A big relegation clash, new manager and against a team just down the road, you would think thats a recipe for a sell out.
Whilst I appreciate that Saints arent the most attractive team to many supporters of Premiership clubs, I must admit I thought that Reading would sell out this game, after all this fixture is crucial to the Royals and their chances of staying in the Premier league, win it and they have a chance of staying up, lose it and they are virtually all over as far as survival is concerned.
Add to that the fact that it is the chance to welcome their new manager to the club and against a team that is fairly local and it should surely mean a full house at the Madejski, especially as Reading at 24,200 is the third smallest ground in the Premier league with only QPR & Swansea holding less.
Perhaps I shouldnt have held such high hopes for a sell out and I have overestimated Reading's support, after all last season there were only 21,000 present and that included 4,000 Saints supporters, perhaps even Reading cant magic up 5,000 or so floating supporters.
At first I thought it must just be a bit of disallushionment with the sacking of Brian McDermott, but then I remembered that back in December, The Royals just about scraped 2,000 in the away section when they could have had the full 3,000, also it seems those Reading supporters arent so annoyed with McDermott's sacking that they are boycotting their next home game, the following week they host Liverpool and have already sold that one out.
There is a feeling amongst football supporters that Reading are a bit of a fly by night club, that after years in the lower tiers of English football at Elm Park, their success was bought by John Madejski who built them a stadium in his own name, I gave them a bit more credit than that and hoped that Reading could shake off that image of having more Chelsea supporters living there than supported their home town team.
It took a few years but they soon moved up the leagues in it and started to fill it when they hit the Premier League, however it now seems that the good folk of Reading havent completely abandoned Chelsea just yet, Im a little sad at this and hence my article, I wish Reading no ill, but in truth it perhaps highlights the state of todays football, a combination of many things is pushing supporters away from their clubs, if a club like Reading cant sell out a small capacity stadium in the Premier League then something is wrong somewhere.