For May 14th I'm going back 38 years to 1983 and more end of season drama, this time at Elm Park Reading.
Sometimes when I look at old programmes from games that I attended, they make me feel old. The cover for this one looks ancient doesn't it? Many club programmes, especially those of clubs outside the top two divisions, used no colour photos and were entirely in black and white (other than spot colours such as Reading's yellow and blue in this case). It's easy to argue that they could have tried a bit harder but if you ask fans what they wanted from a programme I suspect you'd get a wide variety of responses. My own view? I dislike the 100 page programmes costing £3.50 that many clubs issue today. They contain far too many sections that are uninteresting to most e.g. pieces on the academy side, the development side, the under-19's, the reserves, the ladies team, their work in the community, match reports and so on. Sure, somebody out there will like that stuff but I believe that the majority do the paper-based equivalent of scrolling on by. My ideal is a slim volume at a slim price containing Manager's notes, a player interview, an opinion piece, pen pics of the opposition players, statistics and team line ups. The purchase of a programme should also give the buyer the right to a free team sheet on the day once the actual team line ups are available. When I look back at my Reading programme from 1983 it's not so very far away from my ideal and all for the cost of 35 pence (about £1.25 at today's prices). Perfect!
This was the season of media tycoon Robert Maxwell's attempt to merge Reading with Oxford United to form the "Thames Valley Royals" who, it was proposed, would play in Didcot (yes really!). Reading's Chairman at the time, Frank Waller, was in favour of the move although a number of the other directors and their manager Maurice Evans publicly opposed it. Eventually Waller was forced to resign and the proposed merger collapsed. Maxwell, war hero, MP for Buckingham (1964-70), owner of Oxford United, the Daily Mirror and a myriad of other companies led a colourful life which came to an end by (probable) suicide in 1991 when his fraudulent business dealings finally caught up with him and his creditors began calling in their loans. After his death, the extent of his fraudulent business dealings became clear: he had stolen from the Mirror Group Newspapers Staff Pension Fund to prop up other businesses leaving thousands of people high and dry having saved towards their retirement their whole lives. Subsequent legislation has reduced the likelihood of this ever happening again and we now have a bail out fund that provides all pensioners with some protection if their employer goes bust, I should know: I'm one of those pensioners!
After 45 games of a 46 game season it had all come down to this one game. In the days before Play-Offs were invented, this was rarely the case. End-of-season games were usually meaningless affairs with neither side still going for promotion or battling to avoid relegation. Such games were usually a chance to try fringe players or youngsters or experiment with a different formation and many people found that they had better things to do on a sunny day than watch a dead rubber. But not this game. On the final Saturday of the season, Reading had to beat Wrexham and hope that one of Millwall, Exeter or Orient slipped up. Wrexham weren't much better off sitting in 20th place and needing a win on the final day themselves to ensure that they weren't relegated. One thing was certain, whichever side lost was down.
As you can imagine, the match was nervy and thrilling. Reading had a 21 year old striker named Kerry Dixon up front who scored 51 goals in 116 league games for Reading. His final goal and game for the club was this one as he notched the only goal of the game. Later that summer he signed for Chelsea and he was selected to play for England within two years. Reading also fielded future Wimbledon FA Cup Final hero Lawrie Sanchez that day (28 goals in 261 league appearances for Reading and a full Northern Irish international 1986-89). Wrexham's manager, Bobby Roberts, didn't have quite as many star names to conjure with but did have future Chelsea goalkeeper Eddie Niedzwiecki trying to keep Reading at bay before 5,252 frazzled supporters that day.
The final whistle blew and Wrexham were down. The Reading crowd began to celebrate, many on the pitch, but slowly the results from the other games affecting Reading's fate started to come through. Reading's party was well and truly pooped as we learned that Millwall, Exeter and Orient had all got the result that they needed to stay up and 21st placed Reading were agonisingly relegated by a point.
CRB Match No. 252
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