed points in any number of other crunch games (against Bolton, or Sunderland, or Wigan, or surrendering 16 goals to Pompey and Tottenham).

What does this mean for next year? Well, no word yet on whether or not Mr. Coppell will stay with us. I understand this year as a failure, and that his transfer policy, or lack thereof, can be called in to question, along with questionable tactics since, say November. That said, I still have faith int he man as a manager. I don’t thin the man who helped Reading to such an astonishing showing in the Championship last time around is suddenly useless, moreover, this isn’t a situtation like, say, Leicester, where it is all but the end of the world.

That said, Coppell’s position is still up to Steve. As of this writing, he still hadn’t made a decision, but if he stays, this Royals fan will welcome him and tell him to get us the hell back to the Premiership.

Players? Well, i’m caught here. We’re going to lose a few, assuredly. Greg Oster, Stephen Hunt, Nicky Shorey, even Dave Kitson may leave (I can imagine the ginger beanpole being Roy Keane’s style). I hold nothing against them. I wouldn’t even mind if we kept Lita, because while he absolutely isn’t Premiership standard, he’ll bang them in in the Championship, I’ll bet.

Of all the teams that were in danger of relegation, I think the ones that did go down were the best equipped for it, so to speak. Fulham or Bolton going down might’ve almost killed both teams, both certainly could’ve “done a Leeds” and just kept on falling. Even though Mr. Madjesky is actively looking to sell, sell, sell, I think Reading is still built to take this trauma, to absorb it, and to come back. Will we come back stronger? Well, that matters on whether we buy and buy smart, and realize that the gap between the Championship and the Premiership is vast and deep, and that it takes a great eye to find what few diamonds haven’t been snapped up already.

Watching your team get relegated, you wonder, “Why do I do this?”. This is especially trenchant for American fans I think, as the concept of relegation is so foreign to us. Not to mention that it puts us (myself included) in a difficult position regarding following our teams. What is a Darlington, or Bradford fan to do if they don’t live in the UK? One would imagine that, at this point, the English FA would’ve smartened up and done its best to broadcast matches from the Premiership, and say, select matches from the Championship on the Internet, but i’m sure there’s a rights wrangling issue at hand there that would make the morass of watching a game in Spain at the moment look simple.

I’m not jumping ship on Reading. I’m dissappointed, i’m disheartened, I’m not as angry as I was on Sunday, but i’m not jumping ship. They are my team, and although my links to them may not be as strong as those I have to teams I grew up nearby, and supported all my life, I know that by continuing to support them, by standing beside them throughout all of this, my affection will grow deeper.

Relegation also makes me wonder about the nature of the Premiership today, of all the major leagues in Europe. I don’t think it’s at all unfair to suggest that the Premiership has three leagues running, the four-team mini-league for the title, another 5-6 teams fighting for the UEFA Cup scraps leftover, and everyone else battling against relegation and hoping for a middling 11th place finish (I’m looking at you Middlesbrough). I know that, unless another Abramovic shows up, Reading aren’t going to be challenging for the Premiership and European honors anytime soon. I have no doubt that I will turn 30 (at least) and never see Reading touch the Premiership trophy.

But I follow these teams because I do believe that for those who follow, Portsmouth, or Hull City, or Huddersfield, or Grimsby Town or any other teams not named Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester United, those brief moments of success, when silverware finally arrives at the club means so much, much more. They say that the more a man is deprived of something, the more he is told he cannot have it, the more he covets it, the sweeter it is when he finally gets it.

So that’s why i’ll be watching Reading take on Watford (Ugh) and Plymouth next year. That and total, unabashed, unrealistic hope. Because if you don’t have any hope for the future, you don’t have a reason to follow anyone outside of the big four.

So, i’ll be back this weekend to look at what when right, what went wrong, and where we go from here. Then comes the summer transfer circus, through the prism of the Championship.

Hoo-boy.