Great & Memorable Games at the Mad!

[handbags_harris]

The club are due to release a book this summer to mark the 10 year anniversary of moving to the MadStad, hopefully they'll release a DVD, considering we've played in 3 divisions and witnessed the best and worst of RFC

Would be interested in the book but the DVD would be nice - some of the goals I had seen are merely confined to memory.

Anyone know if Grant Brebner's opener is available anywhere?

I believe you can download the goal commentary from Classic Gold on the match report page on this very site. however as for seeing the goals, I really don't know. A cracking suggestion though, pity the highlights list on the official site doesn't go further back than 01/02. I'd love a dvd of every first team match highlights match at the Madejski. I'd watch it all day every day if I could!

[Gordons Cumming]

Great game?

That needs a little thought................
.......I'll get back.

[strap]

Well for sheer volume and atmosphere, you will have to go a long way to beat the Wigan play-off game. I was stuck in the upper west in the south west corner, and it was pandemonium.

[RG30]

The club are due to release a book this summer to mark the 10 year anniversary of moving to the MadStad, hopefully they'll release a DVD, considering we've played in 3 divisions and witnessed the best and worst of RFC

Would be interested in the book but the DVD would be nice - some of the goals I had seen are merely confined to memory.

Anyone know if Grant Brebner's opener is available anywhere?

I believe you can download the goal commentary from Classic Gold on the match report page on this very site. however as for seeing the goals, I really don't know. A cracking suggestion though, pity the highlights list on the official site doesn't go further back than 01/02. I'd love a dvd of every first team match highlights match at the Madejski. I'd watch it all day every day if I could!

At the end of the 02/03 season, Reading World ran a brilliant feature during the summer months of "20 most influential RFC moments" and IIRC the move to the Madejski Stadium came out on top, and the club did certainly have the footage of Brebner's goal.

[Ginger Ninjas]

As I missed the Wigan play off game, my top four would be (in no particular order)

4-3 vs Oxford (couldn't see the West stand from the East when it was really chucking it down, but a riveting and entertaining farce)

1-1 vs Ipswich (90 minutes of brilliant football, including some truly magnificent goalkeeping, followed by 3 minutes of all football emotions)

3-2 vs Palace (andy johnson scoring then going off injured, missed penalties, a spectacular overhead, a late winner, everyting you want)

3-2 vs Boro (25 minutes of 'shit, we're going to get relegated', nicky shorey's run, 5 minutes of magic at the end of the first half, 'premiership? you're having a laugh' rammed back down the boro supporters' throats)

Other worthy mentions, particularly in terms of mental celebrations, would include one of the victories over West Ham in the championship (Harewood crying!! God bless Dave Kitson), Murty's penalty or Liverpool/Sunderland from this season. Oh yeah, and the time Curo scored four

[Blue and White Toucan]

I would agree with many of the games mentioned on here so far but 2 that stand out for me were the very first game against Luton.

The expectation of the day was fantastic and the I remember walking out into the stadium and looking out thinking 'Is this really Reading Football Club?' The team seemed to play with a certain party spirit as well as we beat Luton 3-0. Sadly the rest of the season petered out as we finished mid table.

And the other one , for all the wrong reasons was the 6-0 stuffing by Bristol Rovers. I remember being in a right mood for a least a week after that, as I worked in Bristol and had to put up with Rovers fans giving me grief.

However I am pleased to say that I have now well and truly got my own back!!!!!

[Gordons Cumming]

As I missed the Wigan play off game, my top four would be (in no particular order)

4-3 vs Oxford (couldn't see the West stand from the East when it was really chucking it down, but a riveting and entertaining farce)

1-1 vs Ipswich (90 minutes of brilliant football, including some truly magnificent goalkeeping, followed by 3 minutes of all football emotions)

3-2 vs Palace (andy johnson scoring then going off injured, missed penalties, a spectacular overhead, a late winner, everyting you want)

3-2 vs Boro (25 minutes of 'shit, we're going to get relegated', nicky shorey's run, 5 minutes of magic at the end of the first half, 'premiership? you're having a laugh' rammed back down the boro supporters' throats)

Other worthy mentions, particularly in terms of mental celebrations, would include one of the victories over West Ham in the championship (Harewood crying!! God bless Dave Kitson), Murty's penalty or Liverpool/Sunderland from this season. Oh yeah, and the time Curo scored four

Sorry.

You can't put a 0-6 reverse as a great game.

Not allowed.....

[Huntley & Palmer]

As I missed the Wigan play off game

PLOLastic

[Blue Blooded]

At the end of the 02/03 season, Reading World ran a brilliant feature during the summer months of "20 most influential RFC moments" and IIRC the move to the Madejski Stadium came out on top, and the club did certainly have the footage of Brebner's goal

At the end of the 02/03 season, Reading World ran a brilliant feature during the summer months of "20 most influential RFC moments" and IIRC the move to the Madejski Stadium came out on top, and the club did certainly have the footage of Brebner's goal

To be honest I hadn't seen that - did a trial membership a little while ago but didn't get the depth in the archive that I would have wanted. Possibly due to it being merely a trial perhaps!

The only thing that I would say with your inverted is that you would expect such a selection to be slightly contrived (I might be wrong on this?). What would be nice to see is a high degree of fan participation for what could be a highly personal experience. Trouble is that with highlights (Possibly) dictated by the club is that so much can be missed and lost to posterity.

The expectation of the day was fantastic and the I remember walking out into the stadium and looking out thinking 'Is this really Reading Football Club?' The team seemed to play with a certain party spirit as well as we beat Luton 3-0. Sadly the rest of the season petered out as we finished mid table.

Good calls with the Luton first game (Mass Sarr had a fantastic game that day).

Enjoyed the (Good) Friday Forest as well!

3-2 vs Boro (25 minutes of 'shit, we're going to get relegated', nicky shorey's run, 5 minutes of magic at the end of the first half, 'premiership? you're having a laugh' rammed back down the boro supporters' throats)

To think that I could have got a drink at half time!

[SWLR]

Beating Palace 3-2. Lita's overhead kick. Magic.

In my top 5 - a game that had everything

[Royal Fleet]

Reading 1-0 Forest - Friday night game between two promotion hopefuls, great atmosphere from both sets of fans, late (I think) winner from a Hughes bullet header.

This is also a game that sticks in my mind. Murty will never hit a cross as well as this as long as he lives, and the header was sublime. I can still picture it rifling into the top corner as if it were yesterday.

[Ginger Ninjas]

As I missed the Wigan play off game

PLOLastic

Well, quite.

Probably belongs in the 'Great games you missed' thread in GF - but I had my sixth form leaving 'prom' that night, cue much drunken jumping on tables at the Holiday Inn Caversham as I listened on a portable radio.

Another favourite, from the Championship-winning season was the Hull victory. Not necessarily the greatest game, but we were in complete control at 1-0. Suddenly Hull have the nerve to grab a goal out of nothing - Reading respond instantly with two goals in two minutes (both great strikes from Doyle and Little), almost as if we were saying 'how dare you have the cheek to score against us?' - highlighted our complete domination of the division, every challeng we rose to and passed.

[cmonurz]

Already been mentioned, but the Wigan playoff game, under floodlights, was just phenomenal – despite 75 minutes or so of complete dross. And that after a dull 0-0 up at Wigan in the heat. Talk about one man making a huge, telling, contribution on a game of football, Sir Nicky Forster. Sat in the North Stand for that game, about halfway back, and watching Fozzy tearing towards the goal time and again, as Wigan defenders back-pedalled, was exhilarating. First Butler stabs home the equaliser, after Forster somehow found a gap between two Wigan defenders; and then Forster is tripped, the whole ground roaring “PENALTY!!!!” as one, penalty saved, and the hero smacks the ball home. Phenomenal. Don’t know if those 7 or 8 minutes or so will ever be beaten, for me.

[Gordons Cumming]

Still thinking...................

[Blue Blooded]

Still thinking...................

And therefore you still am!

[URZZZZZZZZ]

Reading 3-1 Ipswich

Fozzy with one of the best hattricks Ive ever seen. Really proved to me that we could be a force in that league.

[Y21_Royal]

West Ham 6-0 and obvious highlight

Middlesborough 3-2

Oxford 3-2

Palace 3-2

QPR 1-1

Liverpool 3-1

Any game involving Mass Sarr

Parky's testimonial when Rougier murked Gascoigne

[fridaysback]

Vs Oxford in the rain (sat with a friend who is/was an fan of that hapless outfit). From tears of joy to howls of pain so many times in one game ! Was that the game that howie slid with the ball trying to prevent a corner a gave a penalty away ?

vs wigan p/off semi embarrassed to say the first ( and last) time I have ever kissed a man during a football match. I went on to compound this by telling Martin Butler in the hotel bar after that we had named our gerbils after him and Jamie, he was very polite and dealt with the situation very professionally

Quite enjoyed the first game at Mad stad with super Mass Sarr (one game only !)

Beating Derby 5-0 was quite heart warming to confirm the championship title.

This season beating Liverpool 3-1, and last weeks game was cracking and how I want us to play for the rest of the season (win or lose)

[PEARCEY]

Reading 5 Preston 1
Fozzy hat-trick with pace that destroyed the opposition with the luxury he could be subbed with 15 mins still to go.

For great games before the Mad Stad I loved the Simod Cup games against Forest, Coventry and Luton...
and beating Oxford at The Manor Ground when Kerry Dixon was still at the club (on the day of the supposed protest against Maxwell's Thames Valley Royals merger) still remains a fond memory as it was the first time I had seen the team live....

[Dirk Gently]

Surely the last match in the Championship when we beat QPR. The culmination of a whole season of unbelievable achievement and emotion. Started off with "Raise the Hoops", and the match was full of drama and emotion too.

The tension when Murts was about to take that penalty - and the release when he scored - was amazing. If you're written that in a film script it would have been thrown out for being too cheesy - but somehow we'd all known for a few weeks that exactly that would happen that day.

The sort of day that will live in the mind for ever - when I'm living in a OAPs home, sans teeth, sans hair, I'll still remember every moment of it vividly.