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Rob Ridgway's "Rat Pack"


tenthreeleader

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Viper - the "boys" have been very naughty indeed, haven't they? Death - a fistfight isn't Rob's style. He prefers to twist the knife in other ways. :) And yes, you've got my handle interpreted correctly. Now back to the football.

___

July 17, 2008

We’re getting ready for the start of the season and one of the things we have to do is to submit our squad numbers for the coming season.

Our kit supplier, Puma, needs this information to finish up our attire for the season, which is unchanged from last year. Our traditional blue and white hoops with blue shorts and socks are the home kit, with black and grey stripes for the road with black shorts and socks. Our change strip this year will be red and gold.

The conflict came when Dagoberto approached, wanting to wear a certain number.

Trece, por favor,” he told me in Spanish, and I shook my head.

“You can’t have thirteen,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one wears thirteen at this club,” I said. “It’s reserved for the fans. Reading registers its entire fan base as one active player every season. We were the first club in England to do this and the number they are assigned is thirteen.”

He nodded. He was disappointed but he certainly understood.

Nueve?” he asked.

“That’s more like it,” I grinned. “You’re more like a number nine to me than a thirteen anyway.” He walked away, smiling and mollified.

# # #

July 18, 2008

I may have had a smile with Dagoberto but the news of today doesn’t have me smiling so much.

Chelsea has spent close to £90 million on players in the close season but the odds released by totalbet.com for the 2008-09 Premiership are frankly frightening. The Blues are joint third in the pre-season prognostication, with champions Liverpool the favorites at 2-1. Arsenal is next at 5-2 with United and Chelsea joint third at 3-1.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the odds after the “big four” are frankly stunning. Bolton is picked for fifth in the league and it’s a bit of an indictment against the EPL that a squad picked to win a UEFA Cup place is a 33-1 shot to win its own league. Everton is in the same boat, joint fourth with Wanderers at 33-1.

Then there’s us. We are picked for tenth place at 50-1 odds. I think those odds would improve somewhat if I could get another defender and another midfielder into the fold of sufficient quality. However, my attempts so far have been fruitless, leading to a discussion on the training pitch today.

I gathered the players around me. “You know, I am trying to strengthen this squad and accommodate the wishes some of you have expressed to me,” I said. “That’s all well and good. That’s part of the game.”

“You may have also noticed that the squad is a bit bigger, but not as big as most of us feel it ought to be. There are some good players out there who don’t want to come here and they don’t want to be your teammates. The papers have already told you who they are.”

“You players that are here had a very nice season last year but what’s going to improve this team is you players banding together to get better. What I’m sensing out there is a feeling that you can’t do it. I put up with the same feeling in Italy last year, and when I left there to join you, they called me a rat. I was unwanted.”

Negative motivation is a very risky and very difficult strategy for a manager. The “siege mentality” occasionally works in the short term but in the long term it can expend a lot of energy if not properly handled by the man in charge. Yet, the word is out that I’m looking for players and they don’t want to come here, so I have no choice but to meet the issue head on.

“You players are going to be the ones who will carry the banner for the most part,” I said. “So I have something for you.”

I reached into a large box in the middle of the center circle at our indoor facility and pulled out a stack of blue and white warmup shirts. I handed one to each player on the senior squad. The front contained the club crest.

The back contained their embroidered surname – over a picture of a stylized rat.

“From now on, we’re ‘The Rat Pack’,” I said. “If I’m a rat, so are all of you. We’re the ones who have to show the world what we can do because the world doesn’t give us a snowball’s chance in hell of doing it. The Big Four are supposed to run away with everything and we’re supposed to make weight. I don’t care for that kind of thinking and you won't either as long as you're here.”

Kitson was the first to look at the back of his shirt, and smiled. He took off his warmup top and put the new one on over his head. Ferreira, the Portuguese star, was next.

Rata,” he laughed. “I like this.”

“Good,” I said, pulling on my own warmup top. My rat wore a crown. “King Rat is ready to lead the way. Let’s go.”

# # #

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Thanks, weeeman! Glad the references are being caught! And SCIAG, you'll soon learn that "Rat Pack" is a state of mind ...

___

Royal Rumble

Reading FC’s new American manager is set to make waves

By Martin Avery

Special to ESPN The Magazine

It isn’t surprising that ‘Star Trek’ is one of Rob Ridgway’s favorite television shows. He seems to like the idea of boldly going where no one has gone before.

Last month, the 37-year old manager shocked the football world by winning the job at Reading FC of the English Premier League. The news was shocking for a couple of reasons.

First, no American has ever managed in England’s top flight – or any European top flight – before. Second, Ridgway was hired with exactly one season of managerial experience under his belt.

He’s the second American ever hired to manage in England and as we sat down in his bunker-like office underneath Reading’s Madejski Stadium, he’s fully cognizant of his need to batten down the hatches as the EPL season draws ever closer.

“Have a seat,” he says, waving me to one of the overstuffed black leather couches in the manager’s office. “Let’s talk football.”

Naturally, there’s no doubt which kind of football he has in mind. Though an NFL fan, Ridgway’s life is dominated by the kind of football you play with the feet.

In casual conversation, you get the idea that Ridgway knows he is blazing a trail. That knowledge seems to wear on him. “I wrote to a friend the other day that if I blow it, who knows when another American will get a top-flight chance?” he said. “I’m excited to be here and excited to be back in the place where I played five years, but believe me, I know what I’m up against. It’s more than just what happens on the pitch.”

That statement is true in more ways than the casual reader might know. Last season, Ridgway was a target of a bizarre plot that made headlines throughout Europe. The story thrust him into the soccer spotlight even as it brought profound change to someone who got used to change at a young age.

# # #

Ridgway signed his first professional contract at age 20, with Falkirk of the Scottish First Division. Standing at six feet two inches, he fit the role of the towering central defender to a T.

“That was a great experience,” he remembers. “I was away from home for the first time in my life, having a great time and getting paid for it. It took me two years before I realized what I was really supposed to be doing on the pitch, though. The Falkirk coaching staff was wonderful to me.”

Maybe too wonderful, as it turned out. Ridgway’s third season at Falkirk was enough to make Scottish powerhouse Rangers (please, not “Glasgow Rangers”) take notice and when the season was up, Ridgway called Ibrox Stadium his new home.

“I can’t even describe how much fun Rangers was,” he said. “You look around that place and there’s history everywhere. It’s also at the middle of perhaps the greatest rivalry in world sport and you can’t help but get caught up in it all.”

Ridgway played in nine Old Firm matches against Rangers’ great rival Celtic and relished every one of them. “If you can’t get ready to play in the Old Firm you can’t get ready to play anywhere,” he said. “The atmosphere is electric, the stakes are always high and those people who think the world comes to a stop when the Yankees play the Red Sox really ought to see it.”

Rangers also gave Ridgway the only chances of his career to play on a European stage - experiences he never forgot. “Those European nights were one of the things that made me want to become a manager,” he said. “I didn’t know how many chances I’d get to play in Europe and getting back to a similar setting became a real goal of mine. When I left Rangers I knew I wanted to be a manager someday.”

After three seasons in Glasgow, Ridgway moved south of the border to Reading, then in the old First Division of the English game. He spent five seasons there, the prime of his soccer life, and seemed very happy.

“Reading was a great experience too,” he said. “Not everyone has such positive experiences when they go to a new club because leaving the old one can sometimes be hard. I loved playing for Rangers but Reading offered new challenges.”

One of those challenges was a lady named Kate Southerland, whose relationship with Ridgway would change his life. “I’d prefer not to talk about Kate,” the manager said. “It’s been well documented, too well from my point of view, and all the things that happened don’t need to be dredged up again.”

Reading let Ridgway go after five seasons. On his way out of the country, he proposed marriage to Southerland before signing with the Chicago Fire of MLS. The relationship broke down, Ridgway broke down in a different way, and it appeared that everything had changed.

“It wasn’t good,” Ridgway said. “And that’s all I want to say about it.”

After three indifferent seasons in Chicago, Rob Ridgway was 34 years old, looking for something to do with his life and still itching to try management. So, while studying for the coaching badges required by European sanctioning body UEFA to manage at the higher levels, he returned to the continent – to Italian second-division club Frosinone. There he spent two seasons helping younger players and playing a bit role for a club whose future plainly lay with other players.

“I liked playing in the warm weather,” he smiled. “I got some practical experience tutoring younger players and I learned Italian, which certainly came in handy later on.”

Ridgway is a communicator. He’s fluent in Swedish, Spanish, and Norwegian in addition to the Italian he learned at Frosinone. Yet when it came time to ply his management skills, Italian was the most important language of all.

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10-3 leader, do you research the club, surroundings and history, or is it all common knowledge in your mind? Or is it all simply a result of your imagination in order to bring the atmosphere to the story as you feel it while writing?

It made me wonder, seeing all the realistic details you use throughout the story.

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10-3 leader, do you research the club, surroundings and history, or is it all common knowledge in your mind? Or is it all simply a result of your imagination in order to bring the atmosphere to the story as you feel it while writing?

It made me wonder, seeing all the realistic details you use throughout the story.

It's all correct, not imaginary. Except the stuff that obviously isn't. The Oracle exists, the stadium has a hotel attached to it, Kevin Dillon did actually have that playing career, etc.

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Looks like I have a few issues to answer ... so here we go. If the reader simply wishes to move to the next installment, please disregard.

denote, Rob has Swedish as a second nationality. My supposition here was that Ridgway would not be allowed to work in the European Union without a special visa unless he had a second, European, ancestry. Therefore the game gives him Swedish and Norwegian as known languages. He learned Italian, and Spanish was also given to him by the game.

Gentleman, salkster and SCIAG ... my research for this story is mostly net-based. Yes, salkster, I do use Wiki for certain parts of my story, but not for all of it. I will routinely wiki for information on a visiting ground or for certain key characters such as Dillon and Madejski to get basic background, but most of the information I use regarding football is either from my own knowledge or from official club websites.

For an example, I’ll use Reading. They happen to have an excellent official website, which has pdf maps of the ground and stadium interior plus an interactive 360-degree tour, which allows me to give accurate renderings of the layout of the ground in my story. They did a great job on their official site, and the result shows in Rat Pack.

The Oracle was found through a general search on Reading retail. The theory here is that Rob and Patty are going to have to live. That means they need a place to live and places to go for entertainment, public appearances and basic needs. It made sense to me to figure out where those places might be, to add realism to the story. Also, the rudiments of their house were found on a search for upscale real estate in Berkshire.

In my first story, I spent time researching the Italian criminal justice system to determine how a trial was likely to proceed. I don't guarantee accuracy, but in "my world", the added effort seems to help the end product. I also did some research on English-language entertainment in Padua to generate some references I made to English-language theater early in Calcio.

I have mingled elements of all those searches with a name randomizer for my non-public characters. The idea is to take a “best guess” when creating background but I want that guess to be as close to accurate as possible.

I hope that helps! Now to today’s entry …

___

Marcello Sestaro needed a manager. Calcio Padova needed a direction. Rob Ridgway provided both.

“He was impressive,” the Padova chairman said. “We liked his way with people and with players. My hope was that he could come here and help us gain promotion.”

Padova once played in Italy’s famed Serie A, and made current Los Angeles Galaxy general manager Alexi Lalas the first American ever to play in that league. The club’s fall from grace was both dramatic and sudden, encompassing a freefall from the top flight to the third division within three years. Ridgway relished the challenge – taking over a smaller club with both a bigger history and ambition that matched his own.

Last season Padova played in an Italian third-level division, known as Serie C1A. “I liked the job right away,” he recalled. “Still, though, I had some obstacles to overcome and they’ve been well documented.”

Chief among those obstacles was winning over the fickle Italian media, many of which resented the intrusion of an American into their beloved “Calcio”. Despite a 24-match unbeaten run – fully two-thirds of the Italian season – he never did win over certain segments of the media. He had, and still has, sharp critics.

“He was never here to stay,” local reporter Stefano Emiliani said. “From my own point of view he has a lot to learn about the game and how to manage people. The Premier League, which seems premature for someone of his level of experience, is going to be quite an awakening for him. I wish him well, but something tells me we might see him back in the lower leagues soon.”

Then the Italian pauses in his thoughts. “Still, I wouldn’t have wished what happened to him on anyone. Ever.”

# # #

Patricia Myers Ridgway knew what was going to happen to her.

“I was going to die,” she said.

The 36-year old employee of the United States Department of State was about to be run off the road by two hooligans on the main thoroughfare between Padua and nearby Venice, where she worked. The police investigation into the incident is still ongoing five months after the fact, but the victim is convinced of one thing.

“I was run off that road to get at Rob,” she said. “I’m absolutely convinced of it. There were too many people in both those cities who detested him and what he was trying to do. They got the guys who hurt me, but they’re still looking for everyone who wanted to get at Rob. I managed to make it through but you can’t help but look over your shoulder sometimes.”

The story reads unbelievably. It’s hard to believe it could possibly be true. Yet it is. A group of hooligans naming themselves ‘The Supporters’ were anything but supportive – trying to eliminate Ridgway’s girlfriend and eventually making an attempt on the manager himself – all to get him to leave Italy.

“Yes, that kind of personal pressure gets hard to take after awhile,” Ridgway said. “Yet, decent people won the day and I was able to get through the season. The police were great to work with and my players somehow avoided all the distraction to do a wonderful job.”

And despite all the trouble, it was a remarkable season. Padua won promotion to the second tier, Serie B, by five points in the standings and completed a “double” by also winning the Serie C Cup for the first time in 28 years.

“It’s a Cup trophy, yet It’s sort of a trophy no one wants to win, because to win it you have to be in the third division,” Ridgway added. “Yet, if you’re in it, you’re in it to win it and I’m still proud of those guys for all they accomplished.”

Yet through it all, Patty Ridgway became a celebrity in her own right. Possessed of devastating good looks, the tall, willowy redhead is under great pressure to sell her story – and her image – to the ever-present British tabloids. She has had to hire a personal representative to handle her media requests, to both the pride and consternation of her husband.

They’ve been married less than a month and the newlyweds know that any thought of a honeymoon is far, far away. Less than 48 hours after being married in Patty’s hometown of Arlington Heights, Illinois, the happy couple was back in England so the groom could prepare for Reading’s first pre-season friendly match in Germany.

“It’s been a whirlwind and we almost didn’t make it,” Patty Ridgway said. “In more ways than one. The pressure is really intense on Rob, the expectations are high, people are wondering if he’s the right man for the job, and I’ve got a whole new set of worries I didn’t have in Italy.”

So why leave? Why leave after only one year at the helm of a smaller club in a warm climate?

“Well, someone was trying to kill me,” the manager joked, returning to an old subject. “I thought England might be a bit safer.”

There’s an element of truth to that. There’s also the matter of the world’s biggest soccer club and how they wound up changing Ridgway’s life in a way he could never have imagined.

# # #

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____________

Manchester United is the largest sporting endeavor on the planet, despite what the NFL and Major League Baseball would have you believe. The Glazer family’s enterprise is a sporting leviathan and it’s not used to finishing anyplace but first.

This year, though, the Red Devils finished third in the EPL behind their ancient rivals Liverpool and their current rivals Arsenal. That’s little short of disaster for a proud club, and as a result some changes were made.

The most notable involved their legendary manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, who either retired or whose contract was not renewed depending on who you talk to. In any event, the most successful manager in the history of the Premier League left United and one of the highest-profile jobs in the world game was up for grabs.

The man United hired was Reading’s Steve Coppell, a former Red Devil legend who accomplished great things during his five seasons in charge of the Royals. He masterminded the single greatest league season in the history of English soccer to get the club promoted to the Premiership three seasons ago. Then he kept them there, against the odds, in each of the last two seasons.

Obviously, that meant the Royals needed a new manager, and they wound up looking south to find him. “We knew Rob was doing a fine job at Padova but we thought he was a few years away from being ready for the Premiership,” Reading chairman John Madejski said. “We sent staff to watch him and we were quite surprised at what we found.”

What he found was a far cry from the claims of Italian media. “Rob was going through an extraordinarily difficult time not of his making,” Madejski added. “We found an individual who was able to handle conditions of extreme stress while winning football matches. That combination is rare in today’s game and we felt we needed to learn more.”

Ridgway was flown to London in late June for an interview and the rest, as they say, is history. He now sits at Coppell’s old desk, having changed nothing except the photos on the desk from the way the former boss laid out his office.

“When I get time, I’ll look at doing that,” Ridgway said. “I don’t have a lot of time for people who think that the office still belongs to the last fellow because they don’t like the pictures on the wall. The guy behind the desk determines whose office it is. Period.”

# # #

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____________

“This is really going to be a lot easier if you follow the tactic, gentlemen.”

Ridgway has stopped a training drill in which he’s trying to teach his Royals a new formation. He has some soft but sharp words for midfielders Stephen Hunt and Bobby Convey. The former is a young Irishman with great potential. The latter is an American national team player who is trying to engineer a move away from Reading.

But for now, Convey’s listening. Under contract to the Royals, he knows full well that wrecking the manager’s training plan won’t help him get the playing time he needs to leave.

“You wings need to be actively involved, more than you ever were in 4-4-2,” Ridgway explains to the players. Then, he demonstrates what he means. Though a central defender when he played, the 37-year old manager is still more than passable with a ball at his feet, which means he can demonstrate what he wants as an added method of teaching.

“He does teach you,” Convey said. “That was the thing we all wondered when he came here, whether he would be able to teach. He knows what he wants and he isn’t afraid to tell you when you don’t give it to him.”

Ridgway has the added advantage of being older than all his players. Key members of last season’s Padova squad were as old or older than the manager, and though there weren’t outward issues with respect, it did make it more difficult for the first-year boss to earn command of his dressing room in the beginning.

“That’s human nature,” Ridgway said. “I’ve been brought in to do this job, though, and if there was any doubt in the dressing room about who the boss is when I got here, there won’t be when I’m done.”

Convey’s attitude about the new sheriff is shared by many of the players. Club captain Graeme Murty says he speaks for the squad when he says the players are happy to give the new man a chance. “The old boss left,” he said. “The gaffer (Ridgway) is here because he wants to be here. We’re ready to see what he has to offer.”

# # #

Ridgway’s nationality has yet to play a major role in his Reading tenure, but it did come up as a topic of conversation in Italy last season.

“You know what, I can’t help my nationality and I am certainly not going to apologize for it. I’m proud of it,” he said. “I’m as proud of it as any Englishman or Italian or German or anyone who loves his country. The idea that I should somehow be less of a manager or less of a tactician because of the place of my birth is simply preposterous.”

Indeed, nationality appears to have played a significant part in the criticism he endured in fiercely parochial Italy last season. Though the journalists deny it, Ridgway’s Americanism ruffled feathers. As proof, check out this missive from Emiliani last season:

“‘Exceptionalism’ is the term some Americans use to describe how they see their place in the world…” Emiliani wrote in a local column last November. “…one wonders if this term will ever be used to describe his ability to manage a football club. Much less our football club.”

“Stefano always did like to speak dramatically,” Ridgway smiled, in reaction.

But the larger issue does remain. In the eyes of some people, if Ridgway wins, he was expected to win. If he loses, it’s because he’s American.

“It goes with the territory,” he said. “I realize that if I blow it here, it’s going to reflect badly on American managers who want to go overseas. I don’t need the extra pressure, of course, but really, what else can I do but accept it? Someone had to be first.”

He means first in the top flight. It’s in that regard that Ridgway expresses admiration for fellow Yankee Copper Horse, who really was first overall – hired to manage the non-league Blyth Spartans late last season.

“I do wonder sometimes if either of us realizes what we got ourselves into,” Ridgway smiles. “I know Copper had a very hard time with his fan base last season and results didn’t go his way so things were certainly a lot tougher for him than they were for me.”

Through it all, Ridgway, who says he’d like to meet the fellow who beat him back to England, exhibits a patience that belies the events of last season. “I played sixteen seasons professionally and eleven of them were in England and Scotland,” he said. “I’ve seen just about everything that can happen to a player and I played for some pretty good bosses. Copper and I are both going to get questions about our qualifications, mine coming from the degree of the leap I’m making and his from simply being first. I’m a professional footballer and that means I have increased expectations in any job I have. How you handle the pressure is what makes or breaks you – what makes you viable. No one says it’s easy. But we have to handle it well for the benefit of those who will come after us.”

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It was Rob Ridgway’s being first in Italy, though, that may have led to the attempt on Patty Ridgway’s life – an unforeseen consequence that haunts the manager even though he does his best to hide it. “The police don’t want me to say anything about the investigation and I have no intention of doing so,” he said brusquely. Talking about the attack on his wife is the only thing that removes the kind expression from his face.

“I would hate to have to think that I need private security to keep my wife safe,” he said. “Still, as she expands her career we may have to make allowances that we had never foreseen.”

Yet, watching Ridgway pace in front of his players’ bench during Reading’s first friendly match against Nuremberg of the German Bundesliga, you get the sense that all the worry is far behind him when there’s a game in front of him.

He knows what he wants, and when Reading goes to the dressing room down 1-0 at halftime, he isn’t afraid to ask for it. “He wasn’t in the mood to lose, even a friendly,” Reading assistant manager Kevin Dillon said. “That’s a great attitude to have but it’s never easy to tell that sort of thing to professionals when the match doesn’t count in the table. Yet they responded to him and we came back to get a result.”

Dillon was part of the managerial setup that released Ridgway from Reading as an active player. He applied for the manager’s job when Coppell left for United, and was passed over for the second time. He harbors no outward resentment, but does hope the time is coming when he can take over a club of his own.

“Do I think I can learn from him?” he asks. “That remains to be seen. I’ve been around the game for over thirty years and I’ve seen a lot. Rob was a good player when he was here and now he needs to show that he deserved the job he got. That means an awful lot of hard work, even in the matches that don’t count like Nuremberg’s. My job is to help him.”

Friendlies don’t mean anything in the standings, of course, but they do mean something to the confidence of players. No one likes to lose and professionals are no exception to this basic truth of sports. So winning the friendly – especially the first one – was a lesson in understanding the mind of the new manager.

“I told them what I thought,” Ridgway said after the match. “I do get to do that.”

Then he thinks things over. “You know, we haven’t talked a lot about football this week, have we?” he asks. “That’s a shame. This part, after the match is won, when you’re just thinking about fun things and don’t have a care in the world, is nice.”

After spending a little time around the man, it’s hard to disagree. When you boldly go where no one has gone before, what you do once you get there makes all the difference.

# # #

Tuesday, July 22

Reaction to the ESPN story is largely positive. The club higher-ups don’t seem to mind, since the club came out looking pretty good.

The reaction at training this morning was lighthearted. “Who was that Italian reporter guy?” Kitson asked as he jogged past me on the way to the training ground. “I’d have tied him in a knot.”

I shook my head and was joined by Dillon as we prepared to start the day’s work. I wanted him to take training today so I could stay up in the loft on one end of the facility to watch things from overhead. This is hardly a problem for him, and since he likes being with the players anyway, it was something he preferred.

“Not a bad article,” he said.

“Not at all,” I answered. “You didn’t bury me, so thanks for that.”

He smiled. “Look, we’re a team,” he said. “That means I support you and you support me, yeah?”

I smiled at him and he went to do his job. I went upstairs to do mine.

# # #

Patty, on the other hand, thinks her part of the article was overly dramatic, especially as it related to the incident on the highway.

“I’m a drama queen,” she said sadly as I sat down to dinner with her.

“Honey, don’t even think that,” I said. “You were honest. That’s all anyone could ask for. Hell, you were scared and I was scared for you when it happened.”

“People won’t see that,” she said.

I smiled at her. “Babe, it’s amazing to me how many people want to take your picture now,” I said. “If you aren’t careful you’re going to wind up a minor celebrity. You could say anything you wanted at the moment and there are paparazzi in this country who’ll eat it up.”

She thought it over as she twisted strands of spaghetti over and over on her fork. “I’m not sure I want that,” she finally said. The look in her eyes, though, didn’t match the words from her mouth.

# # #

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July 25

Reading v. FC Twente (Friendly Match #2)

I had goals for our second friendly match of the season tonight as we played for the first time before a home crowd.

My primary goal was to coax an improved offensive performance from the players, on the lines of the second half at Nürnberg. My secondary goal was to see some success from a different strike combination.

Lita moved up to partner Kitson, with Dagoberto playing the center midfield role to support them. On paper, this is probably my highest-powered strike arrangement and I wanted to see it on friendly soil. Bikey impressed me on the right in Germany so he got a second start at the same position, with most of the rest of the starting eleven unchanged.

Convey got the nod in the left of midfield for Hunt and I was looking forward to seeing Lita’s prodigious talent paired with Kitson in a big/little striker combination.

Also, I had a wonderfully rare treat tonight, one that obviously wasn’t often possible last season. Patty attended the match and I liked the idea of knowing she was close by.

She met me at the stadium, where I spent my afternoon looking at video of Chelsea’s tour of the United States to try to get some sort of idea what they might throw at us in the season opener. I had to try very hard not to get depressed watching their wealth of offensive talent.

I was looking for a better way to start my evening and thankfully my wife provided it. Her arrival at the stadium drew a crowd of photographers who still want her picture, but this time the club security staff was able to get her to a reserved parking space that was away from the press area.

Staff parks across Biscuit Way from the stadium – a wonderfully named street to commemorate the club’s original nickname of "The Biscuitmen". It’s far enough away from the press and player entrance that the cameras can be kept at bay, and the staff was kind enough to make sure I knew my bride was in the building before I went to be with the squad.

She had a gift for me. “Just something to help remind you that I’m here,” she said, handing me a small box. I opened it to find a gold lapel pin and I recognized it immediately.

It was a Maiwand Lion. The majestic creature is the symbol of the 1880 Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan in which the 66th Berkshire Regiment was nearly destroyed. The Maiwand Lion is on the club crest and is a symbol of Berkshire.

I smiled, handing her the pin, which she affixed to the lapel of my blue suit. “Good luck, baby,” she said, giving me a soft kiss to send me on my way.

“Where are you watching the match?”

“I’ll be in the director’s lounge,” she said. “Not a bad place to be.”

“I should say not,” I smiled. “I hope we can put on a nice show for you.”

# # #

During the warmups I heard the sound of inspiration coming from the pitch, in the form of music.

The powerful strains of Lux Aeterna rang out on the stadium’s public address system, along with a highlight video from last season. It’s a Reading pre-match tradition and the power of the song from Requiem for a Dream does a great job of getting people in the right mood for the match.

Since tonight’s match was a friendly, I took the time to watch the four-minute video on the DiamondVision scoreboard, and felt a couple of inches taller when I was done. The promotions people had really outdone themselves, finishing the video with Lita’s masterful goal to beat Manchester United here last November. It looked like the West Stand might disappear in a wave of happy humanity as Leroy ran the length of the pitch with his arms outstretched in celebration.

A little shiver ran down my spine as I watched. I had to tear myself away from the video and returned to the changing room to find my players waiting for me.

I couldn’t help but grin at them. They knew where I had been and what I was doing. So I took the easy way out.

“Hell of a goal against United, Leroy,” I said, and the room broke into laughter. I raised my hand to quiet the squad and grew a little more serious. “Now let’s go out and score a few just like it tonight. Show me what you’ve got.”

# # #

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We took the pitch and again it was music that grabbed my attention.

First it was Lux Aeterna. Now, as we took the pitch, the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean filled my ears. This time, though, I frowned.

“Those songs are too much alike,” I said to myself. “We ought to fix that.” Since it was a friendly, I allowed myself thirty seconds or so to take in the surroundings before the match and the more I listened, the more convinced I was that I was right.

Then we kicked off and I put the esoteric into my pocket for ninety minutes. The star of tonight’s match wasn’t the highlight-reel Lita, though. It was Kitson, and I really had my eyes opened in a powerful way by the character of his performance.

Our Eredivisie visitors looked like they were ready to go from the start of the match but Kitson put them on the back foot almost immediately. The target striker took an inspired lead ball from Hunt, worked to the middle and powered a rising shot home after only four minutes of play to get us off to the perfect start.

He trotted back to the center line looking like he did that sort of thing every day. If he does, we’re going be just fine.

Twente then pushed us a little harder and I was pleased to note that we handled them with ease. They have a fairly skilled side, but my players then truly showed me why they’re a top-half Premiership club.

Just after the half hour, Kitson got on the board again. He jumped on Lita’s rebound, bundling home from five yards to make it 2-nil – but we weren’t done.

More accurately, Kitson wasn’t done. Dagoberto isn’t supposed to be a provider in my tactic – at least, not as a manner of course – but his inch-perfect through ball from the centerline found Kitson on the fly five minutes before the break. Just like that, it was 3-0 and my striker had scored a first half hat trick.

That was something to smile about, and the big redhead did just that, with a playful bow to his bench while the Twente coaching staff began to yell uncomplimentary advice at their defenders.

We got to half with the three-goal lead still intact and there was really nothing I could say. The chances had been roughly equal in terms of numbers but absolutely not in terms of quality and that was why we led like we did.

“I wonder if there’s anything else I can tell you to do that you’ll do,” I smiled, keeping the squad loose and happy at halftime. I’d have to have been insane to say anything else.

The second half began and it was the turn of the other half of our strike partnership to show his stuff. This was perhaps the best of all, as substitute Emerse Faé began the play with a raking forty-yard early cross from the right that found Lita in full flight.

Leroy brought the ball to control with a wonderful left-footed first touch. His second touch moved the ball to his right boot and his third touch put the ball in the back of the net for four-nil on fifty minutes.

The modest crowd of just under 8,300 really had something to cheer about, even for a match that meant nothing in the larger scheme. Unless you were losing.

I cast a quick glance at the FC Twente dugout and there wasn’t a smile to be found. Even in a friendly, it’s still hard to erase a thrashing from your mind.

I made wholesale changes on the hour including moving Dagoberto up front for Lita. I wanted to see how Kitson would work with an even faster fast striker. Leroy had shown me more than enough for one night and I shook his hand firmly as he left the pitch. He knew I was pleased.

Twente then pulled a goal back through Stein Huysegems on 72 minutes that would enable The Reds to leave Berkshire with their pride intact. The person most affected by this goal was Lobont, who really wanted a clean sheet to match the excellent play of the strikers. His reaction showed he was quite unhappy not to stop the shot that wrecked it for him.

Having scored, our visitors immediately seemed to loosen up. They were pressing hard to get on the scoresheet and after they did so, they started to play better. I looked over to Shane Long and he looked at me.

“How about going in there and making them tighten up again?” I suggested, and he grinned in return. He started his warmup and it was my intention to bring him on for Kitson.

Just as Long prepared to report to the fourth official, Faé was brought down in the box ten minutes from time. We wound up with a penalty and Kitson immediately grabbed the ball.

All sorts of thoughts flashed through my head – my Padova side had driven me to distraction last season due to a maddening inability to score from the spot - but Kitson showed me this was a different league by burying his penalty for his fourth goal of the match.

His teammates mobbed him in the Twente penalty area and when the group broke up he just started jogging to the touchline. He knew.

Kitson shook hands first with Long and then with me. “How was that, gaffer?” he grinned, on his way past.

“That’ll do,” I smiled, as the redheaded striker took a well-earned rest.

# # #

One enjoyable problem with really knocking the stuffing out of someone is that sometimes you don’t know when to stop.

We were so thrilled with scoring a fifth that Oster bent in a perfectly taken volley from twenty yards four minutes from time for a sixth goal that fluffed up the scoreline even as it fluffed up our confidence. It was just a wonderful result. I don’t care if it was a friendly.

Of course, getting hammered by an opponent can make them think you’re running up the score, but in this case we have players who are playing for their places. I expect them to play hard to the final whistle and in this case, we certainly did.

Reading 6 (Kitson 4, 32, 40, pen 80, Lita 50, Oster 86)

FC Twente 1 (Huysegems 72)

A – 8,281, The Madejski Stadium

Man of the Match – Dave Kitson, Reading

# # #

“You know, that wasn’t bad.”

I smiled at Jill Weatherby, which is an easy thing to do, and thought about how nice it was to hang up a big number at home. “Not bad, yes,” I agreed. “There are some matches you wish weren’t friendlies, I guess, and this would qualify. We did just about everything right. Especially Kitson. I hope he remembers how to do that when the league season starts.”

“So do we,” she said, in the understatement of the day.

As I finished my modest media work, Patty appeared from a nearby elevator and approached with a delighted look on her face.

Patiently, she waited her turn, and when I was done she approached to give me a tasteful hug. Those photographers who had an idea of what the style reporters at their papers wanted snapped their pictures, and I supposed I had to let them do it.

“Brilliant,” she smiled, taking my arm happily.

“I can’t argue with six,” I smiled.

“Well, then what can you argue with?”

I looked her up and down. The royal blue dress she wore fit her shape perfectly. Her green eyes shone with happiness and delight for me. My bride’s perfect smile seemed to reach into my soul.

“Let’s hope I never have to find out,” I said.

# # #

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Very entertaining! Thanks for sharing!

I love the little touches here and there, but most of all I love the detail in everything you write (shows the value and respect you give to your writing by doing a fair amount of research)!

------------------------------------------------------

'Before you can score you must first have a goal' - Greek proverb.

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Cheers, Spav ... I have two variations of 4-1-3-2 that really seem to suit this club fairly well. Of course, it's a long season! Petros, thank you for your post and welcome to the "Rat Pack!"

___

Monday, July 28

The transfer market is hotting up and already, I’m wondering what some people take me for.

The August window, obviously, is just a few days away and teams are frantically jockeying for position for the players they want. I’m having a surprising amount of difficulty with Derby County.

The Rams stayed up last season after gaining promotion to the Premier League through the Championship playoff two seasons ago. To say they have been a thorn in my side over the last few days would be an understatement.

My phone rang Friday morning and I was told Derby manager Billy Davies was on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Billy, Rob Ridgway here,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, you could tell me how much it would cost for Ibrahima Sonko,” he said, getting right to the point.

I’m not terribly excited about selling my best central defender, especially not to a club the pundits are suggesting will have a hard time avoiding the drop this season. Of course, if they were expected to stay up, they wouldn’t be trying to bid for my best central defender, would they? Davies might have felt a sense of optimism due to talking to a fellow ex-Ranger, but I didn't - and couldn't - give him the satisfaction.

I’m not going to sell Sonko, at least not today. “I’d consider an exchange deal,” I said, and I’m sure Davies figured at this point that his proposal was in serious trouble.

“All right, who did you have in mind as long as it’s not David Jones?”

“Well, I can see where this conversation is headed,” I answered.

The England u-21 midfielder was Derby’s prize catch off Manchester United last season and is a player I’ve coveted since seeing him on television last season. He’s a terrific player who will only get better, and he’d solve my central midfield issue in a heartbeat.

“You know I can’t do that,” he said.

“Well, then you know I can’t part with my best central defender. He’s not for sale unless you’ve got silly money to spend,” I said. “If you don’t, the price is Jones.”

“I had hoped this conversation would turn out better,” he said.

“There are two sides to every conversation, Billy,” I said. “Good luck to you.”

# # #

I had actually offered £6 million to Davies earlier in the week for Jones and he had dismissed my enquiry. So I certainly felt justified in turning down an enquiry for a player I don’t want to lose. That’s how you play the game.

However, I did have a fairly significant success this week. My call to Martin O’Neill went a lot better, and as a result the “Rat Pack” may actually get a new member.

“Rob, welcome to the league,” the former Celtic boss said. “Even though you did play for that club.”

I smiled and I could tell by his tone he was poking fun at me. “I see you’re loading up on your old Bhoys,” I replied. “Scott Brown cost you a pretty penny.”

“We’ve spent some, yes,” he said. Villa had dropped £39 million in the early part of the window, second only to Chelsea in league spending. A rather remarkable £9.75 million of that went to Celtic for Brown.

“Well, I’d like to help you make up some of that money,” I said.

“Very well, who do you have in mind?” he asked.

“His old teammate,” I said. “Shaun Maloney.”

The 25-year old former Celtic midfielder and Scottish international had earned my admiration for a deft touch around goal and a definite attacking bent from the center of midfield. I figured with Brown at Villa for big money, Shaun’s path would be blocked.

I was right. “I would sell the player at the right price,” O’Neill admitted. “Make us an offer.”

“We can bid £2.4,” I said. He delayed for a moment, while evidently looking at some charts. I heard the sound of rustling paper in the background.

“That will do,” he said, the speed of his acceptance leading me to wonder if I had bid too high. “Have your finance people contact ours. I’ll tell Shaun we’ve had an offer that we will accept.”

“Very good,” I said. “Thank you, Martin. Best of luck to you.”

“You are getting a good player,” he said, telling me nothing I didn’t already know. However, he feels he’s got better, so he didn’t mind making the deal.

We hung up and I called the finance department. “I’ve got a player transaction to discuss,” I said. “Will you please have the chairman ring me?”

# # #

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That was Thursday. Villa formally accepted our offer yesterday and we now discuss personal terms with the player.

There are definite things I am looking for in my midfield, especially in that position. I need a player who can get forward, who knows what to do when he gets there, and who is tireless. The central midfielder in my tactic does a lot of running. Shaun can handle all those things.

It also settles my strike force. Dagoberto will now play a striker position. I have three fine strikers with Dagoberto, Kitson and Lita with Shane Long pushing them for playing time. Maloney himself can also play as a striker so I now have sufficient depth at the position to move on to other things.

I have a player quite comparable to Jones who is a bit older but at about one-fourth of Derby’s valuation. I still have shopping I want to do, and Maloney will be a good start.

I’d still like to see another defender in the fold who isn’t a center half, and I need to find an insurance policy for Convey’s expected departure on the left. If I can do those things, the others have shown they can compete in the Premier League and I’ll be itching to let them run.

# # #

Also today, I let my first player leave on loan. SPL side Gretna would like to take my promising young defender Alex Pearce north of the border for the season and after a short conversation with the player today, he agreed to go.

“It’s nothing to do with you,” I said. “I want you to get first-team experience and from every indication that’s just what you are going to get up there. You are a part of the future of this club but right now I’d like to see you playing first-team every weekend.”

He nodded. For some players, leaving a club is hard even if it’s for the right reasons. They feel they need to somehow prove their worth to the parent club, but I didn’t get that feeling with Alex.

“I’ll be back and I’ll be better for it,” he said. “I’ll go.”

With that, he went to the changing room to say his goodbyes. That’s never an easy thing to watch, but the thought of him being back as a better player next season makes it bearable.

# # #

We also departed this afternoon on a trip down the A303.

We’re playing at League One side Yeovil Town tomorrow night in our third friendly and I’m giving players who haven’t had the chance to start a match the opportunity to do so against lower league opposition.

That will include the promising defender Craig Cathcart, who will probably start the season in the reserves. The kid has a world of potential but isn’t ready to displace anyone in the starting back line – at the moment.

We had to leave Long behind due to a training ground tweak in his leg. As a result, reserve striker Viktor Illugason, another young player with some promise, made the trip and will start alongside Kitson, one of the very few first-teamers who will start the match. Personally, I’d like to see if he can come close to duplicating his performance against FC Twente – and so would he.

This is a pretty loose bunch of players and since there haven’t been huge changes to the playing roster there’s a good level of understanding among them. I didn’t feel a need to encourage any sort of activity like our road trip days at Padova last season. The fact of the matter is, the newest kid on the block is still the manager. So I watch and learn.

As the bus rolled toward the southwest and another match, I wrote Patty.

I miss you. I suppose that’s nothing new,” I wrote. “Can you put a smile on my face tonight?

I sent the e-mail and moments later, I got a response.

I got a job offer today,” she said. “It’s at Kate’s competition.”

I raised my eyebrows, and wrote back.

That’ll make me smile?” I asked.

Only if you like the thought of Peter McGuire’s blood pressure spraying out his ears,” she teased in her reply.

She was right. That made me smile.

# # #

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Tuesday, July 29

Yeovil Town v. Reading (Friendly Match #3)

I assume the life of a Premiership manager is exciting, thrilling at times, and never boring.

Most of the time. Then there are days like today.

Despite a solid statistical performance we were unable to defeat our League One opposition this evening before a largely silent crowd of 2,321 at Huish Park. In fact, if you had removed the third letter of “Huish”, you’d get an idea of the atmosphere this evening.

I guess I was a little surprised at both the attendance and the demeanor of the crowd for Premiership opposition. The Yeovil players were certainly more upbeat than their fans. It just seemed like an odd night from the moment we got off the coach.

I went through with my original plan to start a second eleven and as a result started this group:

GK Federici

DR Halls

DL Gaspari

DC Cathcart

DC Cissé

DM Harper

MR Little

ML Convey

MC Oster

ST Illugason

ST Kitson

So much for that idea.

Really, no one played like they wanted to wear the shirt. Only the fact that it was a friendly match stayed my hand as I watched eleven grown men on the pitch acting like they were all caught in the same revolving door.

Even if our offensive display met the dictionary definition of “inertia”, our defensive play was good and they didn’t bother Federici in the first half. I wasn’t too happy with what I saw in the first half when we had the ball, though, and Dillon had the same look on his face that he did at the halftime whistle in Nuremberg.

I sat the players down and this time they knew what they’d get despite it being a friendly. And they got it.

“You know, guys, I’m not sure what’s worse: that I don’t see effort out there or that I don’t see effort against a League One team you should be hammering at the moment.”

I let my words sink in and made my point. “I have to see better from you in the second half,” I said. “I want you in the habit of doing what’s required against sides you’re supposed to put away. We start the season against Chelsea in eleven days and if we play like this against them they’re going to blow us all the way to the Blue Square. You get me?”

The words hit home, and I heard the right things in reply, but words without deeds mean nothing to me. So I made five substitutions at halftime to finish my statement.

Thus armed, my players proceeded to play only a marginally better match in the second half. We did start brightly due to one of my early substitutions. Emerse Faé, who has not been a favorite of the fans during his brief time with us but who will get every consideration now, showed he was here to play with a fine effort on 61 minutes that got us onto the scoreboard.

But it didn’t last. When we were poised to take the life out of the match, we couldn’t hold the lead and the Glovers equalized through the joyously happy Marvin Williams eleven minutes later.

Federici had a look of disgust on his face as he fished the ball out of his goal, and I had to confess my own mood was similar.

We just didn’t do the business. When the full-time whistle blew, I was almost glad of it. There were more than a few players who couldn’t look me in the eye as we walked toward our changing room which meant that my post-match team talk was going to strike home before I ever said a word.

“We play Cardiff City on Saturday and thank God for that,” I said, as a sheepish group of players found seats in front of their lockers. “Make very sure, gentlemen, that this type of play is out of your system by that time. I will expect a vastly improved effort and I’ll expect an on-field acknowledgment that you can’t just show up and expect to win. I will expect you to show me that you know how to work and know how to get your jobs done. Now, that’s all I’m going to say about this. Let’s get on the coach and get out of here.”

I then retreated to the visiting manager’s office where Dillon met me.

“We just have to win a match like that, even if it’s a friendly,” he said, sitting down opposite the room’s small desk.

“Thankfully we have time to teach some lessons from this,” I said. “But if we see effort like this on Saturday we’ve got a serious problem.”

“They’ll be all right,” he replied. “They got something to think about from you and I think they’ll come back just fine.”

“They’d better,” I said. “Without consistent effort, we’re nothing.”

Yeovil Town 1 – (Williams 72)

Reading 1 – (Faé 61)

A – 2,321, Huish Park, Yeovil

# # #

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Wednesday, July 30

The “Rat Pack” finally has its new member.

Lately, it’s been as hard to get our group to grow as it was for the real one on the Vegas strip – but not by our choice. No one has wanted to join.

Yet today, all that changed. Shaun Maloney took about twenty minutes to agree personal terms with us this morning, and was at the training ground in time for the afternoon session.

“Great to be here, gaffer,” he announced upon his first steps onto the training pitch.

I shook his hand, said I was glad to have him here, and politely informed him that the best way to show his gratitude would be for him to get stretched and get into the passing drills.

And I really am glad to have him here. He does the things I need a central midfielder to do and he does them well, with a high degree of technical prowess. The heart of my team is basically set and even though Maloney has only one friendly to show his mettle in a tactic that takes a bit of learning, I’m confident he can do it from the video I’ve seen.

Most of the senior players – and everyone who played for more than sixty minutes – was pretty sheepish at the morning training session. I didn’t blow my stack at the players for last night but everyone in my room knows I’m not pleased and that means people are scrambling to work hard today.

Several places on this team are by no means assured and if people want to play Saturday and more importantly in the season opener they have to get their heads down right now. Saturday is a dress rehearsal for the opener and I will expect a lot better.

I had to explain to various non-traveling staff why we had played so poorly last night and that wasn’t something I enjoyed. Even though the match didn’t matter, everyone has expectations and frankly one of mine is beating League One opposition.

So I couldn’t really say much, and Maloney was really the best thing to happen to me today. Watching him, once he got stretched out and into the drills, I soon realized that his learning curve probably won’t be terribly steep. For the sake of his teammates, that is a good thing.

# # #

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Much obliged, O'Hara ... merrily we roll along!

____

Thursday, July 31

My wife has decided to make her foray into the world of publicity and I guess I’m a little surprised by it.

Upon my return home from the training ground today I learned Patty has decided to give in and sell her story.

The fact that she didn’t ask me for my feelings on the matter hurt a bit. I naturally don’t begrudge her the right to do as she pleases, and I do understand that she would like the press off her back sooner rather than later. I have to trust Freddie Eaton’s advice as well.

Yet it’s her story they want, not mine, and as a result The News Of The World will pay her a handsome fee. And they’re doing a photo shoot, which needs to be tasteful or I’m going to have an aneurysm.

They’re going to shoot this weekend and that will lead to a pretty frantic week for all of us. I’ll be preparing for Chelsea and the opening Premier League match of the season and my need for total concentration will be profound. I don’t want controversy surrounding Patty to distract, which is why I wish she would have talked with me about this before agreeing.

However, I do realize that it’s her life and she can do with it what she pleases. She doesn’t need my permission to do anything. Which is why she approached me this evening as I sat in my den watching Chelsea video.

“Honey, you and I need to talk,” she said, and passed behind me in my chair to put her hands on my shoulders.

I stopped the video and swiveled around in my chair to face her. “Okay, what’s on your mind?” I asked, and she sat in my lap.

“I signed with News of the World today to get this story thing out of the way,” she said, and my eyes widened in reply. “They’re coming to the house this weekend for pictures.”

“Patty…” I began, and she cut me off.

“You aren’t happy,” she said.

“Please, let me finish,” I said. “You can do as you wish and you know it. I just wish you’d have let me know first. We’ve got Chelsea next week and…”

“I knew it. You aren’t happy,” she interjected. “I’m sorry.”

She had a look of frustration on her face that I needed to erase and I tried my best with a kiss. “Look, honey, I appreciate the apology, but it’s done,” I said. “You have your career and I know you wanted to get this out of the way. It just means that I may need to spend a little more time here at the house to avoid the press. You know what they’ll say and what they’ll do when the story hits.”

“I do,” she said, before getting a bit of a mischievous smile on her face. “So maybe having my husband here with me wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”

# # #

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Gentlemen, once again you flatter me. I'm glad you're all enjoying the work and frankly I'm glad that the effort I've gone to has been recognized. It's fun to write when you know people appreciate the work. I am grateful for your comments.

____

Friday, August 1

With Cardiff City coming in tomorrow for our last friendly match, I’m changing out most of the team for the last friendly. Meanwhile, there are two more items in the transfer news.

The window of course remains open for the entire month and I’ve got my feelers out for another potential new member of the Rat Pack.

Four teams are in with us for Middlesbrough’s Austrian defender Emanuel Pogatetz. He would be a missing piece to my puzzle here as well – he would give me real options at the fullback positions and I am seriously considering making an offer. Right now I have Rosenior and Ferreira as my fullbacks but no real solid Plan B. A third player would certainly help matters.

Those three players plus Sonko, Bikey and Ingimarsson would give me six solid defenders from which to choose. I’d like that sort of flexibility.

The hunt also continues for another leftsided midfielder, as Convey went to the press today to reiterate his desire to leave. I’d like to accommodate his wish, despite whatever sentimentality I might hold for my countryman. It’s nothing personal but if I can get another wing player in here that can hold us I would take the transfer fee I’d get from Bobby’s sale.

The other news concerned Derby and David Jones. Manchester City came in with a bid of £8.5 million for the player and Derby’s board accepted the bid. That was a lot more than I was willing or able to pay for the player but my guess is that Billy Davies is not the happiest man in the world. Jones is a quality player.

Davies still wants Sonko and he still can’t have him, but now that he’s got some new money to spend I might find myself in the same position as he was in with Jones before too long. This club is on a sound financial footing and one of the reasons for that is because it is willing to sell certain players.

Doyle was one. I’d have loved to keep him but the board accepted Blackburn’s offer of £7 million prior to my arrival. If Derby now offers enough for Sonko my board could easily give me a month to come up with a replacement at a profit for the club.

It’s odd, regarding Doyle, though – Coppell was probably none too pleased at the sale before he left for United, but his new club has been non-existent in the transfer market since he arrived there. I can’t help but think they’ll be spenders before the season starts.

Liverpool hasn’t spent a lot either, but then they may not have felt the need as the defending champions with a very fine team already intact. The pretenders, including this club until we can prove otherwise, are doing all the scrambling to be able to challenge.

# # #

I think Patty feels badly. We talked into the wee hours last night and after I finally managed to convince her that I genuinely wasn’t angry at her for running her own life, we talked about what the next week will bring.

“I do want this to be done so I can get back to my life,” she said. “That’s the main thing, Rob. I want to stop the wagging tongues and show people that all I want is a normal life. In the long run that will help you too.”

“But why not just let the furor die out?” I asked. “If you don’t say anything, maybe they’ll go away.”

“You know better than that. There are still newspapers here investigating Princess Diana’s death,” she reminded me. “I’m not comparing this to that, but you know as well as I do that if this media decides it wants to cover something, they have memories like elephants.”

# # #

This morning when we woke up, my eyes opened to her sweet face hovering over me. “Hi,” she smiled, her slightly rumpled expression reminding me that some women look heaven-sent first thing in the morning.

“Well, what did I do to deserve this?” I asked, as she nuzzled me under the covers.

“You refused to fight with me last night even though you weren’t happy,” she said. “I thought about it last night after you went to sleep and I couldn’t doze off. It was sweet of you, it was kind of you and above all it made your point. Not everyone would have done it like that.”

“You flatter me,” I said.

“Well, before I found out he was married, Peter would never be like that,” she said. “It was his way or the highway. That was pretty bad.”

“For more reasons than one,” I said. “But why bring him into it? He’s nowhere to be found now.”

“Because I’ve had it bad, and now that I have it good, I want you to know about it,” she said, surrounding me with her warmth. “You should know that I understand.”

I looked up at her, admired her sweet smile, and wondered why she had chosen to talk about McGuire. I decided to forget about it and simply enjoy my wife’s overpowering beauty.

I gave her a soft good-morning kiss and finally smiled in return. “You are going to give them a wonderful photo shoot, I’m sure,” I said. “I’ll do my very best to help.”

# # #

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this is a truly great story but i just hate reading off of a computer screen. not only it hurts my eyes after a while but i hate having to scroll as i read. would it be ok to copy and paste it all onto word and print it out (with the authors permission?). anyway brilliant work. i hope to write in FMS one day too.

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Moaner - Quite a few other people print out their own copies so they can read it whilst they're on holiday etc. - I'm sure 10-3 won't have a problem with it. ^^

10-3 - Could this get any better? Not quite sure why you'd want to buy Shaun Maloney, but I reckon the Rat Pack will be doing well this season ^_^

P.S. Kerlon's a nutter. ^_^

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Moaner - thank you for the kind words. Viper is quite right - printing is fine. Flattered to be asked.

Viper, as for your question, remember Rob likes the "Five-P" system. In my game, Maloney scores a solid four. And remember, this is the "Rat Pack" - Shaun Maloney would come to Reading in a time when others do not wish to come to Berkshire. The squad needs strengthening in key areas and I don't have the muscle to bring in Galacticos. Or do I? :)

Kewell, one of my key goals in life is to avoid insanity. So please read on. :)

___

Saturday, August 2

Reading v. Cardiff City (Friendly Match #4)

The players had a chance at a little redemption tonight and I had to admit as I arrived at the ground that our opposition was perfect for us to make the attempt.

Cardiff City finished second in the Championship last season behind West Brom and received automatic promotion. Charlton Athletic qualified through the playoffs to become the third new member of the top flight.

They’re far from minnows, yet the Bluebirds were ideal – a future Premiership opponent to provide the challenge, but one we ought to be able to handle at home, all things being equal.

I went back to an eleven that’s far more likely to start against Chelsea than the Yeovil group. That meant Dagoberto alongside Kitson up front with Maloney making his first appearance in a Reading shirt in the central midfield role.

The players knew what I expected from them and in nine rather wonderful first half minutes, I was delighted to note that they gave it to me.

The Brazilian started it. Dagoberto finished with aplomb on twenty minutes from a very nice cross by Faé, who really looks like he wants to play on the right side of my midfield.

Not to be outdone, Kitson stretched the visitors’ net only five minutes later, knocking in a rebound from his strike partner’s curling twenty-yard free kick to get us two to the good.

At home we seem to be halfway decent and I felt it a shame the place was only one-third full to watch us put on another offensive display. This feeling was only highlighted four minutes after Kitson’s goal when Maloney was felled in the area to earn us a penalty.

All sorts of bad memories flooded through my head as Maloney put the ball on the spot, looking to score a goal the first time he put on a Royals shirt. Padova’s travails from the penalty spot were well-documented last season, but Shaun, like Kitson against FC Twente, showed me that the Premier League is a bit different by scoring a wonderfully-taken effort to make it 3-0 still within the first half hour.

Our crowd’s appetite for goals had been sated for the time being and for my part I was curious to see how they would handle the last third of the first half. The answer was quite well, thank you very much, and the whistle went with us still holding the three-goal advantage.

There are only so many things you can say when your players do everything you ask of them, so I was quite happy to tell them how good they had been while I enjoyed a cold drink in the changing room.

We were relaxed and in firm control of the match, which was proven beyond doubt by Dagoberto. The Brazilian completed his brace on 62 minutes with a stylish finish from Lita’s backheeled square ball. The goal provided more than a bit of “showtime” and the remaining fans in the stadium showed their appreciation in proper fashion.

We did a great job on them. As Dave Jones and I cleared our benches for the last twenty minutes, I watched my players do a thoroughly professional job to close out our opponents. They had gotten the message loud and clear.

Reading 4 (Dagoberto 20, 62, Kitson 25, Maloney pen 29)

Cardiff City 0

A- 8,482, Madejski Stadium, Reading

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Thank you, O\'Hara!

____

“That’s it … hold it … got it!”

Flashbulbs popped and Patty blinked her green eyes to remove their glare from her gaze.

“That’s a wonderful look, love,” the photographer said, checking the digital picture in his viewfinder. He set up for another shot, and changed Patty’s pose on the veranda in our backyard.

She didn’t care for his choice of words, but this is England after all, and it’s common parlance. She wore a white blouse with the diamond necklace I had bought her for Valentine’s Day showing tastefully at her neck, with khaki capri pants and summer shoes that flaunted her perfect legs to the point where she looked almost unfairly beautiful.

At her insistence (okay, and at mine too), the pictures were quite tasteful, showing Patty relaxing in our backyard. At my direct insistence, the pictures were framed in such a way as to not give away the location of said backyard to anyone we didn’t want to deduce it.

The photographer shook his head. “Love, you’re a stunner,” he said, reviewing his pictures. “I’d plan for more of these kinds of shoots once things get better for you. When people see these they’ll go mad!”

She blushed. “Thank you, Mr. Fairfax,” she said, being a lot more formal with him than he was being with her. Since he was fully ten years Patty’s junior, he got a kick out of it. “Yet, I don’t think someone my age is a threat to Lisa Snowdon.”

“You’re the same age she is,” the photographer replied, showing perhaps a bit too much knowledge of Patty’s personal life for her true comfort. “Anyhow, it’s not for either of us to judge. These pictures will be wonderful and we know people want to see them. You never know what might happen.”

The photographer snapped away, taking about a hundred photos of Patty. She was seeing spots before too much time had passed but she lost track of time while the work proceeded. By the time I got home from the match, Fairfax in our living room, packing his gear to leave.

“Wonderful shoot,” he told me as he left. “Your wife may become more popular than she intended.”

I walked through the room, taking my favorite chair while Patty straightened up the debris from the photo shoot. She had changed clothes twice during the shoot, and hangers were tossed in various places to get them out of the way. Thankfully, I didn’t come home to my wife’s clothes strewn all over the room, as the resulting heart attack would have been most unpleasant.

“More popular than you intended?” I finally asked, as she finally sat beside me.

“Let’s not get carried away,” she said. “Mr. Fairfax was trying to boost my confidence in my decision.”

I shook my head. “No, honey, that’s not what Mr. Fairfax was doing,” I said, opening my arms to her so she could sit in my lap. She did, leaning her head against me, and I held my wife close to me.

“What he was doing was angling for the next shoot, because he wants there to be a next shoot,” I said, kissing her forehead. She tucked her pretty head against my shoulder and sighed.

“I have to admit it, Rob,” she said. “I liked how he treated me even if I didn’t care for everything he said. And who knows, if something happens and they want more pictures, it could mean I wouldn’t have to go back to work for awhile longer.”

“You’ve got a new job,” I said. “And remember, I offered to fix it so you wouldn’t have to work if you didn’t want to.”

“I know,” she answered. “And I didn’t think it was right. But this was fun, Rob. I hadn’t counted on it being this much fun.”

# # #

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I can see an argument between them building up (maybe even for sooner than later).

I very much like the way in which you give credence to every day life events and not just stick to the football aspect of it.

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I'll do my best, Kewell. Using spellcheck today. :D

____

Monday, August 4

There’s no more hiding it. This weekend we start for real, with one of the ultimate tests in the English game to start our season.

Chelsea’s multi-millionaires are the visitors and they’re going to bring £87 million worth of new talent to the Madejski on Saturday afternoon.

The media are wondering if Roman Abramovich paid over the odds for Giuseppi Rossi, but the £37 million they gave Barcelona for the young striker will be well spent if he can find a route to goal against my Royals. I’ve got worries all over the pitch against them but I have a very upbeat squad with which to meet those concerns.

We’ll play Chelsea without two of our players, only one of which had any chance to feature. Second-choice keeper Adam Federici and reserve midfielder Oliver Bozanic left this morning for China, as members of the Australian Olympic Team. They’ll be gone for most of the month.

It means I’ll need a reserve keeper as one of my seven substitutions for the match but I had bigger fish to try this afternoon. I got a real education about one of the differences between a smaller Italian league and the big time in England. I held my first daily press gaggle and the change was dramatic.

At Padova, I would greet a few local reporters, fence with the generally unpleasable Emiliani and head off to do my job. Today, though, it was quite different.

Perhaps due to our celebrated opposition, my briefing room was full. Though Reading is of course west of London there are those uneducated folks who like to consider our matches against the London clubs a sort of mini-derby. I don’t always see it that way – with the possible exception of West Ham – and I don’t like the added scrutiny of those who consider us a greater London club.

Obviously, there’s a lot at stake for me personally so I’m trying to keep as level a head as I can. It’s my debut, I have one of the largest clubs in the world trying to ruin my party, and I’ve got transfer targets I’m trying to attract on my plate as well.

It has been quite a turnaround. In March of this year I managed a match in Italy before less than 900 supporters. Soon I’ll be at Old Trafford in front of 78,000 screaming United fans, at Anfield, at the Emirates, at Stamford Bridge, you name them. It will be a turnaround like I couldn’t have imagined even a few short months ago.

Yet, this is why I’m in the business. This is why I decided I wanted to get into management when I was an active player at Ibrox. This is why I went through the UEFA training and put up with all I put up with last year in Italy. It was to experience that moment on Saturday when I’ll walk onto a Premiership pitch as a manager for the very first time. It doesn’t get any better than that.

That was what the media wanted to talk with me about during today’s briefing. “Avram Grant is a tough test for your first Premier League match,” I was informed.

“I daresay his players will be equally tough,” I smiled. “During my first trip around the league especially, I’m going to look quite carefully at how people manage. Last season was a bit odd in that everyone who started the season with a Premiership team finished the season with that same team, so the video I have from last season will stand me in good stead as I learn management styles. But yes, Avram Grant is a fine manager, as is just about everyone who makes it here.”

“Freudian slip?” one of the reporters asked. “Just about everyone? Do you mean Alan Pardew, who released you from here?”

“I don’t play those kinds of games,” I said immediately. “I don’t take shots at opposing managers unless they take a shot at me first. Alan and I got on fine when he managed here and I was a player. He released me and that’s football. To suggest that I don’t wish him well at Charlton this season would be a disservice both to my character and to Alan’s ability.”

# # #

I know full well that Alan Pardew is not the best-liked man in Berkshire, in part because he’s a good manager. He was boss from October 1999 to September 2003, until West Ham came calling.

The Hammers asked John Madejski if he would mind terribly if they approached Pardew about becoming their manager. The chairman said, “Why yes, I’d mind quite a bit”, and denied them permission. However, Pardew then earned the enmity of the Reading faithful by resigning his position to take over at West Ham.

Madejski brought an injunction against Pardew and West Ham to prevent the move, which was later dropped. Pardew was then sacked by West Ham’s biscuit baron Eggert Magnusson before heading to Charlton just in time to see them relegated to the Championship two seasons ago.

However, Alan brought Charlton back up at the first time of asking and will now be my adversary this season. Reading fans will love to see him again, I’m sure. And it could be worse – after the issues of two seasons ago, I’m sure any resentment I might have with Alan would take a back seat to Arsene Wenger’s.

But, I digress. “Alan has nothing to do with this week,” I said. “Please, let’s stick to Chelsea since we’ve already got a full plate with them coming in.”

“Shevchenko, Drogba, Rossi, Ballack, and the rest,” said a reporter who had evidently memorized their team sheet. “How do you cope?”

‘They’ll have world-class players all over the pitch,” I admitted. “We have internationals on our team as well, though, and they’ll have a plan for dealing with Chelsea. I can promise you that. My job is to convince you in the media that not only will Reading show up for all 38 matches this season, we may even win one or two of them by the time the season is done.”

Yet the talk centered around stopping what some pundits are already calling a Chelsea juggernaut. They’ve spent more than double what the next team has in the market – Aston Villa is next at just over £36 million – and there’s an even more startling statistic to come.

Chelsea has spent ten times the transfer funding of the other members of the big four – combined. United, Arsenal and Liverpool have been virtually silent through the first part of the window but with their financial resources you can bet they’ll spend something before August is over. I can’t imagine them not keeping up with the Joneses – or the Abramoviches.

# # #

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Ah, finally caught up with Signor Rob. I must confess I was disappointed that he left Italy - the culture clash was one of my favourite things about the story - but 10-3's customary attention to detail is ensuring a fascinating second chapter. Long may he run!

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Polar Bear, glad you are keeping up with the story. The game works in mysterious ways sometimes, and when one of those ways is a roughly 1800 percent raise for the protagonist, it seemed wise to see where it would take him ....

____

I’ve been doing a fair amount of trying to keep up this week – I’ve had one bid accepted and another tabled which excites me quite a bit. One of those bids may even change our image as the Premiership’s “club of last resort”.

Boro accepted our bid for Pogatetz and we entered into negotiation today on personal terms. He won’t break the salary structure and we seem to have the inside track on his signature since we were fortunate enough to get to his agent first. This is one case where Reading’s financial prudence is a help rather than a hindrance.

We’re far enough under the payroll budget that when we found Pogatetz’s personal terms were well within our structure, we could send back a note of general agreement far before anyone else who’s also in for his signature. We have a huge advantage and we intend to pursue it.

The other potential signing would fill a significant void on the squad. We’ve met Chelsea’s valuation of £6.5 million for Salomon Kalou, who has been made redundant by the arrival of Rossi at Stamford Bridge. I don’t want Kalou as a striker so much as a left-sided midfielder, where he excels.

Kalou can play all three midfield positions as well as serve as a fast striker in a pinch. He is fabulously versatile, quick as lightning and very much the player I want to fill out my midfield. When I got word today that Chelsea agreed on a purchase price, I had to read the message three times to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks.

Still, having Kalou in our shirt by buying him from the team we play on Saturday isn’t likely. First, if I were Chelsea I wouldn’t hurry on the paperwork, and second, he’s still at the Olympics captaining the Ivory Coast team. As long as he’s playing in Beijing, I’ll need to be a bit patient. If he doesn’t mind becoming a Rat, that is.

# # #

Kalou’s news is on the QT, of course, so after giving the players yesterday off, I made sure they had a solid start to their work week today. They know what’s at stake. The day began with video and a new training schedule, with slightly less emphasis on conditioning than the players have had over the last few weeks. Amazingly, I didn’t get a single complaint about that.

That said, we’re going to get pegged back in a hurry if we aren’t physically ready for ninety minutes against a very good, and comparably young, Chelsea squad. They got younger in key places and the energy their youth can provide makes me tired just watching on video.

We don’t expect Rossi to start against us. He has been coming off Grant’s bench in their pre-season friendlies to date but we still have to worry about Didier Drogba and the resurgent Andrei Shevchenko, who is showing why Abramovich spent all that money to buy him off Milan two years ago.

I do, however, expect Alves to get the nod and looking at their back line plus Petr Cech I wonder how on earth we’re going to put pressure on them.

It’s at times like these that I have to trust my players, but as I head into my first official match in charge I’m still learning who is worthy of that trust. I can’t imagine a more difficult challenge.

# # #

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Tuesday, August 5

The Setanta Sports pre-season Premiership preview has made a few people laugh around the stadium today, and I think it comes at a good time for laughter in our preparation. The fact that it comes at my expense is something I’ll just have to deal with.

They previewed all twenty Premier League clubs in a two-hour special last night and a music video they did for my hiring was the talk of the ground today.

I hope they’re still smiling after Saturday, because the song they chose is ironically one of my favorites, by the Chairman of the Board himself, the late Frank Sinatra.

I sat at my desk this morning prior to the morning training session when Dillon arrived, flipping a DVD onto my desk. “Morning, Rob,” he said with a cheery smile. “You may want to have a look at this. People are going to be asking you about it today.”

I inquired as to what it was, and my deputy explained. With some apprehension, I put the DVD into my portable player on my desk and immediately saw a montage from my welcome news conference – with video of Patty, which was important due to her new-found celebrity – and some touchline video from our home friendlies set to music. It was a good thing that Setanta had ten goals from which to choose in those friendlies, but the music grabbed me right away.

It was the tune and the words that immediately made this no ordinary video. The song was Sinatra’s 1962 release “Mr. Success”:

When I walk through a jam

No one knows who I am

Put your head on my chest

And I’m Mr. Success

Never closed me a deal

All at once I'm a wheel

Just your head on my chest

And I'm Mr. Success

Why, I once knew a worrying man

He was a hurrying man

With never a second to play

He had appointments to keep

People to meet

And it took thirty hours to make him a day

Not for me

Not what I wanna be

Put my love to the test

That's when I'm at my best

‘Cause with you, pretty baby, standing by my side

I couldn't be a failure even if I tried

‘Cause you make me

Mr. Success

I shut off the player and looked at Dillon.

“Well, Mister Success, suppose you and I go run training,” he laughed. My return glare showed I wasn’t on the same humorous wavelength as my deputy.

“I don’t care who you are, that’s funny, right there,” I scowled, in my best Larry The Cable Guy imitation, making my point abundantly clear as I prepared to run training.

I shook my head. Those clowns in Italy who had conspired to create so much damage may well have created trouble they had never intended. They’ve made a glamour girl out of my wife, they’ve brought untold pressure into our lives and they’ve turned me into something I’ve never intended in the eyes of the English media. It is going to be a very interesting season.

The song is right, though, if Setanta’s intention was to make a point. I haven’t won anything of real importance in this game – never ‘closed me a deal’, as the song says – and I have to prove I belong. I’ll be under pressure from the beginning.

# # #

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Wednesday, August 6

It was over quickly – and in this case, that’s just the way I like it.

Emanuel Pogatetz has agreed terms with us, the money for his sale is in Middlesbrough’s account and the player was on hand for training this morning.

He’s a welcome addition, and I’m pleased that we stole a march on Bolton to get his signature. I rang Madejski this morning to thank my chairman for opening the vault and he was only too happy to be generous in reply.

“Rob, if you think spending money is going to help, that’s fine provided we are within budgets. Show me you spent wisely.”

I’m getting a player who is match-ready thanks to Gareth Southgate and I met with him this morning to discuss his overall fitness.

“I will show you,” he promised. “I am prepared to do whatever you require.”

Defensively, I want Bikey head-up against Drogba instead of playing in midfield, and Sonko will get Shevchenko. That means the right midfield role is Faé’s by default, at least for the first match.

As a result, I spent most of today’s training with my defenders, going over how to play against both Chelsea’s great strikers and their fine midfield corps.

During the training I was increasingly impressed by Ferreira’s attitude as well. I’ve got the competition for places that I want to have. So even though two of the group of Ferreira, Rosenior, Pogatetz, Sonko, Bikey and Ingimarsson will start on the substitute’s bench, the idea of them all pushing hard for places appeals to me.

So as we worked, and as I watched a stable of pretty good defensive talent around me, I began to feel a little confidence in our chances on Saturday. It’s about time.

# # #

Patty’s pictures are on the NOTW website today with excerpts of the coming article and it’s another distraction – during Chelsea week – that I could frankly live without. Yet, she’s my wife and that means I support what she does.

Thank goodness the excerpt seems mostly positive, written by Jeannine Callaghan, who attended my welcome news conference. She had done her homework, which was welcome, but in the finest tradition of tabloid media she made our situation more dramatic than it actually is.

At least Callaghan didn’t say we ran away to England out of fear. We didn’t. If I hadn’t gotten this offer from Reading, I’d still be at Padova. At least, I think I would. You never know for sure in this business.

The trials of those involved in Marsley’s circle are scheduled to begin soon. Since the people who will now be in the dock were the leaders of “The Supporters”, we can have reasonable expectation that when their trials are done, our personal trials will be done at the same time. Patty and I deserve that.

But on the web, my wife stole the show. Her pictures looked fantastic, especially by contrast to the much smaller stock photos of me taken during the Cardiff friendly and printed to show that yes, the beautiful Patty Myers Ridgway does in fact have a husband.

My bride’s reaction to the story was a little subdued. She knows that now she is in the public eye and if the article gets the reaction it might, she may have some hard choices to make.

So for a change she was preoccupied as we sat together at home this evening.

She was reading a book, legs folded underneath her as she sat on the couch. As I watched her I knew something was on her mind. Her lips were drawn in an adorable little pout of concentration, something she doesn’t usually do while reading.

“Penny for them, babe,” I said, looking away from the BBC news for a moment.

She thought for a long moment and finally put down her book. “You know, it’s one thing to dread seeing your picture in print and quite another to look at it once it’s actually happened,” she said. “I read the article and I thought they did a nice job but it’s odd to see the picture be mine when I’ve spent my career making sure other people get their picture in the papers.”

I smiled. “I’ve never gotten used to seeing my picture in publications and it’s happened hundreds of times,” I said.

“Well, it’s different for me, I guess,” she said. “I looked at those pictures and I was dreading that they’d choose the wrong ones even after they gave me a list to choose from. Is that too image-conscious of me?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” I said. “You’ve told me you aren’t a model, so if you want to simply fade into the woodwork then you have every opportunity to do so. From what I’m hearing, though, it seems to me like deep down you don’t mind being on the other side of the camera.”

She thought my words through. “Honestly? I didn’t mind all this, Rob. I enjoyed the experience, I like the idea of people seeing that I’m married to you and in a way I don’t mind the idea of revenge.”

“How so?”

“They tried to hurt both of us,” she said. “If our relationship can make national news after all this, it shows just how completely they failed in their task.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that, of course. But as I looked at Patty sitting across the room, I saw a bit of a changed woman. When we met she was quite shy and defensive – trying to defend herself from McGuire’s accusations would certainly do that to a person – but now she was a lot different.

Her confidence and self-belief were really great to see. Her transformation has been quite dramatic, and she is doing a terrific job of projecting an image that I find amazingly sexy.

I sat back in my chair and wondered which member of the new, improved Ridgway clan had more moxie. I finally decided it wasn’t me.

# # #

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Thursday, August 7

I got two pieces of news from the front office today. First, It appears as though my hiring hasn’t destroyed our season ticket base.

The club has set a record by selling 18,498 season tickets, and they don’t plan to sell any more. Single-match tickets will now be the only way for non-season ticket holders to get to see us play and from my point of view that’s a significant worry off my mind.

I am still pretty sensitive from Padova’s money situation last season, which meant it took most of last season to get people to believe in us because we weren’t big spenders. Here, the fan base is intensely loyal and willing to show that loyalty with their purchase of tickets. We are also undergoing a stadium expansion, so the kind of financial flexibility we need may be just around the corner.

Second, the press office informed me that Saturday’s match is going to be very well attended by media. The press folks have issued three times the normal number of media credentials, and nearly all the difference is made up of American-based media outlets. I’m going to be busy.

It was nice news on a day dominated by preparation. Grant finally spoke about the match yesterday, and as one might expect he is looking to come to our stadium and get a result.

“I mean no offense but we look at Reading as a good test for our club,” he told a much larger aggregation of media yesterday. “We have a history of good matches with them and we know they will provide strong opposition for us.”

Reading between his lines, so to speak, that means he is looking to roll us on our own ground. We don’t need motivation to play them, so I was able to brush off Grant’s comments in the best way I could when I talked with media this afternoon.

“Avram is supposed to say that,” I said. “He’s got the most expensive club in the world. If he doesn’t say that, people will say he needs his head examined.”

It also took until today for me to receive a question I had frankly been anticipating since my arrival. Someone finally asked about my nationality.

“Do you feel added pressure?” I was asked.

“No more than Grant would have felt by being the first Israeli to manage in the Premier League,” I said. “I went through all this in Italy last season. Managing in this league has all sorts of pressure to it and I refuse to add to it by doubting myself due to where I’m from.”

I got a few surprised looks, so I elaborated.

“I spent sixteen seasons in this game. Thirteen of them were in Europe, eleven of them were in Great Britain and five of them were right here in this town,” I said. “I played for some good managers and watched some good managers. Do you honestly think I’m going to head out to the touchline on Saturday and say ‘you know, that counts for nothing. I’m a Yank so I’m going to get my brains beat in?’ Honestly?”

“So are you nervous?”

“A manager who says he isn’t nervous isn’t telling you the whole truth,” I said. “I know there are special managers out there but we all have the same job. We prepare our teams for what we expect to see from our opponents, we work with our players and at the start of the match you take your hands off the wheel and see the job you’ve done. You do have the element of tactical control but in the end, how the players play is the thing that determines whether you keep your job. There’s an element of nerve in that.”

“Who frightens you the most on that club?”

There was a real ‘crossroads’ question. Given the way media would interpret any answer I gave – which is to say, sensationally – I had a choice to make.

If I admitted what I surely felt, I’d be branded as frightened. If I took the brave road, I’d be accused of bragging. Finally, I said the only thing I could say.

“We respect all their players,” I said. “I would hope they respect all of ours. That said, we need to get Drogba stopped as a matter of principle because if we don’t we’re in for a long afternoon.”

Didier Drogba is perhaps the best pure goal-scoring talent in the EPL, but he’s a streak scorer. When he’s on his game he’s often unstoppable but when he’s not, the idea is not to wake him up. I’d like Drogba taken out of the contest as quickly as possible.

That would merely leave us with Shevchenko, who scored 21 goals in all competitions last season for the Blues. Excedrin Headaches Nos. 1 and 2 await.

# # #

I also got some very surprising news today. Chelsea has accepted our bid for Salomon Kalou.

The news, in and of itself, isn’t so surprising. The surprise comes from our having communication with the club we’re playing this weekend on a business level. Still, millions are millions and if Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon see that they can take a few of John Madejski’s as they prepare to play us, it’s certainly their right to accept.

We would have no possibility of having Kalou for the weekend anyway, since he’s at the Olympic Games, but we’ll first have to agree personal terms as well as apply for a work permit from the Home Office. That shouldn’t be a problem – the Ivorian is a fixture in his national side every bit as much as his teammate and countryman Drogba – but a player of his ability is well worth the money we’re spending and I’m willing to wait to get him.

A host of other clubs are in the chase for Kalou including free-spending Aston Villa, equally free-spending Manchester City and ambitious Blackburn, who have both bought and lost significant players of note this close season. However, we’ve had a bid accepted and we lost no time getting in contact with Kalou’s agent.

The news of the accepted bid hit the wires just as training dismissed for the day, so I was able to duck the assembled local media with relative ease on my way back home.

That was a good thing for me. I don’t need any more issues with the season opener just 48 hours away.

# # #

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Thanks, Copper ... I appreciate your support as always!

____

Friday, August 8

The nerves are starting to build ahead of tomorrow’s match.

There’s plenty of reason for nerves, of course, but also the fixture list is going to play an early role in my nervousness. We are scheduled to travel to London at midweek next week to face Spurs and that means we started to install the plan for that match today. We won’t have much time to implement that plan, of course – so Monday’s training session is going to be quite busy indeed.

I guess I can’t help the nerves. Two years ago I was playing in Italy’s second division and wondering if I could latch on to a club to start my managerial career. Tomorrow I’ll be in arguably the highest-profile club league in the world, leading international players against one of the top teams on the planet.

I lay awake during the wee hours this morning as Patty lay in peaceful slumber at my side. I started to count the holes in the bedroom ceiling, gave it up as a bad job because it was still just dark enough to make the process frustrating, and finally turned my head toward my wife.

I love watching Patty sleep. I like it even better when she’s next to me. She’s got her own worries but I know part of her is worried for me, which is actually a good feeling in its way.

Last season when I had worries with the media or with any of the myriad of problems that affected us, I was alone with my fears at night. Now, I’ve got a wonderful woman who I know is there, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

She faced me, sleeping on her left side, and I forgot about my nerves while I simply watched her breathe. Her chest rose and fell in soft, silent rhythm and it was all I could do not to reach out and touch her.

Ridgway, you’re a lucky son of a gun,” I whispered to myself as I gave into temptation. I reached over and gently caressed Patty’s face as she slept.

Sleeping lightly, my wife woke up, with less agitation than you might expect from someone awakened from her slumber.

Rob,” she whispered, moving closer. “Are you all right?”

Can’t sleep,” I replied. “And you look wonderful.”

She smiled softly and kissed me. “Thanks,” she replied. “So do you. Even at quarter to three in the morning.

I took Patty in my arms and she sighed with pleasure. She softly pushed me to my back. Gently, she slid over me and smiled down at me from above.

I’m going to prove it,” she said, wiggling her hips with a delightful little giggle. “Wives get to do that to their husbands.”

# # #

I wish I could say the rest of my day was as relaxing as 3:12 a.m. was, but I can’t so I won’t.

I gave an interview in the morning for the club website, which was posted by noon. Quite thorough, my friends in the PR department. I’ve been quoted accurately and fairly by media for the first time in I don’t know how long. Too bad it had to come from our own employees.

If that’s cynical of me to say, so be it. I got a rough ride last year from the press. So today, while people were sniffing around the training ground for one final story prior to the season opening match, I kept my distance.

It has been an active close season for a lot of teams. With three weeks still to go in the window, it might get more active yet – and in our case, I hope it does through Kalou.

Here’s a look at what each Premier League side has done to date, with a look at its record from last season and projected finish according to the media consensus:

# # #

Fourfourtwo.com's Premiership Preview

(all fees in millions, teams listed alphabetically)

Transactions through Friday, August 8

Arsenal

Last season's record: 21-9-8, 72 points, 2nd place

Manager: Arsene Wenger

This season's prediction: 4th

Players in: none

Players out: Mathieu Flamini (Espanyol, 2.25); Nicklas Bendtner, (Celta, Loan); Lassana Diarra, (Lazio, 9.25)

Aston Villa

Last season's record: 15-9-14, 54 points, 9th place

Manager: Martin O'Neill

This season's prediction: 8th

Players in: Curtis Davies (West Brom, 10.0); Enzo Maresca (Sevilla, 3.2); Reto Ziegler (Sampdoria, 11.00); Luis Ernesto Perez (Pumas, 4.8); Scott Brown (Celtic, 9.075)

Players out: Cieran Clark (Southampton, 0.11); Patrik Berger (Free); Shaun Maloney (Reading, 2.4)

Birmingham

Last season's record: 13-8-17, 47 points, 13th place

Manager: Steve Bruce

This season's prediction: 15th

Players in: Tomasz Kuszcak (Man Utd, 2.0); Gai Alberman (Beitar Jerusalem, .375); Jose Antonio Castro (America-MEX, 3;625)

Players out: Asa Hall (Cheltenham, .08)

Blackburn

Last season's record: 13-9-16, 48 points, 11th place

Manager: Mark Hughes

This season's prediction: 11th

Players in: Kevin Thomson (Rangers, 3.7); Kevin Doyle (Reading, 7.0); Javier Pinola (Nurnberg, 11.75)

Players out: Eddie Nolan (Sheff Wed, 0.55); David Bentley, Middlesbrough, 13.50); Keith Treacy (QPR, 1.9)

Bolton

Last season's record: 19-9-10, 66 points, 5th place

Manager: Sammy Lee

This season's prediction: 6th

Players in: Tranquillo Barnetta (Leverkusen, free); Filipe (Deportivo, Free); Nathan Dyer (Southampton, Free); Ismael Aissati (PSV, 11.0); Oscar Ustari (Getafe, 6.0)

Players out: Ivan Campo (Free); Stelios Gianakopoulos (Free); Nicolas Anelka (Tottenham, 16.0)

Cardiff City

Last season's record: 25-6-15, 81 points, 2nd place Championship

Manager: Dave Jones

This season's prediction: 19th

Players in: Robbie Nielson (Hearts, .350); Chris Eagles (Man Utd, free); Ovidiu Herea (Rapid, 1.1); Brad Jones (Middlesbrough, .150); Danny Guthrie (Liverpool, loan); Andret Vatca (Steaua, 1.2)

Players out: Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (free); Riccardo Scimeca (free); Michael Oakes (free)

Charlton Athletic

Last season's record: 24-8-14, 80 points, 3rd place Championship, playoff winners

Manager: Alan Pardew

This season's prediction: 17th

Players in: Castellis (Valencia, loan); Micu (Valencia, loan); Sisi (Valencia, loan); Mauro Zarate (Al-Sadd, 2.4)

Players out: none

Chelsea

Last season's record: 20-8-10, 68 points, 4th place

Manager: Avram Grant

This season's prediction: 3rd

Players in: Daniel Alves (Sevilla, 27.5); Giuseppe Rossi (Barcelona, 37.0); Andres Guardado (Deportivo, 22.5)

Players out: Paolo Ferreira (free); Khalid Boulahrouz (Everton, 5.0); Claudio Pizarro (Genoa, 1.3)

Derby County

Last season's record: 9-11-18, 38 points, 17th place

Manager: Billy Davies

This season's prediction: 20th

Players in: Ian Black (Inverness CT, 1.02); Francisco Duran (Liverpool, .150); Nene (AS Monaco, 6.0); Kamil Kosowski (Wisla Krakow, free); Sebastian Mila (Valerenga, .725); Nenad Kovacevic (RC Lens, 4.4); Szabolcs Huszti (Hannover 96, 9.25); Jaime Lozano (Morelia, 1.6)

Players out: David Jones (Man City, 8.5)

Everton

Last season's record: 17-11-10, 62 points, 6th place

Manager: David Moyes

This season's prediction: 7th

Players in: Khalid Boulahrouz (Chelsea, 5.0); Manuel Pasqual (Fiorentina, 7.25)

Players out: Leighton Baines (Real Madrid, 11.25); Nuno Valente (free)

Liverpool

Last season's record: 23-9-6, 78 points, champions

Manager: Rafa Benitez

This season's prediction: 1st

Players in: Ezequiel Garay (Racing, 7.0)

Players out: Besian Idrizaj (Southend, .220); Francisco Duran (Derby, .150); Ronald Huth (Empoli, .085); Harry Kewell (Wigan, free); Charles Itandje (Valladolid, 1.3)

Manchester City

Last season's record: 12-6-20, 42 points, 14th place

Manager: Sven-Göran Eriksson

This season's prediction: 13th

Players in: Yury Zhirkov (CSKA, 10.25); David Jones (Derby, 8.5)

Players out: Igor Paldan (Blackpool, .035); Danny Mills (free); Ousmane Dabo (Toulouse, .12); Fernando Belluschi (Napoli, 11.5)

Manchester United

Last season's record: 22-4-12, 70 points, 3rd place

Manager: Steve Coppell

This season's prediction: 2nd

Players in: Fabio (Fluminense, 1.2); Rafael (Fluminense, 1.2)

Players out: Tomasz Kuszczak (Birmingham, 2.0); Oliver Gill (Wolves, .300); Craig Cathcart (Reading, free); Chris Eagles (Cardiff, free)

Middlesbrough

Last season's record: 14-6-18, 48 points, 12th place

Manager: Gareth Southgate

This season's prediction: 12th

Players in: David Bentley (Blackburn, 13.5); Mariano Pavone (Betis, 7.5)

Players out: Stewart Downing (Real Madrid, 17.5); Brad Jones (Cardiff, .15); Emanuel Pogatetz (Reading, 6.0)

Newcastle

Last season's record: 9-13-16, 40 points, 16th place

Manager: Sam Allardyce

This season's prediction: 14th

Players in: Ivan Rakitic (Schalke, 8.0); Tomas Hubschman (Shakhtar, 10.0)

Players out: Nicky Butt (free); Peter Ramage (free); Stephen Carr (free)

Portsmouth

Last season's record: 12-6-20, 42 points, 15th place

Manager: Roland Nilsson

This season's prediction: 16th

Players in: Luizao (Vasco, 6.5); Gabi (Zaragoza, loan)

Players out: none

Reading

Last season's record: 15-13-10, 58 points, 8th place

Manager: Rob Ridgway

This season's prediction: 10th

Players in: Craig Cathcart (Man Utd, free); Andrea Gaspari (Brescia, .600); Paolo Ferreira (free); Shaun Maloney (Aston Villa, 2.4); Emanuel Pogatetz (Middlesbrough, 6.0)

Players out: Ulises de la Cruz (free); Kevin Doyle (Blackburn, 7.0); Marcus Hahnemann (free)

Tottenham Hotspur

Last season's record: 17-9-12, 60 points, 7th place

Manager: Martin Jol

This season's prediction: 5th

Players in: Nicolas Anelka (Bolton, 16.0)

Players out: Dimitar Berbatov (Juventus, 12.25); Tommy Forecast (Barnsley, .035)

West Bromwich Albion

Last season's record: 25-8-13, 83 points, 1st place Championship

Manager: Tony Mowbray

This season's prediction: 18th

Players in: none

Players out: Curtis Davies (Aston Villa, 1.0); Ronnie Wallwork (Chester City, free); Dean Kiely (free); Kevin Phillips (free)

West Ham

Last season's record: 14-12-12, 54 points, 10th place

Manager: Alan Curbishley

This season's prediction: 9th

Players in: none

Players out: Jimmy Walker (Walsall, .026); Nolberto Solano (free); Christian Dailly (free)

# # #

Yet today was spent in the office, after training, looking on video for anything else on Chelsea I might possibly use to my advantage tomorrow.

They’re quite a lot to look at on the pitch. Tonight, while I tried to sleep, I kept seeing Drogba and Shevchenko frolicking through my defense in my dreams. It wasn’t a pleasant night.

Finally, Patty couldn’t stand my tossing and turning any more. She rolled over to me just as she had this morning, but she wasn’t upset. She simply smiled.

“Am I going to have to teach you the same lesson I taught you this morning?” she teased. “Honestly, Rob, you do know how to keep a woman busy!”

Her humor broke a bit of my tension and finally, I dozed off. Once in dreamland, I slept hard.

# # #

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“Am I going to have to teach you the same lesson I taught you this morning?” she teased. “Honestly, Rob, you do know how to keep a woman busy!”

Her humor broke a bit of my tension and finally, I dozed off. Once in dreamland, I slept hard.

I bet you did....

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Kewell, thanks very much! Marchie and Copper, you never know what the stork may bring, I guess ... :)

___

Saturday, August 9

Reading v. Chelsea, EPL Match Day #1

When I woke up this morning the nervousness was gone.

The feeling was replaced by excitement. I was back in a top flight – perhaps even the top flight – and I quickly realized that this particular matchday experience was one I wanted to remember forever. So I wanted to approach it from a positive bent.

Patty did her level best to help. She rose before me this morning and made sure I was awake promptly at 7:30 with a soft kiss right on schedule.

“Up with you, then,” she said. “It’s time to show you off to the world.”

I pulled her to me playfully and I greeted my wife properly before rising and trudging off to the shower. I emerged feeling like a new man, and she had a light breakfast already prepared.

“Not too hungry this morning, I’d expect,” she said, and I smiled.

“I’m ready to go,” I said. “It’s time to see what we can do.”

# # #

At 9:00 I headed off to the stadium and with Patty to my left in my new Aston Martin, I felt good. The drive was quite pleasant – it was going to be a very nice late summer day – and as we rolled toward the stadium on the A4, I could feel myself growing in confidence.

Finally, I turned onto the Northern Way, passing a checkpoint barrier as I did so, before weaving through Hoops Way and Royal Way before making the last left onto Biscuit Way and the staff car park.

I pulled into my reserved space and shut down the engine. I looked at Patty, who had an expression of pure pride on her lovely face.

“Now, what’s that look for?” I teased, and she just smiled.

“You look fantastic,” she said, and I had to smile back at her. Today I decided to look the part and was wearing a brand new navy blue silk suit with a powder blue tie. “But you aren’t done getting dressed yet.”

She pulled me to her by my suit lapels for a kiss, but held on to the left one. She then reached into a small box on top of her purse and pulled out a new red rose. The last time she had done this, Padova was trying to clinch the Serie C1A championship on the last day of the season.

“It worked last time,” she giggled. “For luck.”

With a sweet smile, she pinned the boutonnière onto my lapel. I saw a television camera across Biscuit Way getting everything and knew someone had a very nice shot indeed.

“We’re on television,” I said softly, and Patty just giggled.

“Good,” she answered. “Now go and give ‘em hell, okay?” We got out of the car and walked hand in hand toward the stadium to the players’ entrance, adjacent to a hotel door.

The entryway was cordoned off to the public but once the football fans saw me and the men saw Patty, we had to stop for a bit. It felt strange to have people pushing match programs into my hands for autographs and Patty looked a bit distressed at all the newsprint photos she wound up signing, but in the end we got used to it.

Finally, the Chelsea coach pulled up and it was time to go inside. I waited for Grant, who was the first off his team’s conveyance.

He opened the door to the players’ entrance to find his host waiting on the other side.

“Welcome,” I said, extending my hand, and Grant shook it. The Israeli’s glowering demeanor was replaced, just for a moment, with a smile.

“Thank you, Rob,” he said. “Best of luck today.”

“You too, Avram,” I replied. “Afterward, stop by my office for a glass of wine if you like.”

As we parted for our respective changing rooms, I was left to think that wishing Chelsea the best of luck is sort of like offering the best of good fortune to a Marine sniper. It’s a nice gesture, but he’s good enough not to need it.

I arrived to find Lobont already there and fully dressed, sitting in front of his dressing stall. I moved to shake hands with my Romanian goalkeeper, who knew the size of the task he faced. With Federici gone to the Olympics, Bogdan was it today and he knew it.

I then left the rooms in search of my PR friend Andrew Waters. I found him in the press area, where the media was just starting to gather.

I handed him a computer flash drive. “Andrew, this is a song I want played before the match today,” I said.

“You know the songs we play when the teams enter, by tradition,” he said, and I nodded.

“Yes, I do, and they’re fine, but they’re both the same kind of song. I want to send a message today to anyone who cares to listen. Sometime between the end of the orchestral stuff and the kickoff, I want this played. Can you do that for me?”

“No F-bombs in it?” he smiled.

“Never,” I promised. “But I want to send a message through music. Can you do that for me?” I repeated the question and finally the young man got the message.

“I can, boss,” he said. “Good luck.”

“Good man,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder and returning to my job.

# # #

I wrote the eleven on the wipeboard at the front of the room as the players began to arrive.

Lobont, Pogatetz, Sonko, Bikey, Rosenior, Magallón, Convey, Maloney, Faé, Dagoberto, Kitson now appeared at the top of the board as the eighteen selected for the squad began their match-day routines. All except for Lobont, who was already done with his.

The players did their pre-match warmups and as they prepared for the match, I finally heard Lux Aeterna ringing out through stands that would be packed to the rafters for the first real match of the season. It hasn’t yet failed to send a shiver down my spine and it really is a nice way to get the crowd prepared for a match.

The time fairly flew, and soon the players were back in the changing room waiting for my first pre-match team talk. I emerged from my office, pulling on my suitcoat, and the room was silent. Dillon sat in the corner by the door, obviously as interested as anyone else in what I was going to say.

I took a breath and began. “Gentlemen, I’m proud to be here,” I began. “I’m proud to be in the English Premier League and I’m proud to take you into today’s match. The key word for today is just that – pride.”

“We are facing a club that spent £87 million on three players over the last six weeks, all of which you are likely to see today. They have money they haven’t even counted yet, and they’ve got clout in the game that we can only admire.” I paused for a moment and then broke into a wide smile.

“And they still have to come here, onto your pitch, and beat the Rat Pack if they want three points,” I said. “You have the ability to look these guys right in their eyes and deny them what they want. You can win this game today, gentlemen. Have pride in your shirt, have pride in this club and work hard for each other.”

My Padova players heard much the same message on more than one occasion last season but now it was time to see if it would work against one of the top club teams in the world.

“You will hear a phrase from me more than once this season,” I said. “The phrase is ‘make it happen’. You’ve got it within yourselves to do that – otherwise you wouldn’t be a top-half side in this league. Make it happen – for yourselves and for this club.”

They looked at me with an air of quiet confidence and that was reassuring to me. I concluded my talk. “Remember your assignments, under no circumstances let Drogba and Shevchenko find space in the channels, and do us all proud. You can do it. Now go get it done.”

# # #

We lined up in the tunnel and Sonko took the armband since Murty was not in the starting eleven. He stood next to John Terry at the front of the line and referee Uriah Rennie stood slightly behind them both.

Grant appeared from the visiting rooms and stood next to me. I nodded at him, and he at me. It was time to get started.

The referee nodded to the captains and the teams began their walk onto the pitch before a packed house.

The teams exchanged their pre-match handshakes and during the final moments before kickoff the song I wanted was snuck into the regular rotation. As I listened I thought it a bit ironic, given my past, that it came from the soundtrack of the movie The Italian Job.

The words I wanted from Kazzer’s Pedal to the Metal created quite a different atmosphere:

…but nowadays it’s difficult, I'm out on my own

Drive an ‘86 Jetta, hopin' that I could do better

But my car keeps me humble in the concrete jungle

Despite the wear and tear it seems to always get me there

...Highways and straightaways, off-roads and open roads

No matter where I go I'll still be makin' the show

And it's kinda like life when life treats you good

It's not what on the outside, it's what’s under the hood

...It doesn't matter what you drive, it's how you drive what you got

Discipline, you could win, just let the tires spin and begin

The journey of life with each stride, meet me on the other side

Let me know when you arrive sometimes we collide

Who I am doesn't reflect material wealth, my vehicle approaches, stealth!

I smiled as the words registered with my players, and I retreated to my dugout while the players on the pitch went through the usual pre-match niceties.

Just before kickoff, the Reading supporters “officially” welcomed me back with a very nice ovation, and as it continued I finally realized I had no choice but to step out of the dugout and acknowledge it.

I stood in the technical area, and did a slow 360-degree turn while returning the crowd’s applause, hands over head. When I finished I was facing the directors’ terrace, where Patty sat with the board. She was standing and applauding as well, and the sight sent a little shiver down my spine.

I gave Patty a little wave and she blew me a kiss. Looking up at her, I pretended to catch it, as I occasionally did when she watched live matches in Italy. That brought an even wider smile to her pretty face.

Rennie handed the ball to Shevchenko, who put it on the center spot for the kickoff. The referee blew his whistle, and I started my descent into dreamland.

# # #

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O'Hara, I realize losing Forecast will be a death blow to Spurs, but I listed every player who got a transfer fee. :DAnd as for Rennie, perhaps someone should ask Miles Jacobson that question!

___

Immediately, I was up and off the bench, striding to the front of my technical area to watch the opening moments of the match. A few chants from the visiting support of “Sit down, you’re blocking our view” rang out, which I accepted with good grace.

We started brightly. Both teams were obviously fired up for the first moments of the new season, and the high energy and excitement at having the schedule underway more than made up for some slightly ragged play.

We made the first threat four minutes into the match when Faé broke loose down the right touchline, taking the ball straight onto Ashley Cole at the left of the Chelsea defense. He then whipped an early cross to the middle for the raider, Maloney, who went down under a robust challenge from Michael Essien about twenty yards from goal.

Rennie gave the foul, and Maloney immediately slowed play, asking the referee to delay while holding the ball on his hip. The referee nodded, Maloney put the ball down, and the Chelsea defense set up its wall. Petr Cech, massive and intimidating as ever, issued the instructions. Rennie blew his whistle, and Maloney took the free kick himself.

He hit a truly wonderful effort that had Cech clearly beaten. The ball, unfortunately, didn’t cooperate, crashing resoundingly against Cech’s left post.

Faé, though, got a great jump on the ball and hopped right onto the rebound, squaring to the middle on his first touch. Maloney had followed his shot and sprinted toward Faé’s square ball. The only Chelsea defender in position to make a play was Terry, with his keeper still scrambling back to his feet.

Faé’s square ball slid inches past the despairing Chelsea captain and Maloney walked the ball into the open goal for a lead just five minutes into the match.

The Madejski exploded with joy and the ex-Celtic man sprinted toward the corner flag with the joy of a player who has scored on his debut. Frankly, his manager was pleased too. As Maloney took Faé’s square ball, I thrust a fist high into the air in celebration of the first goal in my charge. It was a very nice moment – less than five minutes into my tenure, we had the lead.

I headed back to the bench where Dillon was waiting with a handshake. “Only eighty-five minutes to go,” he smiled.

I gave him a rueful smile and turned my attention back to the match. He had to remind me?

# # #

Maloney’s early goal gave us an obvious boost but over the next fifteen minutes our visitors calmly reminded us what they were all about.

They moved the ball with confidence, patiently looking for opportunities to get it into useful positions. The central midfield of Essien and Frank Lampard was, naturally, technically excellent and highly proficient, which spelled bad news for us right on the twenty-minute mark.

The two of them advanced through the center of the park, with Magallón the player in best position to get in their passing lane. Yet he was late, and Essien’s incisive lead pass found Drogba’s run just ahead of the frantic Sonko.

Drogba brought the ball to control easily, spun, and rattled Lobont’s right post with a rocket that my keeper never had a prayer of parrying. However, Drogba’s shot rebounded off the outside of the post and behind for a goal kick instead of bounding back into play as Maloney’s had.

I sighed with relief but realizing the cameras were certainly on me and my reaction, chose not to exude the emotion I was feeling. Both Magallón and Sonko had been slow to pick up their responsibilities and it had nearly cost us.

Instead, I clapped my hands and whistled for Magallón’s attention. I made a ‘move up’ motion with my hands. “Challenge him, Jonny!” I called, and pointed at Essien. “Get in his grill!” Realizing he had little concept of the American euphemism, I gave a rough Spanish translation that said I would prefer my holding midfielder to be on Essien like a second skin.

Magallón had played too far back, giving us five in the box to defend but allowing space between the back line and the central midfield that Chelsea could, and did, exploit through technical excellence. And now as the players ran back up the pitch, Essien was laughing.

The Ghanian gave me a bemused expression as he jogged back up the pitch but I would have none of it. “Yeah, I want Jonny to challenge you,” I mumbled as Essien ran back up the pitch.

# # #

Over the next few minutes we again began to assert ourselves, showing our illustrious visitors that we could indeed hang with them. Dagoberto was giving Terry all he wanted due to his pace and flair, forcing Cech into a fine save on 27 minutes. Then his strike partner Kitson put Daniel Alves into the book with a bursting run that left the Chelsea debutant no option but to haul the big redhead back by his shirt.

I liked what I was seeing from the players at that moment, so when Rennie blew for halftime the cheers they earned from the home faithful were well deserved. Still, we were far from finished.

A happy group of players sat in front of their lockers for halftime refreshment and I stepped to the center of the room to get their attention.

“Great job, but half done,” I reminded them. “Shaun, great job taking your chance. Now we need to make it stand up. Don’t forget your assignments and above all, don’t let them off the mat. You’ve got them down – now’s the time to counter them and make it hurt. We’ll start the second half 4-1-3-2 and evaluate how they come out. Be ready for a flat 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 depending on the match situation and be ready to change at a moment’s notice. Regardless of how they come out and what formation we adopt, we’re going to play our match, not theirs. You need to be ready for it.”

I nodded to Dillon, who looked at me with an air of expectation. “Kevin, the floor is yours,” I said, and my deputy rose to make a few tactical points.

“The midfield needs to provide better pressure, especially on Essien,” he said. “He’s making them go and you’re letting it happen. Jonny, I know your primary role is to help the central defenders with their strikers but you can’t let Essien or Lampard have an easy route to goal. Watch your spacing. Shaun, that’s partly your responsibility too – I know you’re a late raider but when we’re ahead in the match we need you to understand your role as long as we stay in the 4-1-3-2 tactic. Make it easy for Jonny.”

Dillon’s understanding of a nuance in my favored tactic was great to see. I headed back to my office to sit for a few minutes while he took charge.

Again, the teams lined up for the start of the second half. This time, Grant had a much different look on his face.

# # #

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