[Albion] Reading v Sheffield United (Attendance)

[theroyal]

The worst Reading song by a country mile is that cringey one they sing about the Championship points record. They pull it out when fans of some big club are totally out-singing them (a regular occurrence), and it prompts looks of total bewilderment followed by scoffing laughter from the visitors. No one cares who got the most points in the country's second tier of football.

It's our best ever achievement, why wouldn't we sing about it? We don't expect anyone else to care, nor should any set of opposition fans when other clubs sing about their achievements.

What people forget is that Reading are historically a small town club. We've been punching above our weight for about 15/20 years, other fans apparently like to use that as a stick to beat us with.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

It's our best ever achievement, why wouldn't we sing about it?

Not the 4-1 Simod Cup final victory over Luton at Wembley?

 

[Sweeney Todd]

I accept that the weather knocked a couple of thousand off the attendance on Tuesday night, but the reason for my post was to highlight the divergence in fortunes of the two clubs, especially given how the Royals used to lord it over us during the Withdean years (even though we beat them to the L1 title in 2002).

As a fan, you remember certain incidents: going to the Madejski and having “What’s it like to see a crowd?” and “You’re just a small town in Withdean” sung at you, and the stadium announcer at Reading announcing that the goalscorer was “Brighton & Hove Albion” after Charlie Oatway scored an own-goal.

So, it gives me satisfaction to see us getting crowds of 30,000 in the Premier League, whilst Reading get League 1 crowds in the Championship (whatever the mitigating circumstances in their case).

 

[Perry Milkins]

I accept that the weather knocked a couple of thousand off the attendance on Tuesday night, but the reason for my post was to highlight the divergence in fortunes of the two clubs, especially given how the Royals used to lord it over us during the Withdean years (even though we beat them to the L1 title in 2002).

As a fan, you remember certain incidents: going to the Madejski and having “What’s it like to see a crowd?” and “You’re just a small town in Withdean” sung at you, and the stadium announcer at Reading announcing that the goalscorer was “Brighton & Hove Albion” after Charlie Oatway scored an own-goal.

So, it gives me satisfaction to see us getting crowds of 30,000 in the Premier League, whilst Reading get League 1 crowds in the Championship (whatever the mitigating circumstances in their case).

I remember this taunting.

Horrible little club.

Sorry Horrible, Horrible, Little club!

 

[essbee1]

I accept that the weather knocked a couple of thousand off the attendance on Tuesday night, but the reason for my post was to highlight the divergence in fortunes of the two clubs, especially given how the Royals used to lord it over us during the Withdean years (even though we beat them to the L1 title in 2002).

As a fan, you remember certain incidents: going to the Madejski and having “What’s it like to see a crowd?” and “You’re just a small town in Withdean” sung at you, and the stadium announcer at Reading announcing that the goalscorer was “Brighton & Hove Albion” after Charlie Oatway scored an own-goal.

So, it gives me satisfaction to see us getting crowds of 30,000 in the Premier League, whilst Reading get League 1 crowds in the Championship (whatever the mitigating circumstances in their case).

I went to Reading once in the early 00's and that was enough for me. Never been back. Hate the City, stadium and everything that surrounds the Club.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

It's our best ever achievement, why wouldn't we sing about it? We don't expect anyone else to care, nor should any set of opposition fans when other clubs sing about their achievements.

What people forget is that Reading are historically a small town club. We've been punching above our weight for about 15/20 years, other fans apparently like to use that as a stick to beat us with.

I think we should sing about our Charity Shield win. [emoji2]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[theroyal]

I accept that the weather knocked a couple of thousand off the attendance on Tuesday night, but the reason for my post was to highlight the divergence in fortunes of the two clubs, especially given how the Royals used to lord it over us during the Withdean years (even though we beat them to the L1 title in 2002).

As a fan, you remember certain incidents: going to the Madejski and having “What’s it like to see a crowd?” and “You’re just a small town in Withdean” sung at you, and the stadium announcer at Reading announcing that the goalscorer was “Brighton & Hove Albion” after Charlie Oatway scored an own-goal.

So, it gives me satisfaction to see us getting crowds of 30,000 in the Premier League, whilst Reading get League 1 crowds in the Championship (whatever the mitigating circumstances in their case).

But that happens, it's football. Clubs rise and decline, fans "banter" accordingly, and some of those fans are idiots. It happens at many clubs.

I accept Reading will always be the new kids on the block, despite the fact we've achieved more in the last 15 years than giants Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday & Nottingham Forest put together. 15 years is a long time!

I'm guess I'm surprised that you don't identify with us more considering you have spent the majority of your history in the 3rd division and have risen in the last couple of decades, like us.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I'm guess I'm surprised that you don't identify with us more considering you have spent the majority of your history in the 3rd division and have risen in the last couple of decades, like us.

And that, in a nutshell, is what irks many Brighton fans about Reading. We're not similar clubs. At all. We're just not and everyone can see that apart from Reading fans.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

It's our best ever achievement, why wouldn't we sing about it? We don't expect anyone else to care, nor should any set of opposition fans when other clubs sing about their achievements.

What people forget is that Reading are historically a small town club. We've been punching above our weight for about 15/20 years, other fans apparently like to use that as a stick to beat us with.

There were a lot of parallels between the two clubs up to about 20 yrs ago.
Both spent the immediate post war years in Div 3 South and like a lot of clubs, found it almost impossible to get promoted ( only 1 club went up ) Then we both had spells in the basement between longer spells in the 3rd tier. We had our 4 seasons in the top flight, followed by 2nd/3rd and 4th tier. They had a bit of 2nd tier and a lot of 3rd tier.
It all changed with their new ground and although they immediately got relegated, they gradually got their act together and built steadily in the Championship before their two spells in the top flight. They had a 15-20 year start on us but we have now got our act together and its role reversal.
The big difference in fanbase is that because of Reading's proximity to London, the area is full of Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal fans and also seems to be a hotbed for Man Utd and Liverpool followers. They have Swindon to the West, Oxford and Wycombe to the North/North East and in West London, Brentford, QPR and Fulham as well. Watford is only 30 miles away. In the same distance that we have 3 rival clubs ( Palace, Crawley and Pompey ) Reading have something like 17-18 clubs vying for support. Compared to our potential catchment area, theirs is relatively small, hence when they have been in the PL, all the non-Reading supporting locals bought ST's to watch the big clubs and it was a full house every home game. Now it appears to fluctuate wildly between 5-6,000 and can be as high as 19-20,000, depending on opposition, how Reading are doing and weather.
It does appear that the PL years didn't really build too much more support. It was mainly JCL's, who have drifted away again.

 

[ozzygull]

I live in Reading, there was no snow on Tuesday, they are just not very loyal fans. There was no snow and all roads leading to the stadium was clear. The reason I know ,I drove past it to go somewhere about 30 mins before kick off. Yes it was nippy but no colder then our game on Saturday.

 

[spence]

There were a lot of parallels between the two clubs up to about 20 yrs ago.
Both spent the immediate post war years in Div 3 South and like a lot of clubs, found it almost impossible to get promoted ( only 1 club went up ) Then we both had spells in the basement between longer spells in the 3rd tier. We had our 4 seasons in the top flight, followed by 2nd/3rd and 4th tier. They had a bit of 2nd tier and a lot of 3rd tier.
It all changed with their new ground and although they immediately got relegated, they gradually got their act together and built steadily in the Championship before their two spells in the top flight. They had a 15-20 year start on us but we have now got our act together and its role reversal.
The big difference in fanbase is that because of Reading's proximity to London, the area is full of Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal fans and also seems to be a hotbed for Man Utd and Liverpool followers. They have Swindon to the West, Oxford and Wycombe to the North/North East and in West London, Brentford, QPR and Fulham as well. Watford is only 30 miles away. In the same distance that we have 3 rival clubs ( Palace, Crawley and Pompey ) Reading have something like 17-18 clubs vying for support. Compared to our potential catchment area, theirs is relatively small, hence when they have been in the PL, all the non-Reading supporting locals bought ST's to watch the big clubs and it was a full house every home game. Now it appears to fluctuate wildly between 5-6,000 and can be as high as 19-20,000, depending on opposition, how Reading are doing and weather.
It does appear that the PL years didn't really build too much more support. It was mainly JCL's, who have drifted away again.

Brighton have always been a better supported club than Reading and always will be.

 

[theroyal]

And that, in a nutshell, is what irks many Brighton fans about Reading. We're not similar clubs. At all. We're just not and everyone can see that apart from Reading fans.

I meant it in generalities, our league history isn't hugely dissimilar.

Look at the trajectories.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ton_Hove_Albion_FC_League_Performance.svg.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe.../1027px-Reading_FC_League_Performance.svg.png

Similar number of trophies as well (Brighton - 11, Reading - 9), with a good portion coming since the millenium. Both of us have had trouble with ownership and potentially losing the club. We both moved into new stadiums and our fortunes rose after this.

I don't know all the nuances of your history, so we obviously differ outside of this. I wouldn't know because I'm not a fan of the club - and that works both ways. You don't know a lot about being a Reading fan - you may think we're tinpot and you're entitled to your opinion, but you're making assumptions based on an outside view. And that, in a nutshell, is what irks many Reading fans about other clubs

 

[essbee1]

I meant it in generalities, our league history isn't hugely dissimilar.

Look at the trajectories.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ton_Hove_Albion_FC_League_Performance.svg.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe.../1027px-Reading_FC_League_Performance.svg.png

Similar number of trophies as well (Brighton - 11, Reading - 9), with a good portion coming since the millenium. Both of us have had trouble with ownership and potentially losing the club. We both moved into new stadiums and our fortunes rose after this.

I don't know all the nuances of your history, so we obviously differ outside of this. I wouldn't know because I'm not a fan of the club - and that works both ways. You don't know a lot about being a Reading fan - you may think we're tinpot and you're entitled to your opinion, but you're making assumptions based on an outside view. And that, in a nutshell, is what irks many Reading fans about other clubs

What about leaving away fans high and dry (wet and cold) outside your stadium on a freezing winter's day for 45 minutes while the home fans are ferried off
in cosy warm buses the short distance back home. Oh they did come back eventually which was f*****g nice of them.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

I meant it in generalities, our league history isn't hugely dissimilar.

Look at the trajectories.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ton_Hove_Albion_FC_League_Performance.svg.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe.../1027px-Reading_FC_League_Performance.svg.png

Similar number of trophies as well (Brighton - 11, Reading - 9), with a good portion coming since the millenium. Both of us have had trouble with ownership and potentially losing the club. We both moved into new stadiums and our fortunes rose after this.

I don't know all the nuances of your history, so we obviously differ outside of this. I wouldn't know because I'm not a fan of the club - and that works both ways. You don't know a lot about being a Reading fan - you may think we're tinpot and you're entitled to your opinion, but you're making assumptions based on an outside view. And that, in a nutshell, is what irks many Reading fans about other clubs

A lot of it is to do with a perception that Reading have generally not been very well supported over the decades in terms of number of fans attending..

 

[theroyal]

A lot of it is to do with a perception that Reading have generally not been very well supported over the decades in terms of number of fans attending..

That's because you're in a decent catchment area, and we have to compete with all of the Premier League London clubs, Swindon, Oxford etc.

And not to mention all the United fans from Guildford

Throughout our history our average level of support has been about right, but over the last couple of decades we've obviously been more successful and our fanbase hasn't necessarily got the catchment area to rise with it. If it does, it'll mostly be day-trippers, glory hunters or fairweather fans. It's just how it is for us.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Throughout our history our average level of support has been about right, but over the last couple of decades we've obviously been more successful and our fanbase hasn't necessarily got the catchment area to rise with it. If it does, it'll mostly be day-trippers, glory hunters or fairweather fans. It's just how it is for us.

Exactly. Could not be more different from the situation we have at Brighton.

We have enjoyed a large catchment area since the club was formed in 1901 and have always had excellent support relative to our level of competition and circumstances. We get bigger crowds in better times, as people naturally attend more regularly, but the fanbase is always there.

To point out this key difference between Reading and Brighton as clubs is to state the bleedin' obvious. Not usually necessary but you started it by claiming some sort of similarity and non-tinpot status for Reading...

 

[theroyal]

As I said, I meant in terms of league history and achievement. Not everything is about how many fans you bring to a match - that's my point.

 

[Jim in the West]

I have no real beef against Reading, but what has really grated with me the last three or four times I've been to the Madejski is the lack of respect paid to the away fans. In particular, just not bothering to announce the BHA team. Not sure if they do it to everyone, but it's common decency to announce both teams.

A million miles from the respect we show to away teams (including local beer, etc!!).

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I have no real beef against Reading, but what has really grated with me the last three or four times I've been to the Madejski is the lack of respect paid to the away fans. In particular, just not bothering to announce the BHA team. Not sure if they do it to everyone, but it's common decency to announce both teams.

A million miles from the respect we show to away teams (including local beer, etc!!).

To be fair, our stadium announcer does read out the away teamsheet very fast. Very fast indeed. In fact when the Palace team sheet was read out recently I didn't catch a single name

Elm Park was an underpopulated dump when we had the Goldstone in the 70s.

 

[BRIGHT ON Q]

I have no real beef against Reading, but what has really grated with me the last three or four times I've been to the Madejski is the lack of respect paid to the away fans. In particular, just not bothering to announce the BHA team. Not sure if they do it to everyone, but it's common decency to announce both teams.

A million miles from the respect we show to away teams (including local beer, etc!!).

I noticed at Southampton they didn’t either.