2011-12 Match Report CCFC v READING

2.1.2012

CCFC 3 v 1 READING

And now the Good News....as we enter 2012 the general mood worldwide is downbeat, skies are grey and the outlook is for squally showers between longer periods of rain followed by extended wetstuff becoming cyclonic with a promise of Armageddon later. Global recession blah, global terrorism blah, blah, global financial meltdown blah, blah, blah...just getting through the next day will be a challenge let alone the following 354 before the Mayan Calendar runs out and we move inexorably towards oblivion.

Is all this doom and gloom justified? Do the facts back it up? Apparently not.

Despite the recession the average income of your average Brit doubled in real terms between 1970 and 2010.

Born in 1960? 3% of you didn’t make it to your 5^th birthday. The rest of you can expect to live to 71.

Born in 2011? Just 0.5% of you won’t make it to 2016. The rest of you can expect to live to 81.

Violent crime in 2010 and was down by 47% on its 1995 peak. In 1984 there were 24 wars worldwide, in 2008 it was down to 5. So for the average earthling there has never been a better time to be alive than today. And statistically the next day will be even better. And better still after that.

All well and good but the real clincher for City fans, proving that life gets incrementally better year on year is perhaps in recalling that as recently as 2001 our New Year’s Day treat was a home fixture against Exeter City in the old 3^rd Division (ie. 4^th tier). Not even a comedy own goal from the long forgotten Andy (son of Joe) Jordan in a thumping 6-1 victory in front of a few thousand dopey and deluded diehards at our decrepit Victorian tin shack could stop our relentless march up the table... where we finally settled in just ahead of Chesterfield and Hartlepool.

In the intervening years we’ve had promotions, a glorious play-off victory in our own backyard, the inglorious play-off defeat, an FA Cup Wembley semi-final victory and Final non-victory and we survived the Hammam Doomsday Clock stopping at 3 minutes to midnight.

Mad grinning D:Reamer Prof Brian Cox and his piano-house tunesmiths promised us that Things Can Only Get Better. How right he was.

Today, at home in our state-of-the-art 21^st Century stadium and before a bumper Bank Holiday crowd of 24,000 we face an in form Reading team as one of a number of real contenders making yet another challenge to take our rightful place amongst the elite of British football. A Happy New Year surely awaits us.

Reading began very brightly reflecting their position as one of the form teams, having won 6 of their previous 7 games. They looked organised, were full of running and were surely going to be difficult to break down, having not conceded more than one goal in any of their away games this season...

Nah. On 13 minutes young Joe Mason picked up the ball (almost literally according to Royal’s manager Brian McDimwit) on the edge of the box, ran wide of the defence and slotted an angled drive into the bottom corner. 1-0.

Reading were now rocking as we continued to push forward. Within 5 minutes we were two up. A swinging Whitts corner proved the undoing of Federici the Flap as he misjudged the flight of the ball, leaving Gunnarsson the simplest of headers.

Mason and Miller were playing at the head of a 4-4-2 formation (the midfield settled into a diamond formation with Whittingham and the increasingly impressive Ralls tucking in behind the front two in turn) and were proving a handful. Miller was as lively as ever and was benefitting from having a decoy freeing up more space than he has been used to. On 36 minutes he made a superbly timed run to latch onto a clinical defence-busting through ball from Whitts and, as Alan Partridge might say, dispatched with aplomb. 3-0.

A rare defensive aberration allowed former Ninian favourite Jobi McAnuff (‘tra-la-la-la-la’) to reduce the deficit by one as half time approached. If this had happened last year there would have been dark half-time mutterings about our failure to hold onto a commanding lead and an overriding sense of forboding as the second half approached.

But in2012 you can Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, let nothing you dismay; O, tidings of comfort and joy as we easily snuffed out any threat offered by an increasingly frustrated opposition and apart from a sloppy 15 minutes when we seemed incapable of stringing two passes together we had the best of an inevitably anti-climactic second 45. In fact we carved out a number of opportunities to extend the lead, but a combination of some fine goalkeeping and some weak finishing meant that we had to be satisfied with 3-1.

With the Saints not quite marching in with the same swagger and Boro being beaten by Blackpool we are set up quite nicely in 3^rd place, only 2 points off the top with a 7 points play-off cushion. Good news indeed. Happy New Year!!