Best ever performance

[Bandini]

I'd have the Tranmere game above the West Ham game.

[St. Brynjar]

Reading 3-0 Derby in 07/08 sticks out in my mind. Should have been 6, we had two disallowed and a clear penalty waved away. We were utterly rampant for the whole game.

[wally bassoon]

Reading 4 Sunderland 0

Elm park around 97.

The one amazing performance of the Bullivant era, It came from nowhere and was not seen again.

Was that the one where a Sunderland fan climbed over the fence and "scored" a goal?

Classic EP scenes.

Yep, followed by the south bank singing "4-1, to the Blue and Whites"

[mambo3]

Reading U21 3 Man City U 21 0 March 2013

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Reading 4 Sunderland 0

Elm park around 97.

The one amazing performance of the Bullivant era, It came from nowhere and was not seen again.

Leeds away in the cup same season

[Unbelievable Jeff]

Cardiff in play-offs was incredible

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Reading 4 Sunderland 0

Elm park around 97.

The one amazing performance of the Bullivant era, It came from nowhere and was not seen again.

Was that the one where a Sunderland fan climbed over the fence and "scored" a goal?

Classic EP scenes.

Nope wasnt that a cup game in the year Sunderland won the cup, 1973 I think

[wally bassoon]

Reading 4 Sunderland 0

Elm park around 97.

The one amazing performance of the Bullivant era, It came from nowhere and was not seen again.

Leeds away in the cup same season

True, another blip on during his awful reign.

[Jackson Corner]

Liverpool 1 Reading 2 We were bottom of the Championship on the back of a 4-1 stuffing at Plymouth. ITV Were showing the game. I remember thinking we were going to be humiliated on national television. Instead against a full strength Liverpool side we outplayed them and deserved the win. And working with a load of plastic Liverpool fans made the win even sweeter.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

The 3-1 away win at Tranmere in the play-off semis for me as the football we played that day was awesome and a great day out.

I can still see the Tranmere fans in their main stand applauding the Reading team off at the end!!

[Chuckle Brother]

Has anyone got a video of the Tranmere game. I was there and would like to watch it again as we were a different class.

somewhere stashed away i have it on VHS. could dig it out for you if you have the ability and time to bother transferring it it digital media?

Or just pop it in your VCR. Unless your's is Betamax, obviously.

[Fox Talbot]

Reading 4 Sunderland 0

Elm park around 97.

The one amazing performance of the Bullivant era, It came from nowhere and was not seen again.

Was that the one where a Sunderland fan climbed over the fence and "scored" a goal?

Classic EP scenes.

Nope wasnt that a cup game in the year Sunderland won the cup, 1973 I think

No - Green is right.

[wally bassoon]

I thought Harpers was joking, surely everybody can distinquish between matches 24 years apart.

[SLAMMED]

Performance or win?

Reading 2 - 3 Man Utd in the cup has to be up there. 0 - 3 down in the first 6 min. we then outplayed them for the next 80 and were unlucky not force a draw with Kitson hitting the bar. A very entertaining game.

Reading: Federici, De la Cruz, Gunnarsson, Bikey, Ingimarsson, Shorey, Ki-Hyeon (Little 68), Sidwell, Oster, Kitson, Doyle (Lita 71).

Goals: Kitson 23, Lita 84.

Man Utd: Van der Sar, Silvestre, Brown, Ferdinand, Heinze, Park, O'Shea, Fletcher, Richardson, Saha (Rooney 76), Solskjaer (Ronaldo 89).

Goals: Heinze 2, Saha 4, Solskjaer 6.

It was Gunnarsson that hit the bar.

[Winchester Royal]

What about the 3-1 at Southampton the other year? Two games left to go, pressure on, away on a Friday night at the side top of the league who have been scoring goals for fun. We shut them out, hit them on the break with our first chance of the game and take the lead. We concede soon after half time, and then two late Alfie goals in front of the Reading Fans sends us top of the league. Classic away performance against a very competent side who should really have won the league that year.

[stealthpapes]

As an aside, two of those games mentioned feature two of the finest goals that never were I've ever seen with RFC.

I wrote this for someone else that never used it.

'For the want of an inch'

There are several moments where you feel the history of a club is teetering on the brink. The ball sets up, perfectly and still ... still ... it doesn't go your way.

Stuart Lovell in the 1995 play off final, 2 nil up and the ball on the penalty spot, all he has to do is get it in. First time in the Premiership. History to be made. And then Bolton come back and punish a tired, injured, brave Reading team. (For tragic, I was in France for the game and listened to it on the radio. I only watched the video of the defeat for the first time the morning after we got promoted in 2006. Manly, manly tears were shed).

Jem Karacan over a decade later, hit the post with the situation reversed, Reading scrabbling back into the game and with the wind in their sails. One goal back, two goals back, just one more goal and ... a shot hits the post ... players swarm around the loose ball ... and its scrambled clear. Swansea get a late fourth and the impossible dream is over.

But in both cases, the resulting season of being bent over the Premiership benchtop and given 38 games of pain make me less despairing. We did go up, eventually, in both cases. And being in the top flight is about a fraction as fun as getting there.

The 'moments' where I wish the ball had somehow squirmed in come in the cup, against the giants of the English game.

The first didn't matter in the end - we still won and the moment of absolute skill that set up the winner remains a favorite. But in the second half, Jobi McAnuff almost scored what I think would have been one of the all-time FA Cup goals. Receiving the ball in his own half, he picked his way out of a tight spot and drove into the Liverpool half. As the defenders closed in, he slalomed past them to be one on one with the keeper. Keeper goes down early. Goal looms bigger and bigger and ...

It felt like I was watching it in slow motion as the ball dribbled inches wide.

---This would have been embedded---
The full thing can be found at 3.12 on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFDbk6DH7YY
(The winner is at 6:18 and Gunnarson's cruyff turn - megs - cross assist is an absolute gem)

The second sees one of my all time most heroic defeats, Reading went 3-0 down, at home, after 10 minutes, then slowly but surely had a crack at it. With seconds left on the clock, the ball sets up for Gunnarson and he has a crack. Keeper doesn't move and I was on my feet, barely yards away from the ball as it thundered against the cross bar. Ooof.

---This would have been embedded---
7.04 on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPxBikbaEQs


In both cases, the magic of the goal in tight cup games would have made them timeless, replayed every season or so whenever Liverpool and United faced a smaller club in the cup.




WRT OP

I assume noone has mentioned Tranmere away in the playoffs or that West Ham game?

[Jackson Corner]

The 106 team. We played Cardiff at home I think it was 5-1. I remember thinking it was close to footballing perfection. Cardiff were not a bad team they were just outside the play offs but we made them look two leagues lower.

[Ark Royal]

The 4-0 win at Blackpool in 94 was totally emphatic. Also, notwithstanding Robin Friday's goal in a 5-0 win, Reading absolutely played Tranmere off the park in 76.

But, it has to be the 3-1 win at Tranmere in the play-offs in 95. We had been great all season, but no other performance came close to that one.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Along with the aforementioned 6-0 west Ham, The Derby home game of the 106 season was a very assured and pedestrian 5-0 win.

Personal favourite which is worth a mention, was the 3-1 win v Chelsea in the 1987 League Cup....ran them ragged

[Ian Royal]

I honestly have no idea. We played really well against Boro for 50 - 60 minutes. Likewise we've put in similar performances against Utd for that sort of time and still lost.

Probably the best I've seen was the 5-0(?) vs Millwall during 106. Watford definitely feels like it should be in the top 10 though.

Most satisfying was undisputably the 2-1 against Wolves in the 90s where Archie got a late brace after they scored by cheating at a corner.