Rants and raves (but mostly rants) about following a 2nd division team.

Brendan Rodgers thanks the Reading faithful.

Reading coach Brendan Rodgers called it “like winning the world cup” after Readingdefeated Blackpool 2-1 at the Madjeski on Saturday. Sure, Blackpool is off to a great start (4^th in the league going into the weekend).  And yes, the Royals have struggled (22^nd).  But like winning the world cup?  Come on.

You see, it has been a long time since Reading has won at their home ground.  It has been17 games since the blue and whites took down Wolverhampton on January 27^th.  Just one win, 3 lousy points, in the last 7 home games of last season would have assured the Royals of an automatic promotion to the Prem.  But it never came, and instead, we settled for the playoffs, where Burnely took us down 3-0 on aggregate.

So Gregorz Rasiak’s 83^rd minute winner on Saturday was huge.  Absolutely huge. And I’ve heard it was lovely.  But I haven’t seen it.  I wasn’t watching when they won on Saturday.  I wasn’t listening on the radio.  I was following the only way I can, reading the BBC text commentary.  And when the little time box updated from “2^nd half” to “final”, I let out a little “yes!” with a fist pump.

So this is what it has come to? I am excited when Reading pick up 3 points at home and move themselves out of the relegation zone to 20^th place? It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that Marek Matejovsky was ripping a 25 yard strike past Jose Reina to give Reading a 3-1 victory over Liverpool. But how quickly fortunes change in this beautiful game. And one season removed from an amazing 8^th place Premiere League finish, the Royals were relegated to the Championship on the last day of the season in 07-08 on goal differential (Fulham, I have not forgotten, and I will not cheer for you, no matter how many Americans you sign). And for me, an American fan of a 2^nd division team, I am now left sifting through text reports and still pictures for all my Reading news.

For my first column, I planned on this being my explanation of how and why I became a Reading fan. But this victory is too sweet not to savor by itself. So I’ll have to get to my poor team selection next week…

Posted via web from The Philly Soccer Page