Who Will It Be? Where Will It Be?

Last updated : 19 June 2003 By Rob Cooper
Ever since Gavin Rae fired home a devastating Play-Off winner against Reading a minority of people who are quite literally Reading Mad have been waiting for Thursday 19th June - the day the Football league announce the fixture lists for season 2003-04.

Who will we play on the season's opening day? Will it be at the Mad Stad or will it be an away game? On Boxing Day, will we have another away clash? Where, and against who, will our season reach it's conclusion? When will we face arch-rivals Cardiff City? All will be answered within the next 24 hours.

Our sister site Crewe Mad attempted to save us the suspense by unveiling a 'leaked' fixture list yesterday.

Crewe Mad believe we will be away at Derby on the opening day, as we were last August when we began our first Division One campaign for five years. On that occasion we were soundly beaten 3-0 by the 'Champions self-elected' but if it was to be repeated one would make Reading firm favourites to come away with three points. It proved to be a baptism of fire for the Royals in Division One, but a season of fire for the ever-troubled Derby County.

Here at Reading Mad we were looking back over the years and noticed that the Royals haven't had a home game on the season's opening day since 1999. Surely something must be up with the computer that pairs teams 'at random'. On the 9th August 1999 13,348 people were in attendance as we won through by two goals to one against Bristol City. Grant Brebner and Jimmy Crawford (remember them?) were on the scoresheet, as manager Tommy Burns saw out one of his last games in charge.

Nicky Forster
Forster: A scorer at Blackpool in August 2001
More recently we got our 2001-02 Division Two promotion-winning campaign off to a flying start with a 2-0 win against then newly-promoted Blackpool. The Tangerines were unable to keep out efforts from Phil Parkinson and Nicky Forster as life back in the Second Division began miserably for them in front of their home crowd.

So who will we play? A few Royals fans may lose some sleep tonight thinking about it.