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.         

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 10:42 - Apr 3 I don't suppose they want to see their team trashed 7 nil?
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Tom_Foolery added 11:03 - Apr 3 What a nonsense. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. There are a few single seats dotted around the stadium, that all.
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Tom_Foolery added 11:10 - Apr 3 On average Reading have sold 98.8% of home tickets this season. Southampton have sold 93.9%.
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SaintsSaint added 11:31 - Apr 3 As a fellow Saints supporter I find this article very embarrassing. Poorly researched and poorly written. As Tom Foolery stated, we have only sold 93.9% of our home tickets on average - only West Bromwich, Everton, Sunderland, Aston Villa and Wigan Athletic rank lower in this stat. Reading having, on average, sold 98.8% of their home tickets this season, rank 8 places above The Saints with only Arsenal, Manchester Utd, Tottenham, West Ham Utd, Fulham and Chelsea being able to sell a higher percentage of their home tickets. I was going to address the other points you made in this article, however, I am unable to do so because I can't read incoherent, grammatically incorrect, disgracefully punctuated gibberish.

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thedelldays added 11:55 - Apr 3 Jesus, nick getting both barrels here Leave nick alone
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SaintNick added 12:21 - Apr 3 All Im going to say is that it doesn't matter how big the stadium is, its how many actually turn up week in week out, if SaintsSaint is unable to read unpunctuated gibberish then Im sure that there are evening classes in the Reading area available in Gibberish, whilst there see if there is one to help people think up original user names lol
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TimSaint added 12:53 - Apr 3 Just wanted to point out a few things here...... Surely QPR have a lower capacity than both Swansea and Reading ? 18k ? Reading have made this a GOLD game and Member Price in advance for this is £40, In advance for non-members is £42 and on the day it is a whopping £45 !! Would you pay this much to watch your team against Saints, or go to the Liverpool game instead ? Who cares what percentage of home tickets Reading have sold this season - they have more than EIGHT THOUSAND less tickets to sell than Saints - and less than the majority of teams in the Prem. Perhaps they should have given us the whole end like last season - then they wouldn't have to sell so many home tickets !! Lets just wait til 2.30 or so on Saturday, before we start with the real banter !!

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richardha28 added 14:08 - Apr 3 If this is intended to wind up Reading fans I think you're going to have to try a bit harder - your argument smacks a lot of "my dad's bigger than your dad" and that's pretty childish really. However if you are trying to make a serious point you need to understand where Reading have come from as a football club and as a town a bit better than you obviously do. For most of its life the club has existed in Div 3 or Div 4 and when the big clubs in London are only half an hour's train ride away its not surprising that historically many people from the town have supported the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal. You also need to take into account the rate at which the town has grown since the 1970s with most of that growth fueled by Londoners moving out to "the sticks" but remaining within commutable distance of the capital. If you'd been to as many Reading home games as I have this season you'd know that for many of them the home areas have had a fair sprinkling of fans obviously supporting the away team with this especially being the case for games against London teams and the historic big clubs such as Man Utd and Liverpool. As long as they behave the club don't mind this - their money is as good as anyone else's and they see it as a chance to impress and hopefully attract these fans back to future games to support the home team. I'd estimate that the volume of 'hardcore' Reading fans is now around 16-17k which is not as many as I'd like it to be. However when you consider that when the club left Elm Park in 1998 a five figure crowd was still considered to be a big occasion I'd say the club has come a long way in a relatively short period of time.

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Tom_Foolery added 14:58 - Apr 3 Incidentally, it's also not "a big relegation clash", it's a team that's already down against a team that would have to suffer a monumental **** up to go down. Dramatising your work of fiction doesn’t make it any better.
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SaintNick added 15:52 - Apr 3 Richard. It wasn't intended to wind up Reading fans, after all this is a Saints site I wouldn't expect too many to be here, it was merely a comment on how surprised I am that this game isn't sold out, thanks for the history lesson as I said in the article I was just saddened that Reading still couldn't sell the game out because I was hoping that perhaps Reading people were starting to support their local team instead of London big boys. Tom Foolery Sorry you feel its dramatized, two weeks ago it was a big relegation clash, probably now with two wins for us and two defeats for you its isn't so much anymore, but then again tickets have been on sale to you lot for a few weeks and even now your position isn't quite terminal, beat us and you could be four points off safety I don't fee there is any dramatization here, I stuck to mainly facts im sad that you cant see it that way

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dirk_doone added 16:08 - Apr 3 That 93.9% figure people are quoting is bullsh!t as it is based on St Mary's having 32,689 seats available for games, which it clearly hasn't. Several hundred of them are never made available due to crowd segregation. http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html
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dirk_doone added 16:23 - Apr 3 Nevertheless, I agree with ricardha28. Reading has all of the big London clubs to compete with yet has still managed to be the fastest growing football club in the country over the last couple of decades. In 1992 their average home gate was just 3,841. This season it is 23,926. That is a remarkable achievement. And it gives me hope that in the future we can see Saints' support grow in the same way. But for that to happen, we'll need a bigger capacity.

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Mushty added 07:10 - Apr 4 Now why would a Reading fan call himself SaintsSaint? Strange. Anyway, Reading claim to have sold 98.8% for home games this season but why are there so many empty seats in all stands at these 'sold out' matches? Clearly seen on TV. I would also think most away fans will fill the smaller visitors section at the "MadStad", whereas, like the Royals, some struggle to fill the larger one at St Mary's that would, of course, affect our %.

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stmichael added 17:55 - Apr 4 I dont see anything wrong with a club the size of Reading averaging 22 odd thousand per game. Excellent support.
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SaintNick added 21:30 - Apr 6 I stand by my statement, anyone who was at Reading saw how many empty seats there were today, yet it was only 100 or so less than their biggest home gate someone cant add up
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