John Madejski (Reading FC) - Why The Animosity?

[Turkey]

Reading and Madjeski are a strange duo. I like and dislike both.

 

[BensGrandad]

Like Carlisle ?

I am not sure how their head count population over a 40 mile radius compares with ours.

They get very nearly as many supporters at home as we do now granted it is not our fault.


I would estimate that the population in and around a 25 mile radius of Brighton must be in the regions of 1.5m.

But the culture of the S East is that a vast number do not want to go to a low grade sport like football so we suffer.

This is typified by the objections put up by the NIMBYs of Falmer and those that will be put up if another area is said to be better than Falmer.

 

[Biscuit]

Reading are about as interesting and rich with history as Wigan.

 

[dougdeep]

Reading are about as interesting and rich with history as Wigan.

I've spent a few nights in both places and I would choose Wigan every time.

 

[Turkey]

Reading are about as interesting and rich with history as Wigan.

Doesn't say much about us does it.

 

[Inkerman]

I've spent a few nights in both places and I would choose Wigan every time.

I'd rather live near Reading - which I do - then near Wigan - which I did for four years. Probably cos it's better for home games.

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

Reading are about as interesting and rich with history as Wigan.

Or Wrexham.....

 

[brighton rock]

fair game to the man he has put his money where his mouth is?

 

[smudge]

The Madjeski Stadium, a shrine to his own self importance.

 

[perseus]

I quite liked Elm Park, it was some of the people in it, I wasn't so keen on.

 

[perseus]

PS: I did a calculation of the potential catchment areas of all the clubs in the Football League. Although the London clubs were virtually impossible to calculate.

I have got the figures somewhere. But this is from memory: the Albion figures are quite high on the potential list. Why this did not translate into actual crowds, I put this down to being a town (now a city) with an expanding population and the newcomers moving in and this was true of all the south-east (both Reading and Brighton about equal for % of newcomers).

The way I got around this to be more accurate, was to use population figures from 30 years back, 1961 or thereabouts. Then the potential figures matched up a little bit better with actual attendances.

It was a complicated system of counting, but from memory the potential came up with figures in the following ratios (these were actual taken form 1991 population counts, but to give a better estimates they should be reduced for the south-east and increased for the north):

Cardiff 1.9 or 1.6 million
Liverpool 1.4
Manchester 1.4
Southampton 0.95
Albion 0.85
Reading 0.7 or so.
Sheffield United 0.3 Sheffield as a whole 0. 6 or less.

These are very rough figures from memory.

The only thing that I gleaned could be that Cardiff had easily the best potential of all the Football League clubs, crowds-wise by quite a long way. The trouble is they are Welsh! Southampton came about second of the clubs other than the top of the Premier ones. Albion were high on the list as well. Reading could be recognised as quite high. But so could Bournemouth and Gillingham. I think it takes the second generation for the population to translate into increased fans. It is a long term thing.

It is rather important where the ground was situated for transport of all sorts. I am far from sure that Southampton put their stadium in an optimum place.

Milton Keynes was not high in potential. It was rather poor.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Any update on whether he wears a syrup or not?....




Anyone?.....





Anyone?.....

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

The only thing that I gleaned could be that Cardiff had easily the best potential of all the Football League clubs, crowds-wise by quite a long way.

Perhaps, but there are two big factors your figures don't take into account:

1) CCFC have some of the most fickle fans in Britain (and that's a historical fact, not just an opinion).

2) Eggchasing. The media here are totally obsessed with it, so football never gets the volume of coverage in South Wales that it deserves.

The crowd issue is an interesting one though. It always amuses me when I read Albion fans describing Reading as a club with no history or tradition, and yet the same people then go on to criticise their levels of support.

Reading's support will obviously take years to build precisely because they have no great history or tradition. I reckon their support at the moment is fairly respectable given the fact that they have never played in the top flight.

 

[Wilts]

If you want stats... Wigan have sold 300 tickets for Saturday's game at the Madejski. Reading have sold the whole 22,000 and want some more in the away end.

We have a very fickle supporter base that fluctuates between 13,000 and 24,000 - with some fans not even able to get tickets for the Leeds/Wigan home games so far this season! Yet there's never the problem when Burnley or Crewe are in town.

But we're hardly alone. If you look at Preston, Burnley, Palace (last season!), Coventry, Watford, Stoke etc we all appear to be in the same boat.

 

[Easy 10]

I don't like Madejski.

He has a red Ferrari on display in a big glass box next to his gym. He says it "inspires" him as he pumps away on his exercise bike.
Thats a fully operation, genuine red Ferrari. In a display case.

Arsehole.

 

[binary]

I don't like Madejski...Arsehole.

Spot on. Remember 3 years ago he wouldn't give us the extra seats we asked for at HIS stadium and then Reading failed to sell out that allocation. If he had given us those tickets he'd have the £4K they want back from Exeter!

Reading also thought they were the 'real' champions. My recollection and many books since say that we won that bloody league cos we got the most points and they bottled it, relying on a late equaliser at Brentford to go up.

He is very rich, very self important and he thinks that a great stadium (and it is one of my favourite grounds) should automatically give them Premiership status. :tosser

Having lived there for 7 years (1989 - 1996) many of their fans thought they were the dogs bollocks. I had to agree with the latter part of the statement.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Perhaps, but there are two big factors your figures don't take into account:

1) CCFC have some of the most fickle fans in Britain (and that's a historical fact, not just an opinion).

2) Eggchasing. The media here are totally obsessed with it, so football never gets the volume of coverage in South Wales that it deserves.

The crowd issue is an interesting one though. It always amuses me when I read Albion fans describing Reading as a club with no history or tradition, and yet the same people then go on to criticise their levels of support.

In terms of potential I've said it a few times before, but CCFC and BHA are very closely matched in terms of respective populations (I may be wrong but thought that Cardiff's popn was approx 250m) and overall catchment area. You guys were pulling in circa 20k when top of the basement div in the 90s, but as you say CCFC fans can be fickle. Any news on Sam's 250k capacity mega stadium for City?

 

[Wilts]

Spot on. Remember 3 years ago he wouldn't give us the extra seats we asked for at HIS stadium and then Reading failed to sell out that allocation. If he had given us those tickets he'd have the £4K they want back from Exeter!

Reading also thought they were the 'real' champions. My recollection and many books since say that we won that bloody league cos we got the most points and they bottled it, relying on a late equaliser at Brentford to go up.

He is very rich, very self important and he thinks that a great stadium (and it is one of my favourite grounds) should automatically give them Premiership status. :tosser

Having lived there for 7 years (1989 - 1996) many of their fans thought they were the dogs bollocks. I had to agree with the latter part of the statement.

What a complete load of arse.

Just to vilify some of your "facts":

- JM never said we were "the real champions", or "a Premiership club". 99% of our fans were the same bar a few bitter numbnuts. The man who said we should have been champions was Alan Pardew.

- The segregation had to be provided for our game at the Madejski as we were selling home tickets to current members at a rate that calculates the away tickets accordingly. Wigan this weekend is the same. We sell 22,000, they get the rest. Peterborough in Div 2 was also the same. If you can think of a better ticket allocation policy please let me know...

- When has he ever said that a great stadium makes a "premiership team"?! These "facts" are clearly all made up. JM does business the right way and continues to do so. Reading will be a Premiership team before long but no-one believes that we simply have a divine right to be there.

- The ground is named after him, by the way, not by him.

The Coppell/Pardew saga aside, I cannot see why any of you might have anything against him. His lifestyle and attitude towards the Tory party, the buying of statues, Ferraris and the like is not my cup of tea at all...but then there's a lot of people who's lifestyles and attitudes towards life I dislike, but I don't bear a grudge on 22,000 people just because of one man! Strange attitude some people have!

 

[The Laughing Bluebird]

In terms of potential I've said it a few times before, but CCFC and BHA are very closely matched in terms of respective populations (I may be wrong but thought that Cardiff's popn was approx 250m) and overall catchment area. You guys were pulling in circa 20k when top of the basement div in the 90s, but as you say CCFC fans can be fickle. Any news on Sam's 250k capacity mega stadium for City?

I'm pretty sure we'd have the larger potential in terms of numbers of supporters simply because the areas surrounding Cardiff are so heavily populated. But the actual support we get from the population of the city of Cardiff is poor (a large percentage of our support comes from the valleys) and eggchasing is the dominant sport in South Wales (even if it's not as popular as the press make out), so who knows what our potential actually is?

The new stadium development has been delayed several times already and things are dragging on a bit now, but work is apparently due to start in February.

We'll be bigger than Barcelona before you know it.....

 

[Easy 10]

The ground is named after him, by the way, not by him.

Oh right. I'm sure he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.