windermereROYAL Went to my first game back in 1967. been a staunch fan ever since, seen some truly horrible teams in those 51 years, I will be a fan till my time comes,
Bloody running off when times get tough isn`t really an option for me. I expect the missing 1000s to come flooding back if and when our fortunes upturn again. #plastics.
I don't think it's fair to say the disillusionment is merely "times getting tough"
For me it's something else, something more akin to FOOTBALL is starting to p!ss me off.
There are many things going on outside Reading that don't help.
The Premiership, the stupid International breaks, teams filling with mercenaries, and little or no local feeling, SKY, dumb start times, moving start times, too much punditry, (some) players on so much money they (some) lose the ability to relate to normal people, the media pressures, Twitter bollox, too-expensive food and drink, out of town sites, tough, expensive parking or sh!tty buses, security searches etc
all these chip away at the joy go going to games - and of course, often there's a game on the telly...
But with Reading FC (only my twelfth year watching) what I've seen is a move further and further away from high-tempo, often route one, hard-running, thundering tackles, and INCIDENT, passion, noise.
I hate the current obsession with possession, the lack of MOMENTS, chances and half-chances, Doyle or Hunt or Long or Kitson going in hard, or a ball over the top for Longy or Kebe.
We lost a lot of Premiership games but I never felt the team had just given up. My feeling nowadays (whether justified or not) is that we stopped buying CHARACTER, and "this lot" can slump off the pitch on a Saturday but by seven o'clock they've forgotten the game.
A few years back (a Northern club, I think) one of their players was lying in the goalmouth and deliberately stuck his face in the way of the ball - stupid and brave. Who the F have we got that would do that now?
It is boring.
It is uninspiring.
It is depressing.
If we were having a real go, route one, Hunt and Long, diving in (even when a bit dumb) like JVDB, just trying to make stuff happen (like TBF Swift in the second half v Norwich) then - even if we lose, that's OK.
But insipid, gutless performances without fire in the belly is what is killing me. (Win or lose)