Like Father, Like Son

[tenthreeleader]

Like Father, Like Son

He had been there before. Only he had no feeling of déjà vu.

Many times he had stood there, in the wings, watching the world swirling around his famous father as one controversy after another passed them like phantasms in the night.

Yet, when he had been there, things were different. The prizes were the European Cup, the Premiership, FA Cup, you name it – at one time or another, his father had won all three. There was a statue of him outside the stadium and even to mention his name in the hallowed halls of the stadium was to revere his accomplishments. He was, and would forever be, a club icon.

And now, the son was in the same place. More or less, anyway.

His career had been solid, for its part – like his father, a former Rangers defender but, unlike his father, he hadn’t been able to escape that career with his health intact. A brutal challenge in an Old Firm game – brutal, but clean in the eyes of the referee – had left him with a hideously broken leg from which it was doubtful that he could come back.

It turned out that even with all the family’s famed determination, his career couldn’t be saved, but even that didn’t stop him. It turned out that clubs all over England and Scotland were interested in finding out whether the 37-year old had his father’s managerial acumen, or even a scrap of it.

So, when his father’s old club came calling, the temptation was too much to resist.

The name of the place was different, but then after his father had left, the club had fallen on hard times. It used to be known as the Madejski Stadium, or “The Mad Stad” when things were going well – but now it was known as the Select Car Leasing Stadium, which had none of the same romance but all of the naming rights fees.

He stood at a podium in the 1871 Suite where his father had stood so many times, fighting battles for his club as well as for his personal honor.

Ryan Ridgway was the man now. And he was the man at Reading Football Club.

Notes: FM 23, home and major European nations loaded. Those who have read any of the Rat Pack stories or Legend in My Mind will note that I have taken liberty with some dates (and ages) for the purpose of narrative. But hey, it’s his world, we just live in it …

I will also admit that I've been looking for an inspiration to give me my "muse" back. The answer might have been right in front of me all along. Anyway, here's hoping.

# # #

[mark wilson27]

Its good to have you back writing sir...and its even better to have the Ridgeways back on the forum

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Mark. It's been hard to get motivated -- COVID wasn't kind to me or my family and it's been very hard to motivate. Hopefully this will do the trick. Good to be around the group again.

[tenthreeleader]

The cast of characters was different. But the tasks were still the same. Gone were the media hounds, the vipers who had tried to make the Premiership’s first American manager pull up his stakes and go home. Gone were the Italian media hounds, who deserved special recognition for all they had done along the same lines.

Gone were the ne’er-do-wells who had tried to crush the Ridgway family. Or, at least if they were gone, they weren’t making their locations known.

Ryan had hated them right along with his parents. It went on for years, until Ryan was old enough to understand what the word “vitriol” really meant. But by that time, his father had won the European Cup for Reading once and the Premiership twice – lofty achievements indeed for a provincial club who had never even been in the top flight until Steve Coppell put them there before bolting for Manchester United.

Rob Ridgway had put Reading on the map in a football sense and some people truly hated him for it. As in, to want to kill him for it. The people who had tried were truly gone – in prison, little lamented by anyone except those unfortunate enough to be in their immediate families.

The ringleader, a Reading board member called Sidney Richmond, was irretrievably gone – dead ten years, with his lifelong goals of owning Reading Football Club and firing Rob Ridgway both unrealized.

The night Richmond died, Ryan remembered his father’s reaction. It was perhaps ghoulish, but his father had popped the cork on a bottle of good champagne to celebrate. His mother, Patty Ridgway, had objected at first but when she saw the look in her husband’s eyes that said their family woes might finally be over, had acquiesced to a drink of the bubbly.

Reading FC had been a circus when Rob Ridgway was the manager, and part of that was his own fault. Possessed of an extremely strong will, and at times an ego to match, Rob was a dangerous man to cross. Yet nearly everyone seemed to try, and that only made him fight harder.

Seven years after coming to Reading, however, Rob suffered a heart attack. It was a warning shot from his body, and it was enough to force him into retirement. Things didn’t get any better for Ryan after that, as his beloved mother contracted breast cancer shortly after his father’s heart attack but had managed to beat her affliction with the same determination her husband had shown.

Now, they sat at home together in Berkshire when they weren’t traveling, and Patty loved the peace and quiet almost as much as she loved her garden. For now, all the football issues in the family rested with the Ridgway’s second son.

Rob Ridgway Junior had been miscarried, so the parents naturally tried to protect Ryan as best they could from the world’s vicissitudes when he was born two years later. Rob had blamed Richmond for worrying Patty to the point where she lost the baby, but he had never shared that with her. He knew what her reaction would have been, even if Rob had been right.

Ryan was determined to become his own man. Born in England to American parents, he had big shoes to fill, but in a time when being “the first” no longer mattered. That was freeing to Ryan and he took full advantage of it.

He had been a better player than his father, but it remained to be seen whether he would be a better manager. Surely, he wouldn’t have to deal with the same things his father had.

Surely.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Like his father with his mother, Ryan loved his wife with all his might.

He met the former Annie St. Cyr while playing at Rangers, and their relationship had quickly developed into a marital one – unlike his father’s, which had taken a lot more time.

Ryan had received his mother’s red hair and hazel eyes as biological gifts and, with a neatly trimmed full beard to augment it all, he was one of the most eligible bachelors in Glasgow. Annie then took him completely by storm.

Raven-haired with penetrating blue eyes, Annie was a vision and Ryan knew it. When she sat down with Patty Ridgway for the first time at dinner, the two hit it off immediately and both the Ridgway men knew that total success was within Ryan’s grasp.

They had married just six months before Ryan’s injury and he had said more than once that he might not have made it through as strongly as he did without her. Determination was woven into the family DNA, so she was perfect for him in more ways than one.

She never let him fall. She never let him fail. And she showed that she loved Ryan for a lot more than just football.

Rob would joke, inevitably, that in exchange for her steadfastness, Ryan should make him a grandfather. Try as they might, though, that hadn’t yet happened – and in the life of a young football manager, that can be for the best.

Ryan had other fish to fry.

In the first place, Reading would start the schedule on minus six points due to financial considerations from the year before. That had also led to a year-long transfer embargo against the club, which meant that any squad improvements would have to be done on free transfers. In short, Ryan’s task of avoiding relegation would be huge.

His squad wasn’t threadbare by any stretch – there were 64 players under contract at the club – but it meant that the tactic Ryan wanted to play might not always be in the cards if certain players weren’t healthy.

Ryan liked to press. In that regard he was very different from his father, who preferred to have his clubs wait deep before launching antiseptic counterstrikes that were as pretty to look at as they were lethal to the opposition. It was a philosophical difference – but a noticeable one.

Tactics would be everything in a situation where a club couldn’t expect reinforcement for an entire season. To avoid the drop to League One would be an immense challenge, but then it was even more pronounced considering where the club had been.

Rob Ridgway had led the Biscuitmen to European glory. The club’s unforgettable 2-1 triumph over Chelsea in an all-English final had cemented his place not only in Reading history but in football history as well. No American manager had ever come anywhere close to his accomplishment and that made it even more special to everyone at the club.

He had led them to a pair of Premiership crowns as well, in a day when no one outside of the Big Four ever won them. But after his heart attack and sudden retirement, things changed.

Longtime owner Sir John Madejski sold the club and its fortunes fell faster than a rock from the surface to the bottom of the Thames. Relegation followed a few years later and then lack of investment in the club nearly got it relegated twice. Jaap Stam, Sir Alex Ferguson’s great center-half at Manchester United and a gifted manager in his own right, couldn’t right the ship. It seemed that no one could. And then came the financial trouble.

Paul Ince, another former United star, left by mutual consent after the points deduction and that opened the door for Ryan. He hoped that the light at the end of Reading’s tunnel was not an incoming train.

# # #

[EvilDave]

A joy to have you writing again, tenthree - I'm already enjoying this a great deal, and look forward to seeing how another Ridgway fares in Reading. Glad you're feeling up to another story, these boards are a better place for it.

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, ED ... nice to be back home. It's fun to see all the young folk doing so well on the board!

_____

“We are better than this, gentlemen.”

Ryan had the first team squad gathered around him on the first day of training. They were all ears. They were tired of being the Championship’s chew toy and wanted something different.

“Nobody gives this club a chance. And that’s not acceptable. Not just to me, but it had better not be acceptable to any of you. You are the players who put on the shirt each week and fight for this club.  It should hurt you the most when we lose. We have to decide, and I would prefer that it be right now, that we aren’t going to take it anymore, that we are going to do what is required, and we are going to stay up.”

The first person to nod his head was Shane Long, which Ryan found interesting. Long had played for Rob Ridgway, who had sold him as a much younger player to give him the playing time his skill deserved. Now at age 35, he was back to close out his career at Reading. His first joking words to Ryan had been memorable – “Oh, God, not another Ridgway!” he had exclaimed in mock horror, but the situation was different now. Ryan Ridgway needed Shane Long’s talents in a way his father had not.

There were a very few other holdovers from Rob’s era still at the club. Chief physio Matt Herons was there, as was the venerable scout Steve Shorey, still going strong at age 72. Perhaps the most important holdover, though, was not a holdover from Rob’s era.

Midfielder Thomas Ince, son of the departed manager and arguably Reading’s best player, would require special treatment. Both the Inces knew that a change was probably good for the club, but that didn’t make it hurt any less and it certainly wouldn’t make the younger Ince any less susceptible to bids from other clubs looking to poke over Reading’s carcass before the season began.

The club also didn’t have a true first-choice goalkeeper, even though it had one keeper better than the others. It was also lacking depth in the midfield, especially in the holding positions, of which two would generally be required in Ryan’s preferred tactics. The squad was barely up to Championship standard and reinforcements would have to come from the u-21s if needed.

By the by, there was also something else new at Reading, something Ryan’s father had fought tooth and nail against: it had a Director of Football.

The core premise of the Richmond clan’s case against Rob Ridgway had been that he didn’t possess the needed skills to succeed in all the facets of running a club. Of course, this opinion was primarily held to encourage John Madejski to sell the club and allow the new ownership to sack the manager. But Rob had indeed shown a keen eye for acquiring talent and the result had been glory in domestic and European competitions alike.

Madejski had indeed sold the club, to Russian billioniare Anton Zingarevich, who soon moved away from it. That allowed Chinese businessman Dai Yongge, who built his fortune by building shopping centers out of former air-raid shelters, to buy it. He had presided over the dissolution of his former team, Beijing Renhe, over financial difficulties presumably exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

He then bought 75 percent of Reading’s shares and proceeded to supervise another financial crisis, resulting in that six-point deduction for financial instability amid rumors of not making payroll at times during the season. His sister, Dai Xiu Li, holds a seat on the board alongside Madejski, who is now an honorary life president of the club.

To say that Ryan was walking into a hornet’s nest would be an understatement. A fans’ group creatively named “Sell Before We Dai” is devoted to pressuring Yongge to sell the club before things get any worse.

So it wasn’t so much an internal struggle Ryan was walking into, it was a controversy between the board and the fans, one most managers would be wise to steer clear of provoking.

# # #

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by tenthreeleader
scraping off some rust.

[tenthreeleader]

And if that wasn’t enough, Ryan had intercontinental travel to worry about in the friendly schedule.

Ocean City FC, a Reading affiliate club located, not coincidentally, in Ocean City, New Jersey, was entitled to ask for a friendly. So, Yongge gave them one. That would have been fine had the next friendly, at Basingstoke Town, not been scheduled for 72 hours afterward. Trying to build fitness in a relatively small squad while flying back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean is not an easy thing.

After that, the team would have four whole days to prepare for the marquee visit of Spurs to Berkshire on the 9^th of July. Belgian second-division side SK Beveren was the last home friendly opponent before the last tune-up at Exeter City on the 23^rd. The Grecians would hopefully not provide too severe a test as the Championship opener at Blackpool was just one week later.

Winging their way westward, Ryan had his first real chance to talk shop with another ex-Bluenose. Alex Rae would be his assistant manager, who spent two comparatively pedestrian years in Glasgow both before and after making a name for himself at Millwall, Sunderland and Wolves.  

He was a veteran of 585 senior matches in England and Scotland, but he was also an authority on Paul Ince. The pair had worked together at MK Dons, Notts County and Blackpool with Ince’s departure at the first location and sacking at second ending Rae’s tenure at those clubs as well.

Ryan didn’t want to sack Rae, for the simple reason that there was little time and even less money to replace him. He knew Rae to be a good player and everything he had heard suggested he was just fine in an assistant’s role as well.

Ryan wanted to pick his brain both on the squad and on managing the Tom Ince as well. He was a player Reading could ill afford to lose.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as all that,” Rae said. “Tom knows it’s a business just like we all do. It’s not like he’s going to run asking for a transfer because the club let his dad go.”

“I just need to make sure,” Ryan replied.

“You could do worse than talk with Tom about it,” Rae smiled.

“I plan to,” Ryan answered. “I’d just like some idea of the ground I’m walking on before I do it.”

“Fair enough,” Rae answered. “I just don’t think I’d go into the conversation worried.”

2 July 2022
Reading v Ocean City

At halftime of the game in New Jersey, Ryan had his talk with Tom Ince. The two remained in the changing room as the rest of the squad went out to finish dismantling their amateur rivals.

Ince had helped set up three goals as Reading blitzed their genial hosts for five in the first half.

The players hadn’t had much time in Ryan’s preferred 4-2-3-1 look but they loved to press, so Ryan indulged them by pouring high pressure on the Ocean City back line.

But at half, five goals were more than enough and so Ryan pulled almost all the senior players he had brought on the trip, sent Rae out to look after the team at the start of the second half, and had his talk with his team’s top player.

It went well. Ince, who was on a multi-year contract and thus could generate money for the club through a sale, expressed his desire to stay and, not surprisingly, regret at his father’s predicament.

“There’s no money, gaffer,” he had said. “My dad couldn’t do anything without money and I hope you’re better than he was at doing so. All I know is he gave it his all.”

It turned out that Rae was correct. Ince didn’t appear to be in any sort of distress so Ryan could put that out of his mind.

The second team did just as well as the first team in the second half – they pumped home five more goals. The carnage including a goal after the team had been reduced to ten men thanks to Sam Hutchinson’s ludicrous two-foot challenge with the score 9-0. It was the first time Ryan since schoolboy days that he had seen any team score ten times, so the flight back to Heathrow was a happy one indeed, even if Hutchinson’s ears were burning after the match for getting a straight red card in a friendly match.

The remainder friendly schedule didn’t offer a whole lot of challenge except for Spurs, and Ryan was of two minds about that. On the one hand, he wanted his team to be as ready for the season as they could be against opponents who could make them better. On the other hand, this was a team that sorely needed a confidence boost and a few smaller teams used as cannon fodder wouldn’t hurt in providing it.

Such as on that day. Reading had 36 attempts to their hosts’ three, putting 18 on frame and ten in the back of the net along with 69 percent possession.

But, that was supposed to happen.

Ocean City 0-10 Reading
Ejaria 4; Loum 18; Casadel 20, 42; MeÏté 39; Hendrick 56; Carroll 63, 70 pen; Azeez 78; Hutchinson s/o 84; Hollett 87.

# # #

[DeadPanda]

Always loved a tenthree story back in the day when I was around more. Enjoying this so far and always a nice morale booster to knock 10 past an opponent during pre-season. Looking forward to reading more.

[tenthreeleader]

There was one other issue that Ryan should have expected when he was hired, and the press wasn’t long in bringing it up.

“What has your father had to say so far?”

This was from someone who could have guessed the answer. Jill Weatherby, the redoubtable reporter once of the Evening Post and now representing Berkshire Live, was asking the question. She had been a faithful ally to Rob during the many controversies surrounding his time at the club.

Ryan, set up for the question, had a ready answer.

“Why don’t you ask him, Jill?” Ryan smiled. “You know he always answers your phone calls.”

Weatherby had done an incredible amount of work in Rob’s day, more than holding her own against tabloid press from all over the world who wanted to sell papers by printing hearsay about Rob Ridgway and his fashion model wife.

And in so doing, Weatherby had exposed the background behind “The Supporters”. This was a group dedicated to destroying the Ridgway family starting during Rob’s time at Calvio Padova, and eventually grew to include Richmond and a whole host of horrible people who had both significant financial muscle and a series of shell companies in which to hide all their cash when Rob arrived at Reading.

Following Reading in those days was the footballing equivalent of watching Coronation Street with a side helping of EastEnders for dessert. Everything was an issue. Everything mattered to someone who didn’t have any business really caring about it.

Patty Ridgway’s ex-paramour spent years trying to infiltrate the family’s armor, a fact for which Patty rarely stopped apologizing to her husband. He continually forgave her – he hated Peter McGuire as much as she did – but the individual Rob referred to for years as simply “the little man” had friends.

Unfortunately, those friends wanted the same thing Peter did, which had nothing to do with football and everything to do with destroying the Ridgway family, particularly his marriage. To the extent that these desires intersected with Sidney Richmond’s, they partnered. To the extent that they didn’t, each wing of the group continually got in the other’s way.

Richmond liked to say he was “in charge” because he had the most money and deemed himself the most ruthless. The others liked to ignore him, except when they were in his presence.

Eventually, the whole scheme came crashing down of its own weight, with financial crimes units doing most of the wrecking ball work. As Rob opined, “never stand between a government and money.”

But the ride had been spectacular, not unlike watching a rollercoaster zooming around the tracks while burning to the ground. The tabloids reported regularly on the goings-on around the soaps, and they treated Reading FC the same way.

This was unfortunate, because Rob insisted all along that he didn’t want to damage the club’s reputation. Perhaps he had, perhaps he hadn’t, but the worst part of the controversy was that his adversaries excelled in making Rob the center of every fracas, designed to affect both results as well as the manager personally.

Yet one of the few survivors of all the controversy – Weatherby – had come out smelling like a rose, her career on the rise, her reputation impeccable, and her phone calls now answered all over the footballing world. She had served, however unintentionally, as a staunch Rob Ridgway ally and once the story had at last come to an end at the Old Bailey on sentencing day, she was one of the very few people involved in the saga who could claim any sort of credit.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

5 July 2022
Basingstoke Town v Reading

The second friendly was in some ways even better than the first. The fact that the opposition was only about ten miles away was even nicer.

Again, the Royals scored five times in the first half against non-league opposition, but also had three more goals chalked off for offside in the first 45 minutes as well.

Ince had a first-half hat trick, capping off his day from the penalty spot and getting a match ball that Rae got to first, drawing eyes and a smiley face on it to make the ball look like “Wilson” from the movie Cast Away.

Basingstoke didn’t make their task any easier by getting Ira Murrain sent off in 36 minutes for a challenge on Meïté that was quite similar to Hutchinson’s against Ocean City. That is to say, utterly senseless and rather crude.

“At least other people lose their minds occasionally,” Ryan mused to Rae as the Dragons midfielder headed to an early shower. It really was child’s play after that.

Oh, and the other thing: the scorers credited Reading with fifty attempts at goal. Yes, 33 of them missed the target, but those that didn’t caused a hell of a lot of damage.

Basingstoke Town 0-7 Reading
Loum 2, 26; Ince 23, 31, 45+3 pen; Fornah 57, Hoilett 63

# # #

Annie was ready for Ryan when he got home.

“Seventeen goals to nil away,” she teased. “At this rate you might not concede all season.”

He hugged his wife tight, gave her a soft kiss, and chuckled.

“We play Spurs next,” he said. “Talk to me then.”

“Not until then?” Her eyes grew large, and she knew her husband wouldn’t be able to resist them.

“Okay, Mrs. Pedantic,” Ryan replied with a grin, as they sat on their couch. “Talk to me any time you like.”

One of the things Ryan had always admired about his father was his unshakeable determination to provide for, and defend, his family regardless of what brickbats were thrown his way. Once, after a confrontation with a French reporter after a Champions League game, his American heritage had led to an internal nickname of “Sergeant Rock”, a moniker he did nothing to prevent.

That was eventually shortened to “Rock”, and it was a nickname that stuck with Rob Ridgway for the rest of his career.

Ryan wouldn’t necessarily have claimed that name for himself, though as Rangers’ vice-captain he was known for throwing his weight around in the dressing room when things weren’t going as well as they might. Now, as a manager, he would have to find that steel in his everyday interaction with some players.

As a family man, however, he felt completely differently about being a “rock”. Annie leaned his head against Ryan’s shoulder, and they sat for a long moment, simply cuddling and enjoying their time together.

“I hope you’re this happy to see me after we play Spurs,” he said softly. “I think the honeymoon might end that night.”

“Believe in yourself like I believe in you,” Annie said, gently trailing a finger across his cheek. “It will be just fine, trust me.”

“I think this match needs to go well, even if the board doesn’t care much about it,” Ryan said. “It’s important for the fans.”

“That’s your father talking,” Annie replied sweetly. “Sometimes that’s great. But not this time.”

He had long since learned to trust his wife’s judgement and, wisely, he decided that now was not the time to talk like his dad.

“Well, that’s all well and good,” he finally replied, “but the club invited Mom and Dad to the stadium to watch the match. I think we’ll want to do well.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Rob Ridgway had thought long and hard about accepting his old club’s invitation to return.

There was a time he had been advised to stay away, for his own safety. Those were in the days when Rob still occasionally thought about a future in the game, one that he felt had been stolen from him.

The more conventional wisdom said that even though he was an excellent tactician and a man-manager without peer, he was polarizing. You would never have heard that from the masses at the Mad Stad back in the day, though. “Rob Ridgway’s Barmy Army” had traveled the length and breadth of Europe to support their club and they wouldn’t hear a bad word against him.

But in board room parlance, it was arguable that the only more polarizing manager in Britain at that time was Jose Mourinho. Directors hated him. Fans loved him. And he won matches. Lots and lots of matches.

Personality-wise, it was easy to like Rob. But a wild streak and a tendency to bite the hand of authority won him as many enemies as friends.

When it came to getting a job done on the pitch, though, there were few better. His win percentage of 64 percent was second only to Sir Alex Ferguson in the Premier League era, and if need dictated, he would remind people of it.

That was the way he was. He wanted things a certain way, didn’t like to be interfered with in running the club, especially by someone who wasn’t his chairman, and then he’d back up his ego by winning on that Saturday. His Reading teams were known for their mental toughness, which they inherited from their boss. His work with the players was so good that when he inevitably ran afoul of management, the players would back up their boss because they believed in him.

But that sense of invincibility had faded over time. There were those who said he could be elected mayor of Reading if he would have simply tipped his cap to the crowd when he finally left. But, that wasn’t Rob Ridgway.

However, his relationship with Sir John Madejski was warm and understanding.  Madejski was the only man alive who seemed to know how to handle Rob Ridgway and shielded him from the worst threats to reach his office.

But when he finally sold the club, Rob’s protector was gone. And the manager knew that it was time to go.

The leavetaking was bitter. Rob would never say he felt his chairman betrayed him but there was little doubt that had he stayed, the elder Ridgway would have as well. The club’s plummeting from grace – and at the rate it fell, plummet was the right word to use – had been shockingly fast.

He hardly recognized the Championship side that took the pitch for the club he had represented for so long. It didn’t look like it had much of a clue tactically, the new owners weren’t investing, and every day seemed to bring another doomscrolling story on the Evening Post’s old website, now called Berkshire Live.

Ryan had asked him, but only briefly, whether he should take the position when it was offered to him. Rob’s advice had been classic: “Ryan, it’s not my club anymore, and you’re a grown man. You have to do what you think is best.”

So, despite the significant potential to drink from a poisoned chalice, Ryan had accepted the new ownership’s offer. It was a challenge he couldn’t pass up, he had told the press. The thought of pacing the touchline as his father had was heartwarming but surely wouldn’t conjure up much pathos from the scribes if he couldn’t win matches.

But now, as a proud father, Rob was being asked to return. And, like his son, he had someone he could turn to for advice.

“Go,” Patty Ridgway had told her husband. “You can’t let the past drag you down like this. You know you want to go to support Ryan.”

“Of course I do,” he said, sitting back in his easy chair. “But I also don’t want to put pressure on him.”

“He’s your son,” Patty replied. “Pressure doesn’t bother him.”

“He’s your son,” Rob smiled. “He has more brains than his dad.”

But he had known all along what he was going to do. He called the front office and said he would accept the club’s invitation.

# # #

[DeadPanda]

I have high hopes it's not a poisoned chalice for Ryan! Rob will forever have a soft spot despite everything that happened. 

[tenthreeleader]

So do I

___

 

9 July 2022
Reading v Tottenham

One of the reasons Rob had balked at going back to the stadium was that he might overshadow his son. Ryan’s first home match in charge of the Royals was supposed to be memorable and the old manager wanted his son’s memories to be grounded in the right reasons.

So it was that when he and Patty took their seats in the stand behind the Reading dugout, it wasn’t long before they were noticed.

The crowd size was excellent for a friendly – 21,494, just over 2,000 shy of capacity – and they saw the return of their “Rock” almost as one.

As the fans noticed his presence, they rose almost as one, applauding until either their hands got tired or he acknowledged them.

Patty elbowed Rob gently in the ribs.

“Will you get up and wave?” she chided. “This is embarrassing.”

Finally, Rob rose to his feet and waved to the throng. The roar was louder than had been heard in the stadium for some time, and Ryan’s Royals responded by starting out toe-to-toe with Antonio Conte’s team before a national television audience.

That being said, Reading was overmatched. Conte hadn’t started a full-strength team, but he had done Ryan the honor of starting Harry Kane, Richarlison, Ivan Perišić and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, among others.

Reading could make no headway. That was partly due to the talent gap between the teams, but Ryan had sent his XI out cautiously, to avoid the kind of big start from Spurs that would sap his young players’ confidence.

They avoided the blitzing that could have undone the team’s early work, but they weren’t able to get forward. They were, however, defending quite well indeed, limiting Spurs in the attack and holding them largely to longer shots that Joe Lumley could handle well.

From the stands, Rob watched as the home fans waited to see the team that had scored seventeen goals in the first two friendlies. It was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t seem to bother the young manager.

It didn’t bother Rob, either. If these fans expected Reading to head out and carry all before them, they were in for a rude awakening. This was a match to see how the Royals might fare against better opposition and to toughen them up for the 46-match Championship slog.

“Good, good,” Rob mumbled to himself as the referee blew for half-time with the score still nil-nil. “He’ll be happy with that.”

Patty, who knew better by this time than to ask her husband what was on his mind when he was talking to himself, simply held onto his arm. She was rooting for her son, nothing more and nothing less. They got up to greet longtime friends in the guest seating area and whiled the halftime break away.

Downstairs in the changing room, though they had managed only three attempts in the first half, Ryan wasn’t upset with his club. “That’s what we need against some of the teams we’ll face,” he said. “It’s going to work out well for us later if we keep defending like this.”

Chins came up around the room – let’s face it, nobody likes to be shut down for an entire 45-minute half – as the players realized that Ocean City was a long, long way away both in geographic distance as well as in their minds.

The second half began and Ryan continued to see what he needed to see – his first XI holding Spurs at bay. He also changed their tactic – experimenting to see if a more positive outlook wound generate something better against their larger opponents.

While the answer to that question was “no”, it also didn’t lead to many major issues at the back. As players began to tire and Ryan began to substitute and blood his younger players, both Ryan and his father came to the same realization at the same time.

Conte wasn’t doing the same thing.

He was making substitutions but the anchors of his team, including Kane, remained out there. Spurs hadn’t lost either of their two friendlies to that point so one wondered what possessed the manager to keep his first team out there.

The answer was, he wanted them to win and win well – and Spurs weren’t doing it.

That got Ryan up and off the bench, pacing the touchline like his father had, a combination of teacher, tactician and caged animal all rolled up into one person.

Obviously, he couldn’t go back and re-enter his starting group, but he could urge his youngsters to make a final stand. The one area where there was some steel was up front.

Andy Carroll, the six-foot-four target man who had made his name at West Ham and Liverpool, was up front. He wasn’t the full-time force he had been in his younger days, but in a short burst, as a second-half substitute, it certainly benefitted Spurs to keep a close eye on him.

That, Spurs did. What Reading didn’t do was keep a close eye on Pape Matar Sarr. The young Senegalese winger stole in, took a layoff from a well-marked Kane and beat Lumley to the top left corner of his goal from twelve yards in the 88^th minute.

Friendly or not, that hurt. It was a gut punch for Ryan, whose team had defended tenaciously and now had a choice to make. Hold on, or go f or broke.

Ryan's choice was to not accept the result lying down. In prior days, this was where supersub Leroy Lita would come in and break the opposition’s hearts with some late-show wonder goal. Today, it was Carroll who would need to fill that role.

Reading got forward immediately after the goal and found Carroll nearly unmarked in front. However, his header merely grazed the bar as it went over and the Royals’ best chance of the match went begging.

Then it was over, and Ryan shook hands with Conte. Back in the day, Rob would, likely as not, fielded a look of frustration from an opposing manager who had seen points flash by him only to land on Reading’s side of the table.

Ryan couldn’t do that. But Conte knew.

“You are more than good enough to stay up,” he told Ryan as they shook hands. The younger man could do nothing but smile and thank him in return.

It wasn’t patronizing. But it still didn’t feel good to hear.

Reading 0-1 Spurs
Sarr ‘88

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

To make matters worse, both Meité and Ejaria left the Spurs match with knocks that would limit their training for the next week but little else. Still, it was the wrong time for injuries, as Hirons observed in making his report to Ryan the following day.

“Like there’s a good time for injuries?” the manager had replied.

Ejaria had a knock on his shin which, while painful, probably would not end his career. Meité twisted a knee, which would bear close watching in the days to come.

It made Meité a doubt for the next friendly against SK Beveren, with Ryan not wanting to risk one of his best players unnecessarily.

The bigger issue for Ejaria was a series of groin injuries, which, while not immediately career-threatening, could be career-altering if not managed properly. He had missed ten weeks of the prior season with two torn muscles and a strain, all on the right side.

Reading’s injury list was mercifully short. Liam Moore wouldn’t be back until the holidays as he recovered from an ACL tear, and Scott Dann was out until perhaps March after a torn hamstring required surgery to fix.

Injured players or no, Ryan had some things he wanted to try against Wim De Decker’s second-tier side in the next friendly. He wanted to see all the team’s top tacticical options utilized in friendly competitions, so Ryan switched from German (gegenpress) to Spanish (tiki-taka) for the Beveren friendly.

Given its emphasis on slow buildup and possession, you wouldn’t necessarily have expected a team favored to win at home to be utilizing it. Yet, Ryan wanted to see how well his players had learned their lessons in training.

14 July 2022
Reading v SK Beveren

Reading handled the tactical shift well. However, they were prevented from scoring in the first half to some diabolically bad luck involving Cesare Casadei. The Chelsea loanee hit the goalpost not once but twice in the first half hour, denying the start Ryan wanted from his team but at the same time, doing what the tactic required before a substantially smaller crowd than for Spurs.

It took a moment of brilliance from Junior Hoilett, the 47-times capped Canadian international, to get Reading on the scoreboard, with a sublime set piece finding the back of the net from 25 yards just as the match ticked into first half injury time.

It was no less than they deserved – Reading had dominated possession throughout, as you’d expect from confident tiki-taka play – and not allowed Beveren a shot on target in the opening 45 minutes.

It was done with mostly players who wouldn’t be first-choices. Ryan wanted the regulars to have a last runout in the final friendly at Exeter before preparing for Blackpool and the start of the Championship season, and they had looked pretty good in the process.

There are some things, though, that not every fan understands, such as why a team would look comparatively lethargic against opposition it was expected to beat, even though they were a goal up at half-time.

In the second half, Ryan brought on most of his first eleven with half an hour to play and shifted them back into their gegenpress. Almost immediately, it was 3-0 to the Royals thanks to Azeez and Long, which showed Ryan a thing or two about how to set out his stall when it needed to score.

That alignment had bred 19 of Reading’s 20 goals in the preseason to date and if the players came to full understanding of the tactic, it might very well lead to competitiveness against the Championship clubs Reading would have to beat to stay up.

A clean sheet was ruined four minutes from time as Ronny Deconinck shook loose and beat second-choice keeper Dean Bouzanis to make the final count 3-1. Not bad, but there was still room for plenty of improvement.

Reading 3-1 SK Beveren
Hoilett 45, Azeez 71, Long 73; Deconinck 88

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Rob Ridgway had the look of someone who has just been told his only child wants to become a professional unicyclist.

His expression was sour and the corners of his mouth turned slightly downward. But then, he often looked like that when surprised by a reporter.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Patty asked.

“I’d rather have bamboo spears under my fingernails,” he replied.

He had been caught outside the stadium trying to retreat to his car after the Beveren match, which he had watched from the 1871 Suite instead of from the stand. The crowd numbered only twenty percent of those who had come to see Spurs and his presence would have been even more conspicuous.

“What did they ask you?”

“How is Ryan progressing, how is he different from you, do you give him any advice, all the banal sorts of stuff that give media a bad name.”

“Don’t be angry, Rob,” Patty said, gently taking his arm as they walked to their car.

“I don’t know,” he finally replied after a heavy sigh. He wore the face of a man with low expectations.

“You don’t know what?”

“I don’t know what they’re going to say,” Rob said, shaking his head slowly.

“You didn’t give them anything bad to write about, did you?” The question was supposed to be rhetorical.

“Of course not,” he answered.

“Then why are you worried?”

“Well, to sell papers or get web hits, reporters have been known to take things out of context.”

# # #

The next morning, Rob’s fears came to light in the form of a Mail Online headline: “Rob Ridgway: I’d have handled Spurs differently!”

He sat at their breakfast table, uttered one unprintable and highly rude word, and sent a link of the story to Patty.

She shook her head, and in her own inimitable fashion, crystalized her point in reply.

“You know, Rob,” she said, a hint of a smile crossing her face, “even though you spoke with the press, there’s no rule saying you have to actually read what they write, especially now that you’re retired.” She passed him a jar of strawberry preserves to spread on his morning toast.

“It’s going to get back to Ryan,” Rob replied defensively. “He doesn’t need that.”

“Ryan won’t care,” Patty responded. “Give him some credit, Rob, he knows how the press work.”

“Or don’t work,” Rob scowled. “Lazy reporting. Making something out of nothing.”

The article talked about differences between the Ridgways; Rob was rarely seen on a football pitch without two strikers in his team, whereas Ryan preferred to utilize one with attacking midfielders. Rob wouldn’t think of using a back three, while Ryan would consider it under the right circumstances.

But most importantly of all, Rob managed like a stereotypical American; damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. This occasionally led to charges of him being tactically naïve with 4-1-3-2 being his alignment of choice, battering opponents into submission. Ryan, on the other hand, was willing to consider more nuance, in accordance with the more modern demands of the game.

However, both men already had reputations for being master man-managers. You can often accomplish more if you don’t care who gets credit for doing it, and both father and son tried at every attempt to instill that belief in their teams.

Rob had won a Champions League playing his way. That approach was certainly good enough for Ryan, but with a far less talented squad at his disposal his goals were both more modest and arguably harder to attain than his father’s had been.

So Rob saw the article as driving an unnecessary wedge, not only between father and son but potentially between son and supporters. They didn’t really need to know how Rob would have managed against Spurs, because he didn’t get to manage against Spurs. So, it was all moot.

To his everlasting credit, Ryan handled the inevitable follow-up questioning well.

“My dad would have done it differently?” Ryan asked, with a look of innocence as pure as the driven snow. “Well, imagine that. Two different people with different ideas.”

Did he receive advice from his father? “No,” Ryan said. Did he want advice from his father? “No,” Ryan replied once more, “at least not until I ask for it.”

“My dad is his own man, and I’m my own man,” Ryan said patiently. “Will we disagree? Sure. Does it matter? Only in the sense that my dad doesn’t like being told when he’s wrong.”

That brought a laugh from the assembled scribes, as Ryan silently, and a bit desperately, now tried to change the subject. Finally, he said what everyone was thinking.

“Don’t tell the supporters”, he said with a sheepish grin. “They’ll want my dad back.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

23 July 2022
Exeter City v Reading

It was the last chance for players to make a good impression on the manager. By and large, the Royals had played very well indeed during the run-in to the season but Ryan wanted one more thing out of his team.

That was a confident performance away against decent opposition, and the Grecians were nominated to provide it. A league below the Royals, they had only an away win to non-league Frome Town to their credit in three matches, with a home loss to Walsall and an away draw with Stockport County giving Gary Caldwell reason for concern.

Ryan wanted to play most of the people he felt would start at Blackpool, to give them one more chance to jell a bit before heading into the Championship wars.

Exeter had bounced around between conference level and League One in the first years of the new century but were now a well-established League One side, which was perfect for Ryan’s goals for the day.

“Lads, one more chance to impress,” he said, and this time he was watching for responses. In previous friendlies, some of the cheekier members of the team had said they would have preferred to watch from the bench – and that was pure poison to the manager, who made sure the individual players in question knew about their transgression at the earliest opportunity.

“If you don’t want to play, nothing is stopping me from keeping you on the bench,” Ryan had told Hoilett after the Ocean City match. “I expect you to be willing, ready and able to play when you’re selected for the team, is that clear?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” the Canadian international protested, but Ryan wouldn’t hear it.

“I am not going to argue with you,” he said, softly but firmly. “I can only go by the words that come out of your mouth, and if you seriously tell me you don’t want to play, I’ll sit you down until you do.”

That was a bit of a surprising promise to make, in that the squad’s depth was very thin, could not be added to on a permanent basis for the next two transfer windows, and the team was only one rash of injuries away from potential disaster.

Thankfully, Hoilett both got the message and didn’t hold it against Ryan. Attitudes aside, Ryan needed Hoilett to fill a certain very specific role – as someone who could come off the bench and make a real impact, especially from a set piece. It wouldn’t do to have him unhappy to come on.

Hoilett didn’t start the match – and it might have been better if he had, since Reading came out looking very wasteful against the Grecians. They poured forward as they had done in every previous friendly except for Spurs, but only led 1-0 at the break thanks to a very nice 19^th minute strike from Ovie Ejaria.

They had sixteen shot attempts in the first 45 minutes, with five going wide and a remarkable three hitting the woodwork. It could easily have been 4-0 at halftime and as a result Ryan went a bit easier on his team than he otherwise might have in his team talk.

Instead, he simply told them to keep at it and the results would come. He felt a bit like Stephen Covey, the businessman and motivational speaker, who said “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

The “main thing” was a solid performance in this case and the relaxed Royals gave that solid performance to their boss in the second half.

Casadei, who was making a very strong statement for playing behind the striker, scored a wonderful goal in the 66^th minute as Reading eased back into their regular style of attack, which put the game out of reach for all intents and purposes.

Amadou Mbengue, a free transfer from Metz, capped things off two minutes from time with a chip that left Gary Woods stranded for the final score, which was made even more comfortable since Lumley didn’t have to make a single save all day.

That was that. Reading would now be on their own, with the Championship grind awaiting.

Exeter City 0-3 Reading
Ejaria 19, Casadei 66, Mbengue 87

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

 

Ever the optimists, the preseason media polls showed Reading not finishing bottom – but finishing 18^th and thus avoiding the drop.

That was welcome news as the first week of “official” training began. Blackpool awaited – like Reading, not too long ago a Premier League club, but now trying to fight its way back to the top level.

They were managed by Mick McCarthy, the veteran Irishman who was never afraid to speak his mind. That said, he was coming off a run at Cardiff that saw the Bluebirds win only 14 of his 38 matches in charge, losing the last eight on the spin before he left the club by mutual consent.

But he had managed the Republic of Ireland well enough, earning 34 wins and 24 draws in 78 matches, and guided Wolves both to promotion and to Premier League safety twice, earning a Championship Manager of the Year award in the process.

That said, he was polarizing. His tactics tended to be defensive which didn’t help him with fans, and which led directly to his departure from Ipswich after he called their supporters “numbskulls” for disagreeing with his style of play.

And now he was in Blackpool, the first club in English history to earn promotion from every division of the Football League through playoff victories.

The painful years of the Oyston family’s ownership behind them, the Seasiders, like Reading, were simply hoping to stay afloat in the 2022-23 Championship.

As such, McCarthy was presented to Ryan as an easy target for criticism in his first press gaggle of the season.

“I don’t want to hear anything about that,” Ryan protested. ‘Mick’s team is Mick’s team, not mine, and I’m not going to have any comment on how he runs it or how successful I think he will be. Managers’ jobs in this league are hard enough without speculation from you people on whether he’ll do a good job. I can tell you this, though: every manager in this league is “all-in”. Every manager in this league wants success just as much as every other manager. We can’t all achieve it. I’m reasonably optimistic we can go in and get a result, but as for speculating on another manager, count me out.”

That drew a frown from Garry Hunt, reporter for Sporting Life. He appeared to be, in the words of the immortal P.G. Wodehouse, “someone who had drunk deeply from the cup of life only to find a dead beetle at the bottom.”

Clearly, Hunt was after something. Just as clearly, Ryan was steering clear from giving Hunt what he wanted.

So, he tried again. “Don’t you think Mick will have something to say about that?” he asked, by way of a follow-up question.

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t,” Ryan said. “It’s none of my concern. Maybe quit trying to make it my concern.”

For his part, McCarthy appreciated the kindness, and said so in his own gaggle later that day. So much for controversy.

The week seemed to pass fairly quickly, with Meite healing rapidly. His place in the XI assured, Ryan felt much better about his team’s chances.

So it was that the coach trip to Lancashire was quiet and relatively uneventful. In the manager’s accustomed space in the front row opposite the driver, Ryan had a chance to Facetime with Annie while the trip progressed, and then to go over the match plan for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past six days.

No matter how hard he tried, Ryan couldn’t change the words even if he wanted to. Press, press, press and then press some more. Make their center backs play the ball. Pressure them to the middle, as their best threats seemed to come from the wings. Pass short, hit them on the counter and make it hard for them to live with the Royals.

The words seemed to march through Ryan’s head repeatedly as he finally lay down for some sleep on the last night before the start of the season. It wasn’t like counting sheep, but repeating rote memorization soon lulled the manager into sleep.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

30 July 2022
Blackpool v Reading – Championship Match Day #1

It was a glorious mid-summer day, perfect for the start of a new season. Ryan woke to the sun shining into his eyes through a crack he had inconveniently left in the blinds.

Ryan wasn’t the best morning person on the best of days, and so, cursing his bad luck and hoping the manner of his waking would be the only thing that would go wrong that day, he got out of bed and made himself a cup of coffee.

With a three-o’clock kickoff, there was time to wake up slowly. Team breakfast was at 9 a.m. sharp, and you didn’t dare be late, especially if you were in the starting eleven.

The coach would leave for the stadium at 12:30, giving the players about two hours to settle in and warm up before the match started. Setting itineraries for late road matches can be vexing – you want your players to have enough time to settle in but not so much time that they lose their edge or, worse yet, get bored. Yet, you can’t have them arrive so close to match time that they feel rushed. And, the problem was even worse if you happened to be unfortunate enough to play at night.

Ryan’s team talk was met with blank faces for the most part – understandable for a team in Reading’s situation. The players weren’t in for rah-rah, ‘let’s have a great season’ nonsense. He kept things light in the pre-match talk, reminded a few key players of their defensive assignments, and decided to let the positive energy a new season can bring wash over his players.

Whatever it was that washed over Jeff Hendrick probably needed to be rewashed, as the Newcastle loanee lasted exactly 46 seconds before going into Geoff Eltringham’s book after a crude challenge on Kenny Dougall.

Ryan turned to Rae with an expression of anger. “He’s a lucky boy,” he said, and Rae simply nodded in reply. Hendrick was fortunate to still be on the pitch and Ryan got up to the touchline to tell his midfielder to cool his jets in case he hadn’t already figured that out for himself.  

Thus pinned back within the first sixty seconds with a defensive midfielder on a yellow card, it was plain where the Seasiders were going to focus their attacks. But to his credit, Hendrick held his ground and most importantly, kept his feet as he did his job.

Reading looked much the sharper of the two sides even with Hendrick’s booking, and slowly they started to build pressure on Chris Maxwell’s goal. Despite both teams pressing, Reading dominated possession and it was pretty clear that whatever match plan McCarthy had given his players needed to be adjusted.

That need became more profound after Carroll ghosted to the front of the net and slid a low shot past Maxwell and home in eighteen minutes for the first official goal of Ryan’s tenure.

Again unlike his father, Ryan wasn’t pacing the touchline. The famed “Ridgway stare” found its new iteration from the bench, but a first goal was something to be celebrated, and he did so by leaping to his feet and accepting congratulations from his staff while extending them to Carroll.

As if the opening twenty minutes weren’t good enough, Reading found a second gear – and a second goal – soon afterward. This time it was Ince, taking an inch-perfect set piece from twenty-five yards away from the goal, making it 2-0 to the visitors still inside the first half hour.

Now McCarthy’s men were hearing it from their own fans, and the Seasiders were sent off with a cascade of whistles from the stands as Reading easily maintained its two-goal advantage until halftime.

Better teams than Reading had seen two-goal away leads evaporate in the summer sun, so while was careful to praise his players for a job well done, he knew they needed a bit of steel to avoid coughing up three precious points in the first match of the season.

“Lads, you have half the club’s financial penalty in your hands right now,” he said. “Very well done in the first half, but let’s make sure we leave here with all the points. Don’t let up. Get a third goal if you can, and let’s ruin this day for them.”

Carroll, thus inflamed, went out and put a shot off the woodwork less than a minute into the second half, which put the fear of God into McCarthy and the fear of rotten luck into Ryan.

Carroll’s miss, however close, provided a powerful jolt to Blackpool, which piled forward to try to get back into the match.

Yet the “pile” always seemed to stop at the top of Reading’s penalty area. The back four played with great poise and were always well positioned, leading to six offsides against Blackpool in the second half alone.

When it was all over, and Eltringham had blown for full time, Blackpool had had one more shot on target in the second half than they had had in the first, but then one has always been greater than zero.

McCarthy met Ryan for a handshake after the match. “You ran us ragged,” McCarthy said.

Ryan smiled at the flattery. “Well, look at it this way, Mick,” he said. “You’re still three points ahead of us.”

Blackpool 0-2 Reading
Carroll 19, Ince 28

[tenthreeleader]

The mood was light both on the coach trip back to Berkshire and at training after a Victory Sunday day off. The Royals had truly played well in their lid-lifting match of the season and with the visit of Cardiff City coming on the following Saturday, there were high hopes to erase the six-point penalty after only two matches if the team could do the business on its home patch.

Seeing this, Ryan had some specific instructions for his backroom team when they all reported for training on the Monday.

“It has to be business as usual for these players,” he said. “Let them enjoy the win but if it comes up, remind them that it was last week. Today is the day we start worrying about this week.”

Ryan himself reinforced the point during the team’s morning stretches. As his father had done so often, Ryan walked between the rows of stretching players and gave a sermonette about the Bluebirds, the weekend’s upcoming opponent.

“They can and will take you down if you let down your guard,” Ryan warned. “We’re putting in a tactic that the coaches think will make that a bit less likely, but it’s still down to you to make the plan work and take another step forward. Don’t forget that we’re still three points in the hole and we have to play at least as well this Saturday as you did last Saturday to take care of that little problem.”

To Ryan, part of success in management was to always leave players with something to strive for while making them do that striving from a position of strength. That is generally much more difficult to do when you aren’t dropping a pile of points, but the line is very fine.

Coming home for the opening match against Cardiff would certainly help. The thought of having some momentum was nice, though.

So was the team’s first public event of the season, at The Oracle, one of Reading’s main retail venues. Rob had had a few events there during his tenure, and not a few moments of tribulation, but the mood was different now. The pressures were different. No one begrudged Ryan his position, unlike many in England who had doubted and sometimes ridiculed his father.

Of course, Ryan was English by birth, so that made things easier from the point of view of the xenophobic, but his attitudes and philosophies were very much American. All this being said, there was no reason for the players not to have a good time with each other and the fans who came out.

Of course, a main difference between The Oracle in 2022 and in Rob’s day was that nearly half the shops had gone. The advent of e-commerce and the COVID pandemic had hit retail in Berkshire, as well as all over the world, particularly hard.

Still, the crowd was decent, and the thing the fans wanted to talk about almost more than the team was the owner.

Now there was an area where Ryan could relate to his father. The long rivalry between Sir John Madejski and Sidney Richmond had made daily headlines. Now, the “Before We Dai” group dedicated to forcing Dai Yongge to sell up was looking for ammunition from the manager or the players to help raise their stock.

If they came to the Oracle with the idea that anyone in Reading colours was going to slate the owner, they were fooling themselves. Ironic as it might have been, whatever Ryan thought about Dai before he had taken the job now had taken a back seat to helping him succeed and making him money.

In that respect, fans were torn between rooting for the manager to succeed and wondering if he would fail, which might bring the change they wanted.

Certainly no one in attendance that night was going to root against the club – but they had seen better teams than this Royals outfit underachieve, underperform and finally, succumb. Management had responded by breaking the rules and getting the club a points penalty in exchange for the loyalty of the supporters.

Ryan’s popularity, and the popularity of the family name, had eased some of the criticism, which in turn led to the hardest core of the anti-Dai faction accusing him of making the hire to deflect criticism away from himself.

There’s no pleasing some people, Ryan supposed, and managed to sidestep any criticism, intended or otherwise, of his senior management team. He had passed the word to his players that anyone who spoke ill of the club management would find himself on the transfer list and there would be little to nothing Ryan could to do help them.

Nice and quiet. The evening went just the way it was supposed to go.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

6 August 2022
Reading v Cardiff – Championship Match Day #2

The first home match for a new manager is, generally, a happy occasion. Unless something drastic has already happened on the pitch, the honeymoon period is usually still in effect – unless you’ve already managed a rival, in which case the reaction is often little more than lukewarm applause.

The honeymoon was definitely still on as Ryan arrived in the car park on Biscuitman Way to enter the stadium, Annie by his side.

Hand in hand, they walked across the car park and past the onlookers outside the staff and player entrance, Ryan stopping to sign a few programs along the way before Annie tugged at his sleeve.

“This makes me nervous,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

While Ryan was trying to figure out why positive feedback from fans would make his wife nervous, he nonetheless did as she asked and they entered the stadium.

Downstairs, all was quiet. Ryan gave Annie a goodbye-for-now kiss, and she was escorted by a club staffer to the Royals Suite, where she would watch the match with the VIPs of the Reading world.

Once in his office, Ryan went over the match plan one more time just to make sure none of it had left his short-term memory. Rae approached, sat opposite him for a pre-match cuppa, and the two men hashed out the plan for the day one last time.

“Right where you left off, lads,” Ryan said in his team talk. “Pick up where you left off last time and we’ll be celebrating when it’s done. Make yourselves hard to live with.”

In the first half, Reading largely did as their manager instructed. There seemed to be an ease to their play that hadn’t existed late in Paul Ince’s term and the end result was a pretty impressive first half performance for a stadium crowd that was just over half capacity.

The stadium had once been bigger – Madejski had gotten approval for expansion during the Champions League days – but municipal opposition had slowed progress. It had made maintaining the squad Rob had built very difficult from a financial standpoint, and was one reason the club wasn’t able to hold its lofty position. And since Madejski had built the stadium with his own money, he was understandably upset at not being able to add to it.

Now, though, that seemed a blessing. Large swaths of the upper rows were unoccupied, so the crowd was naturally closer to the action. From his seat with the Eamonn Dolan Stand to his left, Ryan watched his team get to work against the Bluebirds.

Attacking toward that same stand, Reading controlled the first half. It took just over 40 minutes to get their just desserts, as Meite broke down the right and squared from the byline for Ejaria. Standing about three feet from the goal line, Ejaria fluffed his lines, shooting straight into goalkeeper Ryan Allsop.

The rebound, though, went straight to Carroll, who bundled home from barely two yards out from goal to get Reading into pole position.

The breakthrough felt both nice and deserved and now it was just a matter of getting to half time with the lead.

Sometimes that is surprisingly difficult, and it was in this case for the Royals. Amadou Mbengue chased down a free kick to the right of the goal, and whipped a clearance but in so doing violated one of the cardinal rules of defending: don’t clear the ball across the face of your goal.

His clearance hit Cardiff forward Sori Kaba right in the forehead and deflected onto the boot of midfielder Romaine Sawyers. His reflexes were faster than Lumley’s, and his first-time effort somehow arrowed its way into the top left corner of the goal to get Cardiff level with an entirely undeserved goal in the first minute of added time.

Ryan said one quiet, exceedingly rude word, and watched referee David Coote blow for halftime seconds after the restart.

His annoyance obvious, Ryan led the march to the changing room. Once there, and everyone was seated, poor Mbengue looked like he wanted to dig a hole behind his locker and hide there.

“Okay, we got a bad break,” he said by way of beginning. “Nine times out of ten we’ll never see anything like that play happening. But you have to be smart. Make the good play every time and see where it gets you. Think it through. These fellows should be no trouble for you in the second half if you just keep your bottle and do your jobs the right way.”

Upon sending out his players for the second half, the reaction appeared luke warm. Reading was plainly the better team, dominating possession, completing virtually every pass they attempted, and finding ways to get to goal while the Bluebirds did their best Muhammad Ali “rope-a-dope” dodge and weave.

Only this time, the goal didn’t come. As such, the galling error by Mbengue wound up costing the team two points, meaning getting out of the hole would have to wait until another day.

Annoyed, Ryan waved a stat sheet in front of him after the game. “You have to do better than that, gentlemen,” he warned, pointing to the sheet. “I really could care less what an ‘expected goal’ is, but even the computer guys say you should have won today.”

For the record, the pocket protectors in the analytics office did say Reading should have won, but 2.18 – 0.31 looks really strange on a scoreboard.

Reading 1-1 Cardiff
Carroll 41; Sawyers 45+1

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

The coach ride home was boisterous, as it should be when a club claims a cup win away from home. Ryan leaned back in his seat opposite the driver, first row on the left like God intended, and rested his head in a corner between the window and the edge of his headrest. A few jolts later, rubbing his head, he decided to shift his position.

He opened his phone to find Annie’s text waiting for him. “Miss you,” she wrote, with a sad-faced emoji attached to the end.

This was the part of the game Ryan genuinely hated. Say whatever you want about the glory of being a football star or a decent football manager, Wednesday nights miles from home really suck.

Annie bore Ryan’s absences bravely. She wasn’t made out of glass, but she did very much love her husband and to have him gone so much was difficult at times. Being alone on a Wednesday night at home sucked as well.

“I’ll be hone soon,” he wrote, with a happy-faced emoji attached to the end. The wordless battle of round yellow faces was on. Ryan felt he needed to keep up Annie’s morale at times, and he wondered if this would be one of them. So, he sent a heart.

She replied with an emoji kiss. It was starting to get sophomoric but at least they were chatting. In between texts with his dad, Ryan conveniently communicated the coach’s distance from home to Annie. She liked that the numbers kept getting smaller, which couldn’t always be said in the British roadway system.

Between the roadways and the NHS, there were enough delays between them to put some age on a man.

As they talked, Ryan’s “match high” slowly subsided. Among the Type-A personalities in his field (which was pretty much everyone who managed a club), there is a tendency to replay the match in the mind, looking for ways to improve and enjoying the thoughts of a special moment, such as Long’s third goal.

When his team lost, everyone knew better than to bother Ryan, either as a player, coach or manager. He could be in a Sunday league and he’d still have the same competitive vibes.

But Annie changed all that. She sent him a selfie she had taken of the couple on their honeymoon to the Cayman Islands. They were on Seven Mile Beach, he was wearing a black shirt with a banana print on it, she was in a white blouse over a tank top and they both looked like they would step right off the beach and straight into GQ.

The match didn’t matter as much then, as she texted, “you should hurry home” before texting an emoji bed to end the conversation.

Smiling, Ryan realized that winning in life was even more important than winning at football.

[sherm]

Just caught up with this 10-3

Magnificent as always from you, my good sir 👍 

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Sherm! More coming!

___

 

Then it was back to the league wars. Ryan had managed to shove down most of the disappointment at the home draw to Cardiff while he prepared the team for a trip to Rotherham that would tell at least as much as Cardiff had.

The Millers were a ‘target team’ for Reading, as they were 20^th in the table with no points from their first two matches. That meant that Reading, still on minus two points and at the foot of the table, would pass them with an away victory.

Rotherham had already shipped six goals in league losses to Swansea and Coventry and Ryan felt that his team could make a dent in their hosts. Just not by everyone at the same time.

“You have to understand, you’re not going to win back those points all at the same time,” he had urged the players during training. “We might dig out of the hole this week but I want you thinking long-term. When we get the points, it’s a matter of catching up to everyone else. Don’t try to do it all yourself, don’t try to be bigger than this team.”

This was said in the aftermath of Rotherham’s 6-0 demolition at League Two Crewe in their own Carabao Cup adventure, with Matt Taylor’s side scoring at will and building up confidence for Ryan’s visit at the weekend. Which Rotherham team would the Royals see?

That was a topic for discussion at the folks’ place that evening. Rob had other things on his mind, though.

“Did you tell Long that if he had played like that while I was there he never would have left?” the elder Ridgway smiled.

“No, but he told me,” Ryan replied. “I think he gets a lot of mileage out of not being able to play for you.”

“Mind him,” Rob warned, taking a spoonful of mashed potatoes and gravy from his plate. “He’s a great guy but sometimes you have to pin him back a bit.”

“Dad, I have it under control,” Ryan replied. “Just enjoy the match and let me worry about the result, okay?”

Rob smiled. “Nobody wants an expert opinion anymore,” he teased, and Patty playfully slapped his arm.

“Rob, our son knows perfectly well what he’s doing,” she admonished, and Rob sat back in his chair.

“I know,” he finally answered. “That’s why it’s time for me to step back.”

He left the table after dinner and Ryan was alone with his mother for a few moments.

“I hate to hurt his feelings,” Ryan said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Patty responded. “You won’t hurt his feelings. People he thinks a lot less of than you have told him he’s wrong before, and it didn’t bother him a bit.”

“Well, he’s forgotten more football than most people know.”

“And he does have his opinions,” Patty admitted.

Rob sat silently in his chair and turned on Sky Sports to catch the latest headlines. He kept his thoughts to himself.

# # #

[WLKRAS]

Great to see you back on the horse 10-3, my own visits are into FMS are limited these days, but it's good to see a Ridgeway back in these parts.

[tenthreeleader]

Many thanks -- always good to be with the FMS crew!

___

13^th August 2022
Reading v Rotherham, Championship Match Day #3

Ryan was sat in the visiting manager’s office at the ASSEAL New York Stadium. He was poring over the team sheet and he didn’t like what he saw.

Rae had told him the staff advice was to shift play down the left against the Millers but his team wasn’t set up for that. Hoilett was on the left and Ince on the right.

“I want to change this sheet,” Ryan said. “I want Thomas on the left if we’re going to handle your recommendation properly.”

“That will put Junior up against Tariqe Fosu and I don’t think he fancies that,” Rae said. The on-loan Brentford winger could do a lot of things well and Hoilett’s preference was the left in any event.

“I’d do that to get Thomas against (Chiedozie) Ogbene,” Ryan replied, mulling his choice over once again in his head. “Thomas will leave him in the dust.”

“Obviously, your call,” Rae said, and Ryan made up his mind. He made the switch, called both players into the office and told them his plan. The reaction was predictable.

Ince nodded silently and Hoilett, who was a little more high-strung, voiced an opinion. Ryan told him that he would put out the team that gave Reading the best chance to win, and that was that.

“Junior, I know you’ll be fine and I know you’ll do what’s best for the team,” and the Canadian international nodded. “You’re in the team for a reason and it’s because I think you can handle either side.”

Hoilett left for the changing room, not looking entirely convinced, but the deed was done.

And less than two minutes into the match, Ince vindicated his boss, knocking in a rebound of Meité’s powerful shot off the crossbar. It was a wonderful reflex play and Reading led away from home with just 1:47 on the clock.

Ryan’s praise was genuine and it seemed to have an effect on the players, who went out and bossed the entire first half. They had seven shots to Rotherham’s one and Ince’s goal stood up until the interval.

A happy group of Royals sat for instruction, but Ryan was more interested in Hoilett’s reaction. He simply sat in his locker and smiled. He had done just fine, and Ince had hit the back of the net.

In the second half, Ryan began to turn his thoughts toward the next match, at midweek at home to Blackburn, but knew he had a match to win first. A rather unfortunate yellow card against Loum, which forced Ryan into a tactical change, didn’t seem to shake Rotherham into life.

Reading pulled off its press midway through the second half, inviting Rotherham onto them, but the team that had scored six goals in its last match seemed lost on their way to the Reading goal.

Ince’s moment of magic held up for the entire game, and Reading moved into positive points for the first time. It was a terrific win, where they were never threatened – a delightful little one-nil away win that makes managers smile unless it happens to them.

Rotherham 0-1 Reading
Ince 2

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Ryan read the analytics on the trip home, in between texts from Annie. He was starting to appreciate them, and noted three numbers with satisfaction.

Reading’s PPDA, or Passes Per Defensive Action, was 3.48 and they had enjoyed 67 percent possession. Those were very strong numbers for the day and it meant they gave Rotherham very little time on the ball when they allowed the home team to have it.

The other number was another analytic called Progressive Passes, or passes that unlock a press by moving the ball out of threatened positions. Reading had 43 of them, while Rotherham had only 27.

Satisfied, Ryan put the stat sheet into his folio and settled in for the ride home. He thought about his dad, knew that he would have put absolutely no stock into analytics in the first place as long as the match had been won, and thought about how he had reacted to their last conversation.

Rob Ridgway had an ego. There was no doubt about that. That said, any manager who had won the Champions League was certainly entitled to one, so balancing his father’s sensibilities against his own unquestioned needs in leading his club had made for an interesting balancing act.

Rob’s tenure had been wild. Plots to drive him out of the country, a plot against his mother, and of course the entire fiasco surrounding the late Sidney Richmond’s attempts to take over the club had made the Reading soap-opera “must-see TV” for years.

He had come through unscathed. And not surprisingly, he thought he was quite clever in having done so. In a way he had been, but what really helped him the most was success on the pitch rather than any chicanery he had handled in the board room.

In short, his opponents got tired of trying, and after the Royals became kings of Europe, they had no path toward displacing him.

All he had ever wanted was to be accepted as a manager, and he fought hard for that respect. He also fought hard for his family, including young Ryan and his sister Rielle.

But finally, the time had come to call it quits. A heart attack slowed him down and finally forced him into retirement, and after that the club’s fortunes had fallen through the floor. So, he sat at home, fielding the occasional media request to say something salacious about another team, and alternated between relief that it was all over and sadness that he couldn’t have accomplished more.

In the finest tradition of both sides of the Ridgway family, Ryan was rarely one to ask for advice. His mother had been that way in fending off Peter McGuire, and his father had been that way in fending off everyone else.

But as the coach rolled toward Berkshire, Ryan spared a thought for his dad. He was the product of a bygone era, but he didn’t want to admit it. He still had his pride. And while Ryan knew his father was happy to see the Royals win, he couldn’t help but feel that Dad was probably thinking about how he’d have done it – with only his mother to listen to him.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“Do you ever worry about him?”

Annie’s gaze met Patty’s, and the two women shared a knowing glance.

“Well, he’s a tough old bird,” Patty replied. “If he gets into any trouble, he’s more than happy to try to deal with it himself.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Ryan’s wife said sweetly. She got on famously with her mother-in-law, which was great for a number of reasons, but none more important than when discussing family.

Patty sighed. “Yes, sometimes I do,” she said. “His health alone sometimes makes watching him brood become a real problem.”

“And your health doesn’t make that any better,” Annie observed. She was correct.

Patty’s cancer scare was a big factor in Rob’s decision to depart from management. They had met comparatively late in life – after Rob’s playing career had come to an end – and Rob wanted as much time with his wife as he could manage, especially after all they had been through to be together.

“No, it doesn’t,” Patty said softly.

“So, what do we do about this?” Annie asked. “I watch Rob mope around the house, and though I know he’s trying not to show it, I think he’s jealous.”

“You could be right,” Patty replied. “I know he’d be horrified if anyone suggested that to him because he’s completely behind anything Ryan wants to do, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

“What wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest?” Rob entered the room and sat in his recliner.

Both women turned with a start. “I heard everything,” he said simply. “And I think we need to talk.”

Patty and Annie shared a shocked glance, not knowing how Rob would react to being talked about behind his back.

“There’s no need to worry,” he finally said, knowing he controlled the pace and tone of the conversation now. “If you’re asking if I’m jealous of Ryan, the answer is no. I had my time at Reading and what I did there is in the history books. Now, that said, his getting into management of my old club has reawakened some things in me that I didn’t think were alive any more.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked. “And I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

Rob dismissed his daughter-in-law’s concern with a wave of his hand. “Everyone’s got an opinion,” he said simply. “Where we can, we try to keep others on the straight and narrow, so that’s why I came in. I could have just listened to the whole thing, you know.”

Annie flushed a bright red. She adored Rob and it was mutual. She hated the thought of hurting him even accidentally.

“So, let’s get back to the topic,” Patty said brusquely. She was better acquainted with her husband’s moods than Annie was, and as a result knew when to push him and when to leave well enough alone.

“Okay,” Rob said. He didn’t usually meet Patty head-on, and the surprise caught her ever so slightly off balance.

“Well, then, what will get you out of this mood?”

“Which mood were you referring to?”

She frowned. “The one where you don’t tell us anything, which is shockingly similar to the mood you’re in right now.”

“Look, what I think about football is my business,” he said, drawing a line in the sand.

“We aren’t talking about football,” Annie interjected. “We’re talking about you, about the grandfather to my children when the time is right. We care. And we’re worried.”

Annie had never presumed to speak for Patty before, but a cursory glance to her right saw Patty nod in agreement. She was on solid ground.

“Well, I’m sorry to have worried you,” Rob replied with a genuine smile. “Sometimes I just miss the old job, is all. And sometimes that realization hits me differently than it does at other times.”

“Well, you’re already a consultant to the club,” Patty reminded him.

“Who is never called upon to consult,” Rob replied, and Patty immediately thought of Hamlet.

“Ay, there’s the rub,” she said, channeling her inner Dane.

“Yeah.” Rob, in turn, channeled his inner spoilsport.

Now Patty got up from the couch and crossed the living room to her husband, touching his hand gently. It was the one thing guaranteed to make him pay attention, that simple show of affection that he loved so well.

“How about a suggestion?” she asked.

Rob nodded, his eyes meeting hers.

“Ask Ryan,” she said. “You tell us you aren’t jealous and you certainly seem to want to help. What could it hurt?”

Rob frowned slightly. “Hey, son, any work for your old man?” he said, with just a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well, I’d prefer, “Ryan, I’m looking to help you in any way I can and if you think talking with a Champions League-winning manager will help, I’m happy to be that person.”

Annie smiled at them, a tear welling in her left eye. The droplet made a bid for freedom by running down her cheek, and then Rob saw his daughter-in-law’s face.

It melted him. One thing you could not say – ever – about Rob Ridgway was that he wasn't devoted to those close to him.

“All right, I’ll ask,” he finally said. “Maybe I can either get some closure or some fulfillment. Neither would hurt.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

17 August 2022
Reading v Blackburn, Championship Match Day #4

The crowd was modest, but it was a hot day. That pertained to their clothing as well as to the weather.

Finally on the plus side of the points ledger, Ryan’s Royals entered play in 20^th place in the Championship despite having a better actual record than their opponents, who entered the match in eighth position.

Rob took his customary place in the directors’ box, sat away from most of the group, wearing his traditional Reading blazer, shirt and tie and the weather be damned.

The team sheet showed that Ryan was taking a real gamble – eight changes from the team that had defeated Rotherham away. But the players didn’t quite have their legs yet and Hirons’ report on some of those who had played at mid-week was little short of alarming.

So, he really had no choice. Ince, Hoilett, McIntyre, Casadei and others who had made such a difference were now all on the substitute’s bench, with Mbengue, Sarr, Dejan Tetek and Tyrese Fornah out there to make a positive difference. Azeez and Meite were in the starting XI, which, coupled with Carroll in attack, gave Ryan reason to think there would be pressure on the Rovers’ goal.

Only it didn’t start that way. The new backline made a complete hash out of a clearance early in the match and Sorba Thomas was there to cleanly beat Lumley less than three minutes into the match, to the delight of the traveling supporters and the utter consternation of the Reading bench.

But it got worse. After 14 minutes, Carroll was judged to have pushed Scott Wharton on a Blackburn corner, and referee Craig Pawson pointed to the spot. Rey Manaj gleefully sent Lumley the wrong way from twelve yards and less than a quarter-hour into the match, Reading had been well and truly punched in its collective mouth.

The fans were silent except for the two hundred or so Rovers supporters singing loudly in their corner of the building. Ryan did a slow boil on the touchline – for a striker to give away a penalty was a cardinal sin to him – so he did as his father would have done and strode to the touchline.

“Match started at three o’clock, gentlemen! How about you start playing like it?”

The crowd of 13,000-plus sat silent, so Rob could hear his son’s remonstration on the touchline. “Very good, Ryan,” he said under his breath. “Don’t spare the rod.”

Rob had been notorious for hating a slow start and wasn’t afraid to light up any of his players who didn’t show up ready to play in the manager’s estimation. To him, that was part of being in charge – let the players know when they weren’t good enough, hopefully before it became a crisis.

The kick in the shorts seemed to help the Royals, even though they didn’t do anything of note for the remainder of the first half. Going to break down two at home didn’t exactly appeal to Ryan and the players cringed inwardly, knowing what was coming.

Ryan didn’t disappoint. “I don’t know what in the bloody hell that was I just saw but it needs to never happen again,” he said, his voice firm and rising in volume as he spoke. “You know the match plan and you just crumpled it up and threw it away. Get yourselves sorted, gentlemen, what I saw doesn’t qualify as a professional effort.”

With that, he retreated to his office and slammed the door. The coaches then met with the players in positional groups and gave them information on how to get back into the match.

Breathing fire, the Royals then proceeded to do nothing for the first fifteen minutes of the second half. By the hour mark, Ryan had seen enough and proceeded to bring on Ince, Long and Casadei but not before giving them a quick chat-up on the touchline.

“We’ve got half an hour left and we aren’t out of this by any stretch,” Ryan said. “But we need you to lead us out there. Make it happen.”

With that, the three were introduced, with Ince moving to the right and Hoilett, who had not played well but still had relatively fresh legs, moving to his accustomed left side. Ryan wanted the pressing game to start producing results and having Long out there instead of Carroll was an improvement in that area.

Carroll gave everything when he played, but ran like an ice wagon. Long, despite his age, was much fleeter of foot and immediately started to harass the Rovers’ centerbacks. It was a start, but time was getting short.

The in-form Ince then grabbed the game by the scruff of its neck. Taking a prescient lead pass from Casadei to the right of the Blackburn goal, he faked left, moved right and scored into the lower left corner of the net as the clock turned past 72 minutes.

There was now something to hope for and the home team piled forward looking for an equalizer. It wasn’t long in coming, as a rebound of Ince’s shot came to Long at the left edge of the Rovers’ six-yard box, and his toe poke as he fell to the floor landed almost exactly where Ince’s had moments before.

With eleven minutes to play, Reading had clawed level and now sought a winning goal. While they didn’t find it, they had a much happier manager to deal with after the match.

As Long celebrated his goal, Rob Ridgway thought of his old super-sub. “Leroy Lita is reborn,” the old boss said. “And not a moment too soon!”

Reading 2-2 Blackburn
Ince 72, Long 79; Thomas 3, Manaj pen 14

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“I wish I could say I was happy with how we defended at the start of the match,” Ryan said. “But then, I’d be lying to you and that isn’t a good way to make friends.”

He was able to speak those words with a smile as he met the media after the match, which was a big improvement from his demeanor twenty minutes into the match.

“We are not talented enough to regularly spot clubs two goals on our pitch and then come back every week,” he added, when asked to elaborate on his original statement. “That being said, we did manage to do it today and that is very pleasing to me. If we’re going to stay out of the relegation places, we need to be able to drag ourselves back into a match and that’s exactly what we did today.”

There was only one reporter who didn’t seem to be impressed with the fightback. Colin Anderson, the beat writer for four four two, looked less than impressed, so he decided to show it.

“What would you do if you had thrown away a two-goal advantage instead?” he asked.

Ryan frowned. “We didn’t,” he simply said. “So, your question is moot. And they didn’t throw away a lead, we took it from them.”

After his media availability ended, Ryan was still shaking his head at the nerve of the reporter, and so was not at his best when his father congratulated him in the 1871 Suite after the match.

Rob enjoyed his traditional McEwan’s after the match and, other than his hair turning from brownish-blonde to a sandy shade of gray, it was like he had never left. He had the same body size and shape – six-foot-two and 15 stone – as he did when he played and managed.

Ryan sat down next to his father and received his own beverage of choice – A Colorado Bulldog. He was different from his dad in his drinking habits as well.

“Well done,” Rob said, by way of starting the conversation.

“That idiot,” Ryan replied, still seething at Anderson’s question.

“Come again?”

“This Anderson idiot. Four four two, I think.”

“Don’t let him rile you,” Rob said. “Maybe he had money on the match or something.”

The younger Ridgway smiled in response. “Then I’d be glad to take money out of his pocket,” he finally replied.

“Stefano Emliani, he is not.” It was an interesting comparison. The Gazzetto Della Sport reporter who had made Rob’s life miserable for his first two seasons in management was in a muckraker’s class by himself. Himself a victim of The Supporters, an Italian group bent on driving Rob out of Italy while he was at Calcio Padova, Emiliani had his own opinions about everything and damn anyone who thought otherwise.

“How do you handle idiots like that?” Ryan asked.

Rob smiled. “Funny you should ask that,” he replied. “I think you and I might benefit from some more conversations about this.” Yet, he had read his son's meaning clearly. Whoever he was, Colin Anderson was an idiot.

“Who wants scars all over their body?” Ryan said. “I mean, I love talking to you and all, but dwelling on media isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

“I think I can help fix that for you,” Rob said. “If you’re willing.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

He’s Doing What?
By Jill Weatherby
Exclusive to the Reading Evening Post

The Post can reveal exclusively that Reading manager Ryan Ridgway has coaxed his famous father Rob out of retirement.

The elder Ridgway, 57, who famously steered Reading to European glory in 2014, fell out with the club’s management and board several years later before suffering a heart attack that forced him into retirement.

But now, the club icon says he will assist his son – but only to a point.

“He’s got a staff,” Rob Ridgway said. “They have jobs to perform and it isn’t my role to get in the way. I’ll be at the end of the bench and able to give tactical advice if Ryan asks for it.”

Famous as a man-manager during his time first with Calcio Padova and then with the Royals, Rob appears to have passed on his “soft skills” to his son. Players reportedly are very happy with their new boss and feel he has what it takes to stop the rot at the club.

And even owner Dai Yongge will be pleased – Rob Ridgway’s role is volunteer and therefore unpaid. For a club that has missed making payroll twice in the last thirteen months, that will surely be welcome news.

“Is there a reason I wouldn’t want to get advice from someone who has won the European Cup?” Ryan Ridgway asked rhetorically. “He’s right – the decisions are mine to make but he’s there if I need him like he has always been. The difference is that this time, he’s going to be on the bench and in the changing room instead of in the directors’ box.”

However, some within the protest group “Sell Before We Dai” are reportedly concerned that a turnaround of results under Ryan Ridgway may result in Yongge being unwilling to sell the club, presenting supporters with a true Faustian bargain – root for failure in a pact with the devil, or root for success under an owner many supporters feel is also related to Mephisto?

The major Reading supporters groups including the Supporters Trust at Reading (STAR), Club 1871, The Tilehurst End and the Elm Park Royals had no immediate comment on today’s news.

Perhaps ironically, it was Rob Ridgway who made it possible for Sir John Madejski to keep the club against a takeover bid from the late financier Sidney Richmond during the Royals’ salad days. His task now is to help his son succeed and let the chips fall where they may.

The Ridgways are expected to make their touchline debut at the weekend as the Royals host seventh-placed Middlesbrough at Select Car Leasing Stadium.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

20 August 2022 – Championship Match Day #5
Reading v Middlesbrough

Rob made sure his entrance was as low-key as possible. Ryan led the coaching staff out right after the players’ line and Rob dutifully went to a seat on the end of the second row of the dugout.

It was Ryan’s show. Rob was determined not to get in the way of it all.

The squad had been mostly rotated after playing at midweek. The fixture list called for two matches a week for the next few weeks so everyone was going to get playing time. This team was one that had largely sat on the bench against Blackburn, and some of them had saved the club’s bacon by sparking the rally that earned a draw.

The best news was that Yiadom was available for selection, having finally recovered from his twisted ankle. Hirons had advised Ryan not to use him for more than 45 minutes, though, so Mbengue was preferred as the match began.

The other change was in goal. Lumley was on loan from Boro and so could not play against them. The energetic Dean Bouzanis therefore got the start and was anxious to show what he could do, while prospect Coniah Boyce-Clarke dressed with the eighteen for the first time, having previously done loan spells at Welling and St. Albans.

Reading started slowly, but better than their visitors, who looked quite sluggish indeed in the early going. Rahman woke everyone up in the 22^nd minute with a first-time thunderbastard from 25 yards out to the keeper’s right. The ball had come to him from an inch-perfect cross by Ince, and Rahman stormed off to the corner flag like someone who knows he’s just a hit a goal of the month candidate.

The goal allowed Ryan to ease the team up a bit as Boro now had to chase the game. He wanted to get to halftime with the lead intact so he could set up the team for the second, but Aaron Ramsey took care of that wish with a well-taken goal just as the match ticked into first-half added time.

Ryan’s look of consternation said all that needed to be said. Rae could be seen with a word for him as the referee blew for halftime. Rob then caught his son’s eye and made two motions that said all that needed to be said.

He shook his head from side to side and put his right index finger to his lips.

Ryan looked at him like he was thinking it over, and the Reading party retired to the changing room where Rob was sat with the other assistants, away from the main part of the floor.

Ryan spoke. “That wasn’t bad, but there’s better in you,” he said. The team, which had expected a roasting for conceding in the last minute of the half, took the news like a death row inmate just pardoned by the governor.

The mood in the room changed dramatically, and that was the entire point. The position coaches then got to work with their players during the halftime while Rob hung around the tactical session in case he was asked to say anything. He wasn’t.

That’s why it was so surprising to see the Royals fall behind four minutes into the second half. It came through a grievous error by Ejaria, who picked up a loose ball in his penalty area after a Middlesbrough corner and then got caught in possession by Matt Clarke less than ten yards from goal.

The defender looked like Puskas as he easily beat Bouzanis from short range. It was worse than a schoolboy error and Ryan then did what he had wanted to do at the half – he got up and told his players to get themselves sorted.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long in coming and thankfully, it was Ejaria who did the sorting. After a contested header in the Boro six-yard box, Shane Long laid the ball off for him and Ejaria found the top right corner of Zack Steffen’s goal only seven minutes after being undressed by Clarke.

That was better stuff, and Reading spirits picked up immediately. As the match rolled on, though, the xG count rose but the score didn’t. They hit woodwork twice in the second half and though the game became increasingly one-way traffic, some of the players who had featured against both Blackburn and Bore began to tire.

Casadei, Yiadom and Hutchinson all make their appearances, but Ryan elected to bring them on one at a time and so had to stop at three substitutions. The tired players came off, but one of them was thankfully not Ince.

His play was influential throughout and as the match passed eighty minutes, he became Reading’s talisman again. He picked out Hoilett on a wonderful cross-field pass with the Canadian international taking the ball toward goal from near the byline. His cross bounded off a defender and straight to Long, who toe-poked home from three yards to put Reading in front again.

Rob just grinned in reply, and in a fun and classy gesture, the striker passed by the bench to hug his former boss along with the rest of the staff and substitutes.

The group had just resumed their seats when they were up and celebrating again. Casadei was the provider this time, finding Ince in the channel between the left fullback and left central defender. He raced forward and scored Reading’s second goal in three minutes to put the match beyond doubt.

It was wonderful. Reading had imposed its will on an opponent, came from behind once again, and this time put some distance between themselves and their opponents. It had been a near-perfect day.

Reading 4-2 Middlesbrough
Rahman 22, Ejaria 56, Long 82, Ince 84; Ramsey 45, Clark 49

# # #

[sherm]

Loving this as usual 10-3. Excellent from your good self

[tenthreeleader]

Sherm, thanks so much ... so nice to have my muse back!

___

 

The changing room was raucous after the match. The sounds of victory could be heard down the hall as Ryan started his media availability after the match.

Not surprisingly, Anderson was in the front row, waiting for an opportunity. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Another difficult start to the second half for you,” he said when his turn came.

Ryan just smiled at him. “I’m pretty sure that if this team learned to walk on water, there would be some people who would write that Reading football players can’t swim,” he replied. “Next.”

“Care to answer my question?” Anderson repeated.

“I just did. Next.”

Flushing, Anderson wrote down Ryan’s words in his notebook. It was almost like you could see the little storm clouds flashing lightning bolts over his head. Ryan couldn’t figure out what the journalist had against him, but then it took Rob a bit of time to figure out what Emiliani had against him back in Padua.

But now Ryan was better armed to deal with his new nemesis. Rob had sat him down and suggested how to handle troublesome reporters in a more assertive way.

“Not mean,” he had said, “unless they deserve it. You come out looking better when you’re nice about it and the journalist has to do the explaining.”

“That takes more patience than I have,” Ryan replied.

“Look at it this way,” Rob said. “If you’re in a disagreement with someone and you come off as the nice guy, there’s only way for the other guy to come off if he disagrees with you. He’s going to be the jerk. So, make him into one, if that’s what you want to do.”

And now, Ryan was being the nice guy. He called out the reporter in front of the entire media group, which undoubtedly embarrassed him and made Ryan’s feelings perfectly plain while not even calling the reporter by name.

“So, what am I supposed to do with that quote?” Anderson asked.

“Whatever you want,” Ryan said. “Everyone else in the room has it too, so, yeah. Liberty Hall.”

Eventually, the conversation turned to Cardiff, the next opponent in the Carabao Cup. Having just come off a disappointing draw against the Bluebirds two weeks prior, the players were looking forward to another opportunity to play them.

Then Sky Sports’ Max Walker chimed in, trying to add some levity to the situation.

“I’ll ask this so Colin doesn’t have to,” he began, and that drew laughter from the reporters in the room. “Analytics show you probably should have won against Cardiff in the league. What will make it different for you midweek?”

He wasn’t wrong. xG for that match was 2.38 for Reading and 0.31 for Cardiff.

“Well, I’d like to think getting one more goal than them would make it different,” Ryan said, staring at Anderson as he did so.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

As the Reading coach headed off to Cardiff for the cup tie, Ryan wanted to learn more from his father, who sat a few rows behind the front left seat traditionally occupied by the manager.

So Ryan got up and approached his father, who was asleep. The commotion awakened him, and the older man blinked the sleep out of his eyes hurriedly, evidently not liking that he had dozed off.

“What can I do for you, boss?” he asked with a lighthearted smile.

“Smart aleck,” Ryan replied, sitting next to Rob. “I was just curious about how you handled the mental side of managing.”

“Come again?”

“With all these matches coming so quickly, I’m mentally shattered,” Ryan said. “And we’ve still forty matches left to play in the league.”

“This is all about pacing yourself,” Rob replied. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

Ryan blushed.

“You are getting enough sleep?” Rob repeated himself, which he hated doing.

“Well,” Ryan said quietly, “Annie and I have been trying to make you a grandfather lately and let’s just say that sleep hasn’t always been first on our list of priorities.”

“I remember those days,” Rob laughed. “Your mother and I were thankfully the same way, because if we weren’t, you probably wouldn’t be here. Though I was told at the time that it is hard for a man to be a success in two national sports.”

“The workload I can handle,” Ryan protested. “But the issue for me is how mentally tired I get after managing a match.”

“That’s because you’re active,” his father replied. “You’re up and down the touchline, you look like you’re playing a match as well as managing one.”

“I can’t possibly imagine where I learned that.”

“And you say I’m the smart aleck?” Rob smiled at his son, as he shifted position to take some pressure off his lower back. He had never liked long coach trips because most weren’t built for people his size and the players had larger berths in any event. Winning the European Cup had meant better travel standards for Reading, including reclining seats which allowed the manager to lie down and take a nap when the situation warranted.

“Well, it’s true. But yes, I could stand a little advice on how to recharge.”

Rob thought for a moment. “Find some time for just you, where you don’t have to think about anything to do with football, or even Annie,” he finally said. “I used to do that a lot and people said I was standoffish. But it was important for my mental health to have some down time after a match. Of course, when all the crap was going on in Italy and my first year in England, I also drank more than I should have. Don’t do that.”

Ryan nodded. “Got that much, anyway,” he said.

“And you’ll find you get used to it after awhile,” Rob finished. “You’ll see. Winning makes things easier as well, though you can’t always do that.”

Rob remembered one of his favorite stories from his managing days and shared it with Ryan. Chelsea was always Reading’s hoodoo team, and with good reason. Then managed by Avram Grant, Roman Abramovich was pouring millions into his club and they made life very hard for Reading, which was still a growing concern and couldn’t match Abramovich in any financial sense. They defeated Reading in London early in Rob’s second season with the club, making it six straight winless matches against them dating back to Steve Coppell’s tenure.

To try to relax, Rob took Patty to the Reading Museum to see the first known replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. In 1885, Elizabeth Wardle and 37 of her friends replicated the entire 70-meter-long story of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, William the Conqueror and eventually, the Battle of Hastings, right down to the last stitch.

The couple was staring at the famous image of what’s believed to be Harold with an arrow in his eye.

A man sidled up to the Ridgways and smiled.

“Ah, old Harold,” the man said. “Now there was a man who knew how to win at Stamford Bridge.”

For one of the few times in his life, Rob was speechless. But that gave him one final message for his son.

“When you lose, it’s often best to find your quiet place in private,” he said.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

23 August 2022
Cardiff v Reading, Carabao Cup Second Round

Looking at his team sheet, Ryan could only sigh.

He was getting a reputation as a manager who liked to rotate his team, but this was ridiculous. An already small Reading squad was being stretched like a rubber band about to break and it was only a month into the season.

Kelvin Abrefa, an 18-year old prospect, was starting at right back since Hirons had limited Yiadom to 45 minutes in his return from injury. Nesta Guinness-Walker, a squad player, was at left back. Femi Azeez and the loanee Tyrese Fornah were in the eleven, as was 19-year old Dejan Tetek. Eighteen-year-olds Nelson Abbey and Adrian Akande joined seventeen-year-olds Caylan Vickers and Benji Purcell on the bench. And, of course, the 19-year-old Chelsea loanee, Casadei, was being asked to run the show from midfield.

There was a bit of steel on the bench, as Yiadom, Tom McIntyre and Long were all part of the team. But it was still a day where Ryan would have preferred to start a stronger team.

“Why the board wants a win today is beyond me,” Ryan mused as he sat with the staff in the visiting manager’s office.

“You want to win every match you play,” Rob remonstrated.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ryan snapped. “It’s just that the board ought to be able to see just by looking at the team sheet what problems we’re facing.”

“They don’t care about problems they create,” Rob replied. “They just care about problems they create for other people. That’s why you and I are managers and not board members.”

“Rob’s right,” Rae added. “All we can do it prepare the players we have to do the best they can and hope it’s enough.”

Eventually, there was nothing else for it. They had to play the match. Ryan shook hands with referee Andre Marriner and with Cardiff boss Sabri Lamouchi, who had won only one of his six matches in charge and so was hearing the first peeps of discontent from those around him. However, he hadn’t lost any, so a record of one win and five draws – all in the Championship’s first five matches -- would raise eyebrows but not cause too much concern in the short term.

Ryan was pleased to see the kids not cave in right from the get-go, as Cardiff opted to try to control possession and wait out the young Royals. Of course, it didn’t hurt that only 7,207 fans crammed into the 33,000-seat Cardiff City Stadium to watch the match, and a rather tomb-like atmosphere helped Reading get its feet on the ground.

That is, until just after the half hour, when Cardiff decided it was time to strike. Fullback Mahlon Romeo shook free first of Guinness-Walker and then Naby Sarr in central defence. With apologies to the Bard, goalkeeper Lumley was probably asking “wherefore art though, Romeo?” with his defenders completely at sea. Romeo squared for Callum Robinson, who had the simplest of finishes from six yards.

“Whatever you do, don’t go near the guy with the ball,” Ryan mused, trying to remain nonplussed. That score held until halftime which gave Ryan a choice to make with his players.

“You know, it’s okay to try to win even though we’ve got new faces in the team,” he said. “You can do this, but you have to be disciplined. We shut off for just a moment in the first half and it wound up in our net. Now, you can do something about that, or you can stay in your shell for the second half. I know which one I’d like to see.”

Rae then addressed the team, which broke into position groups for discussion for the rest of the intermission.

The second half started badly for Reading as Casadei stretched for a pass in the second minute after the restart, flicked the ball to Fornah, and then fell to the turf clutching his right leg asking to be subbed off.

Things got quickly better after that as Fornah took the ball wide, and squared for Andy Carroll in a virtual repeat of Robinson’s goal. Casadei did have to come off, replaced by McIntyre, and Hirons took him straight to the dressing room.

The match plowed on and Reading slowly started to find its feet. It was already a credible performance and that counted for much, but Reading caught a break as the match turned to seventy minutes.

Again Fornah was in the center of it all, racing to latch on to a cross from Abrefa but was felled by West Brom loanee Cedric Kipré. Marriner pointed to the spot and Meité grabbed the ball.

He then took one of the most woeful penalties Ryan had ever seen. Keeper Jak Alnwick guessed wrong, but Meité’s penalty rolled harmlessly past the keeper’s right post. The Ivorian had fluffed his lines and the match went on, still deadlocked.

Six minutes later, though, Abrefa surged down the right and beat both Callum Robinson and Perry Ng – both stalwarts in the Cardiff team – for pace. Azeez ghosted into space in the box and Abrefa found him easily for a tap-in goal that put the young team up 2-1 fourteen minutes from time.

Unfortunately, Carroll then limped off with an ankle knock and Sarr went off due to general exhaustion. That meant all three substitutions had been used, two for injuries.

Ryan thought, deep down, that that was all right – he didn’t think the time was right to trust any of the teenagers on the bench to help keep the lead in any event – but then it was Guinness-Walker hobbling off with an ankle twist as the match headed into injury time.

That meant finishing with ten men, and suddenly Ryan’s team needed to buck up their ideas to get through the last few minutes of the match, which saw eight minutes of added time.

But eventually, it was done. The kids had done themselves proud.

Cardiff 1-2 Reading
Robinson 33; Carroll 47, Meité mp 70, Azeez 76

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“Yes, I thought we were better and deserved it,” Ryan said of his team’s win.

Anderson didn’t have a lot to say, but did manage to get in a comment about “another slow start” for the Royals, to which Ryan simply replied, “yes, and another strong finish and another win.”

As Ryan spoke, Anderson got up and started to wander to the side of the room, evidently preferring to lean against a wall out of sight of the Reading manager. Looking down into his notebook, he took a few steps and bumped directly into Rob, who was watching the event from near the doorway.

“Excuse me,” Anderson said, before looking up with a start.

“Maybe take it easy on the young man,” Rob advised, with a slight smile.

“I’m not here to make it easy on people,” Anderson replied, showing he could be an idiot to more than one person at the same time.

“You don’t need this fight,” Rob said, which made Anderson smirk.

“Don’t try to tell me my job,” he answered, starting to move away.

“Then don’t try to tell Ryan his.” Their eyes met, and Rob’s steel blue eyes locked in like lasers.

Rob spoke again.

“Look, I don’t care if you fight me or don’t like me or Ryan, but I’ll tell you what. A very wise man once said that at my age, the only truly satisfying things in life are a good bowel movement and saying 'I told you so.' I try not to miss the chance to do either one. So, if you don’t want to be told off, I suggest you don’t ask for it.”

Anderson said nothing, but simply shouldered his way past Rob and out the door. He had done what he had come to do.

ROYAL PATRONAGE
Opinion / By Colin Anderson

CARDIFF – in the aftermath of Reading’s surprising 2-1 win over Cardiff City in the Carabao Cup, questions still persist about young manager Ryan Ridgway, who has led the penniless Berkshire club out of the relegation places in the Championship and into the third round of this competition, where they will likely be swallowed whole by a much bigger fish.

The first is about the team showing up ready to play. In virtually all of their matches to this point, Reading have been tossed about the park like rag dolls in the mouth of an overexuberant puppy before finding their feet later on in the contest.

The questions aren’t necessarily from me, though I’ve been pointed in my questioning of Ridgway after matches as I should be expected to be. They’re from fans, who are split right down the middle as to what the best way is to get Dai Yongge out of their club.

Is winning the best way to do that? Some say no. Is losing the best way to do that? Others say no.

One thing everyone can agree on is that relegation is out of the question. Ridgway has to keep the club in the Championship at a minimum, for his survival.

It was quite canny of Yongge and his board to hire the son of the club’s greatest managerial legend to try and save them. It’s hard for fans to argue with a Ridgway, and it buys time for the owner in the event things go pear-shaped. Unfortunately, Ryan Ridgway had no managerial experience before stepping right into the 46-match cauldron of the Championship.

The fans’ fear is genuine. Many feel Yongge can’t lose. If the club wins, he wins. If the club loses, nothing changes.

Sources with the Elm Park Royals supporters group revealed their doubts to me privately before the season began, but stressed they harbored "no ill will toward the Ridgway family.”

“Why would we do that?” one told me. “Rob won us trophies and we watched Ryan grow up at the Mad Stad. We just don’t want him in the way while we try to do what’s best for the club and get Dai Yongge to sell up.”

But in the meantime, the man hired because he’s Rob Ridgway’s son stands in the way of the Reading supporters getting what they really want. Ironic, isn’t it?

# # #

[dtown1414]

Not fair, but sometimes it's who you know. (Or in this case, who you're related to). Seen it happen in football, and in the corporate world. Good story!!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, dtown! And yes, it's not what you know but who you know sometimes ...

___

 

The draw for the third round of the Carabao Cup came the next day. Ryan was sat in the manager’s office with the television on to watch the draw.

Reading was drawn as an away club. That wasn’t so bad. Unfortunately for Ryan, however, the home club drawn next was Liverpool.

“Bloody hell,” Ryan said, suddenly no longer in the mood to watch television.

“Well, it’s not until November,” Rae said. “Lots can happen between now and then.”

“Right,” Ryan replied. “We can’t buy any new players for the next two windows, some of the ones we have may get injured, and the accrued interest in Liverpool’s holiday party fund will exceed our entire payroll. But yes, a lot can happen between now and then.”

“Well, you don’t have to be mean about it.” Rae’s expression showed he knew that neither man was being serious.

“But, like you said, it’s not until November,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure we’ll have our hands full whenever we play them.”

During Rob’s tenure, Reading had been to Liverpool what Chelsea had been to the Royals – a persistent pain in the hindquarters that would not go away. Ryan was sure that the Reds faithful wouldn’t mind pinning a measure of revenge on Reading for past injuries inflicted, especially since the financial tables had turned so much in their favor.

But that match was still far in the future. Even Annie knew it, when she playfully texted her husband that “Liverpool or no, it’s still time for you to come home.”

And Ryan certainly knew what that meant.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Anderson’s story had done what it was supposed to do. It got people talking.

With a trip to East London coming up that weekend to face Millwall, Ryan had more pressing things to worry about.

The thing of it was, even is anyone in the board room had cared about what Anderson had had to say – which, for now, they didn’t – the news would have to travel to China and back before any statement could be made.

That’s because Dai was often an absentee owner, which only served to make the fans even more angry. And, it wasn’t like anyone in the board room cared about what the press had to say anyway.

The coaches had a laugh about Anderson’s article before training, with Rob providing the moment of the morning.

“You call that criticism?” he asked. “Where I came from, that’s just a Glasgow kiss.”

He didn’t like Anderson’s treatment of either Ryan or the club, but he also knew that you can’t expect perfection, especially from reporters whose job it is to provide it.

Trying to make sense of it all, Ryan finally took the team through training, and he found that cleared his mind nicely.

The Royals would come into the match in 14^th position in the Championship, having gone through no serious adversity other than having the points docked from them. That proved to be a minor setback at best given the team’s strong start, but it was still a handicap that would last the entire season regardless of whether the points had been made up or not.

Ryan realized that his team’s confidence was at least as good away from home as it was in Berkshire, so in preparation for the coach trip, he built up his team’s sense of belief.

“You’re winning away,” he reminded the players as training wound down. “I’m proud of how you’re showing the Championship that you aren’t make-weights.”

Yet, as positive as Ryan had been at training, he was forced to address Anderson’s article, which was getting great play in Reading and elsewhere.

“It isn’t my job to worry about who owns the club,” he said. “It’s not my job to try to influence who owns the club. My job is to win matches for Reading Football Club and its supporters. Nothing more and surely nothing less.”

“Your father worried quite a bit about who owned the club.” This, rather amazingly, wasn’t from Anderson, but from Bobby Butler of the Press Association.

“He’s Rob. I’m Ryan,” the manager answered. “That was a different time, and it doesn’t mean that today should be either the same or different. I’m a bit surprised, though, to read that there are supporters who want this club to lose so we can have a different owner. They are entitled to their opinion, but I am serving notice right now that we are not only going to show up for all 46 Championship matches this season, but that we might actually win a few more of them along the way. The fans should be ready for that.”

It was Ryan’s way of trying to turn the conversation back to the areas he wanted to talk about, but some people don’t take hints very well. Finally, press officer Phoebe Sayer had had enough. She ended the news conference before Ryan had to do it himself, which the manager appreciated.

Some people just never seem to learn, do they?

[tenthreeleader]

Before the trip to Millwall, Ryan had the happy duty of congratulating his new international players.

Casadei had been picked for Italy’s u-21s, Tetek for Serbia’s u-21s, and Mbengue for France’s u-21s. So, their trip to London was a happy one.

Ryan also sent texts of congratulations to Jack Senga-Ngoyi, who was picked for Belgium’s u-21 and was on loan at Plymouth, and u-19 Scotland cap Michael Craig, on loan at Shrewsbury, was selected for the next step up, the u-21s.

All five players were still not at full international level yet, but the signs were good and of the five, only Casadei was a loan player. That gave Ryan something to think about, since his squad was full up with players not on Reading contracts.

And, since the squad had some weary legs from the last week, the maximum of five allotted loan players were in the match squad for Millwall. Lumley, Rahman, Loum, Hendrick and Casadei.

27 August 2022
Millwall v Reading – Championship Match Day #6

It had rained overnight, and it was cool and windy as the players took to the pitch for warmups at The Den. Ryan had to shake his head at the weather – cool and windy might be good for keeping the temperature down but it would make it harder for tired and sore legs to stay limber.

The team looked heavy-legged during its warmup and that was a real cause for concern. Players shouldn’t be that tired this early in the season, Ryan thought to himself.

And, of course, since Reading was the in-form team, the press was talking up players like Long and Ince, who had really done a job for Ryan. Long had five goals in six matches and Ince had been one of the Championship’s best performers over the first month of the season. So naturally, Ryan didn’t want his players’ heads turned by flattery that didn’t come from him.

Ryan started his stable out in a more cautious approach to avoid falling behind early. Ordinarily he wouldn’t do that but he wanted his players to know that playing a full ninety-minute match meant not starting out behind the eight ball.

And it worked. They weren’t any great shakes getting forward, but they kept the Lions off the board through the vulnerable time.

However, it was the Lions who made the breakthrough, coming just as Ryan had thought about loosening the reins on his team. Mason Bennett shook loose in the middle of the area and finished powerfully from Zion Flemming, who towered over the Reading midfield and looked to be very much for it as the first half wore on.

Bennett, who hadn’t scored a lot of goals for the Lions, didn’t show it as he calmly beat Lumley for 1-0 with 34 minutes on the clock.

Reading was starting to dominate possession and the gegenpress was working well for them as the half came to an end.

They trooped off to the changing room, where Ryan let his team have a few choice words.

“Not terribly impressed, gentlemen,” he said, sitting on a folding chair in front of his team. “I’m not going to yell at you because we are more than good enough to win this match, but I’ve got to see better from you in the second half. We look like we’ve never played together out there at times. That isn’t the team that I know. Let’s get it sorted and let’s get back in this match.”

It wasn’t made any easier in the second half when McIntyre put through his own goal while trying to clear another cross from the influential Flemming.

At that point, Reading couldn’t get out of its own way. Despite having the majority of the possession, the spark was gone. There was no creativity from the midfield and Ryan eventually got the ineffective Ince out of there to save his legs for next time.

It had not gone well. Millwall had played them well, and that was that.

Millwall 2 (Bennett 34, McIntyre og 69)
Reading 0

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“I wish I could say we played well,” Ryan said. “We did not.”

He then looked at Anderson. “Sometimes you’re right in this game, sometimes you’re not,” he added, and the journalist gave him a blank expression in return.

The questioning wasn’t necessarily harsh – after all, it was the first official defeat in Ryan’s tenure – but it didn’t feel good. Nobody likes losing, least of all the Ridgways.

The questioning then centered around how to rally the troops.

“Well, if you didn’t keep turning their heads by asking me questions about how wonderful they are,” Ryan said with a smile, and thankfully the journalists assembled got the joke.

“Do you think that really had any effect?” That was Butler.

“I tell my players that the only opinion on their play that matters is mine,” Ryan replied. “They can do with that what they wish but a player who lets things go to his head, good or bad, won’t last long at this level. We have to pick things up, we have to be better, we have to be mentally sharper, and we need to see the field and make plays like we were during our streak.”

As they talked, Anderson got up and headed toward the door, passing Rob on the way.

“I told you so,” he whispered, and vanished down the corridor while Rob glared at him. It was all he could do.

The players had a coach ride home to think about things, after Ryan told them he wanted to see better ideas on the training ground and in the upcoming match against Sheffield United. The bus was deathly quiet as players retreated to their collective sanctum sanctorum -- music and headphones -- as the bus chugged back across London toward Berkshire.

Ryan quietly texted Annie, who offered her commiserations, and Rob sat a few rows behind him, staring out the window. It was dark, so it didn’t really make a lot of sense to look at what wasn’t there, but Rob thought that would be better than trying to catch his son’s eye. The indignation of the loss stuck with him, but Rob reminded himself over and over again that while Reading was his club, this team was not his.

It was painful to remember, but Rob had to let Ryan work this one out for himself.

# # #

 

[tenthreeleader]

While not a savant by any stretch of the imagination, Ryan looked at analytics to try to squeeze every bit of information he could find out of a scouting report. But it was still rare for him to seek out the analyst for further conversation.

Jared Dublin had never played professionally, but he had spent the last five years working for Sheffield United, the next opponent on the agenda. Going to Bramall Lane after being humbled at The Den didn’t appeal to Ryan, but perhaps it was better to try to get back on track away from home. Dublin also doubled as the club’s chief scout, so his opinion was important to Ryan.

So before the coach left for South Yorkshire, Ryan talked with Dublin about what he was asked to concentrate on while working in the Steel City.

“They love to cross from deep as you know and they like to get their centre-backs forward, as I am also sure you know,” Dublin said with probably more deference than he needed. “Forcing them wide is what they want you to do, especially when they’re overlapping. The main things, though, are that they are tenacious when they don’t have the ball, they don’t want to shoot from distance, and I think they’re vulnerable to direct counterattack.”

That was certainly enough for Ryan, who was looking for any way he could find to get his team motivated and back on track.

Ryan had changed the tactic for this match, trying to take a page out of his father’s book. When Rob Ridgway felt that an opponent could be either overconfident or unawares, he would put his stall into a counter-attacking tactic instead of his preferred 4-1-3-2. It had cut Arsenal to ribbons more than once, and given Manchester United fits, especially when Steve Coppell managed them.

Now Ryan thought it might work here. Sheffield were certainly no Arsenal, but putting the team sheets side by side there was no doubt who had the more talented side. It wasn’t Reading, unfortunately.

There was, however, one thing that Reading possessed that gave Ryan hope. They had a very pacy midfield, especially if Azeez and Maité flanked Ince and Casadei was placed behind them. It was the sort of alignment that might be able to smash and grab a goal, which would be one of the few things Ryan could ask for.

Another thing he could ask for was for August to end. Yes, the weather was nice but Reading had played eight competitive matches in just 24 days and his team already had aches and pains that would need time to heal. September was a much better month in terms of fixtures, with only four matches scheduled and an international break that would give the team two weeks off at the end of the month.

In fact, the only month that compared to August was April, for obvious reasons. That month they had seven matches scheduled in 28 days and if by some miracle they were still alive in any cup competition, that would only add to the late-season burden.

That was one reason why it was so important to get some sort of result out of the match in Sheffield. While the smallish senior squad still had relatively fresh legs, they needed to make hay while the sun was shining, to use the old phrase.

30 August 2022
Sheffield United v Reading – Championship Match Day #7

The weather was fine, the crowd was decently sized and ten minutes into the match, Reading had not conceded. Those were all good things from Ryan’s point of view and as his team settled into the match, their shape and intention soon became apparent.

Their press wasn’t as pronounced, and that gave the Blades time on the ball in their defensive third, which they used to putter about in no meaningfully organized way for the first half hour.

Finally, out of frustration, Rhys Norrington-Davies grabbed a great big handful of Ince’s shirt after losing the ball to him and yanked. Ince went down, Norrington-Davies was lucky to avoid a red card, settled for yellow, and the match went on.

It was very tactical. United would work the perimeter in one direction and then the other only to see Reading refuse to give them the entry space they were trying to gain. Half-chances abounded with the veteran Billy Sharp getting the best chance for the Blades, dragging a shot past Lumley’s right post with ten minutes left in the half.

Reading, for their part, were doing even less. They were dug in, tight as a tick, and got to halftime scoreless.

“The hard part is done,” Ryan assured them. “Give me some energy in the second half and let’s see if we can steal a result today. You’re doing very well.”

With that, the second half began and more of the same ensued. Some in the crowd were actually whistling at the slow pace of play, but this was the type of match Ryan wanted to see. Sheffield United were being slowed down by a dogged Reading defensive group and as the minutes passed, the sense of unease in the home fans and team started to grow.

Then it happened. Oliver Norwood was stripped of the ball by Casadei on 63 minutes and Reading surged forward like a racehorse who gets the first urging from the jockey. The Blades had been caught with a centre-back up the field, and Reading countered with numbers.

The ball wound up at the feet of Ince, who carefully measured his shot as the defenders scrambled to cover him – and wired a laser beam squarely off the crossbar.

Ince threw his head back in frustration and the Reading bench could only agree with him.

As Sheffield United surged forward in the closing moments, Reading was forced to foul more to keep the game slowed down. They ended up with 15 for the match, with Hutchinson and Meité booked five minutes apart for excessive fouling as the match built up to its end.

That being said, there were only seven shots on target in the match and the Blades had had five of them. But Reading got its point, moved up to 15^th in the table, and Ryan was suddenly in a big hurry to get out of Yorkshire.

Sheffield Utd 0
Reading 0

# #

[tenthreeleader]

“You do know, don’t you, that you’ve gone over two matches without scoring?”

“Yes, Colin, I am aware of that. And in anticipation of your next question, I also know that you cannot win a game unless you score.”

“Touché,” the reporter said, just a hint of a smile crossing his face. That seemed like odd behavior from him so Ryan figured there was something he probably wanted.

The team’s media availability prior to their home match against Stoke wasn’t supposed to be a tempestuous affair, but Ryan wasn’t taking anything for granted.

“Are you concerned that your options are limited with international play this weekend?”

That was a much better question, and it was one Ryan had to tread carefully to answer.

Tetek, Casadei and Mbengue were all off with their respective u-21 teams and with four players also out injured, options were getting pretty thin for substitutes.

Rahman would still miss about a month after suffering an intensely painful hernia in training the day before the Sheffield United match, and Nesta Guinness-Walker was still a week or two away from his twisted ankle from the Carabao Cup match against Cardiff.

With defenders Scott Dann (torn hamstring, out 5-6 months) and Liam Moore (cruciate, out 6-12 weeks) both on the shelf with long-term ailments, that meant Ryan was down seven first-team players for the match. It also meant that in the current senior squad, every healthy body except Dean Bouzanis was either in the team or listed as a substitute.

So, Ryan had to be careful how he answered the question. If he complained, he would put pressure on upper management and regardless of how he felt about Dai, that wouldn’t be wise. Yet if he said he wasn’t concerned, Anderson would question his sanity.

“The fixture list is the fixture list,” he finally explained. “I’m certainly pleased that we have three u-21 internationals here, two of them under our own contracts, and they deserve to play for their countries because they’ve all done well here. When they get back we’ll have better numbers.”

“But you’re thin already.” That wasn’t Anderson. It was Weatherby, which wasn’t good.

“For this match, yes, we are,” he said. “Look, that’s part of the problem we have. When you have financial difficulties, difficult choices have to be made and managers have to abide by those changes. The expectations, not surprisingly, remain the same.”

Now Ryan noticed that everyone in the room was writing, which also wasn’t good but which was also unavoidable.

“Do you wish you had more players to work with?” Weatherby was zeroing in.

“Every manager wishes he had more players,” Ryan said. “But managers also have to be realistic.”

He wondered what the next day’s headlines would bring.

# #

[tenthreeleader]

ROYALS OWNERSHIP ADMONISHES RIDGWAY
By Jill Weatherby
Exclusive to the Evening Post

Reading manager Ryan Ridgway’s comments about the size of his Royals squad have drawn a rebuke from team ownership based in China.

While not expressing outright dissatisfaction with the ownership of Dai Yongge’s group, Ridgway noted that with three u-21 internationals away from the team before Saturday’s matchup with Stoke City, every uninjured senior squad player except third-choice goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis was in the eighteen for the Potters’ visit.

“Look, that’s part of the problem we have,” Ridgway said. “When you have financial difficulties, difficult choices have to be made and managers have to abide by those changes. The expectations, not surprisingly, remain the same.”

Upon receipt of Ridgway’s comments, Yongge’s management group, Renhe Commercial Holdings, took the very unusual step of sending a reply to this reporter from its base in Beijing. It read as follows:

Quote

 

“This corporation, and owner Dai Yongge, have invested over £200 million into Reading Football Club. We reject categorically any insinuation that it either lacks ambition or desire to make Reading FC into a profitable going concern.

We further note that manager Ryan Ridgway has been given everything he has asked for in terms of staffing, coaching and management, and would have provided players in this transfer window had the rules allowed us to do so.”

We have made difficult decisions that have affected the club in the present but which we have no doubt will leave it in better position for the future. Those who are not fully conversant with these workings would be best advised to remain in the background.

We sincerely hope that Ryan Ridgway is not harming the club with his observations. He has been given an opportunity to answer for his comments.”

 

“He might take a flying leap at my arse,” Ryan snapped, in the vilest mood anyone around him could remember.

“I did not question their ambition,” he said in the next day’s staff meeting. He was preaching to the choir, but the mood in the room was tense.

“We know you didn’t,” Rae said. “We know you didn’t.”

Another long silence followed.

“So,” Rae asked in a quiet voice, “what are you going to say to them?”

Ryan knew that his own future, and those of everyone in the room, might depend on his answer.

Except for one, and he sat in the corner, saying nothing.

“Dad?” Ryan asked, and Rob shifted slightly on the sofa in the corner of Ryan’s office.

“I know how I’d answer this,” he finally said. “But it’s your club.”

“And I’m your son,” Ryan said, knowing intuitively what was on his father's mind and finally cracking a smile for the first time all day.

“Well, I think you know,” Rae said to Rob, “but would you care to enlighten the rest of us?”

Rob smiled. “This is your club,” he said to Ryan, “but honestly, not everyone here knows that. I think it’s time you told them.”

Rae knew immediately what Rob meant, and what the goal of any response was likely to be. He also wondered if he would be seeing a P45 in his morning mail if it didn’t work.

Rob hadn't backed down from anyone, though. Not The Supporters when they tried to kill his wife. Not Richmond. Not Arsene Wenger at the height of his mind games. Not Rafa Benitez. Not Avram Grant at Chelsea, Coppell at United, or any of them. Show weakness, Rob knew, and you are through.

So it was that Ryan faced a larger-than-usual press gathering that afternoon.

“I just want to start by addressing the statement from the ownership group today, and then I’ll take questions,” Ryan said, raising eyebrows all over the room. This didn't sound like a football manager talking, it sounded like a politician, and Weatherby looked at him with surprise.

“I want the supporters of this club to know that regardless of how any comments I make to the press are construed or misconstrued, placing the most competitive team I possibly can on the pitch each and every week is my ultimate objective,” he said. “I did not in any way insinuate that the ownership group lacked ambition and I acknowledge that they have been very good to me as I have strengthened the management side of our football operation. I thank them for it. But I also want to make abundantly clear that I didn’t start this and as such I reject any need for ‘admonishment’, as Jill put it in her headline.”

At that, Weatherby’s face turned red.

“As long as I am here, there will never be a time when I do not advocate for what I feel is the best course of action for this football club,” he went on. “I am an extension of our supporters in that regard, and though I will occasionally make decisions they do not like, I will never lose sight of the fact that I represent them and their ambitions as much as I represent myself and my own ambitions.”

He had done it. Ryan had gone over Dai’s head and straight to the supporters. It was very much a Rob Ridgway-like move and the older manager hadn’t had to say a word.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“Have a seat.”

Ryan’s motion to the seat across from the manager’s desk was filled by the lissome shape of Jill Weatherby. She had asked for a bit of the manager’s time after the brouhaha with management, and Ryan was anxious both to keep the Evening Post onside as well as make himself abundantly clear to a person virtually everyone agreed was the club’s most influential reporter.

“Thank you for making this time,” Weatherby started, and Ryan nodded.

“We owe you at least that much for your work through the years.” Ryan’s tone was diplomatic and quiet – but not the kind tone those who had watched him grow up around the Mad Stad remembered hearing from him as a young adult. Something had changed, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what.

“I apologize for offending you, because I know I did,” Weatherby began, but Ryan simply shook his head.

“Jill, it wasn’t you,” he said, to the reporter’s surprise. “You didn’t write anything that I didn’t say. The problem I had was with the ownership and it would have surfaced anyway sooner or later. There’s no need to worry about protecting your source here, because if I know you, that’s what you’re concerned about as much as my feelings, and I don’t mean that in a negative way.”

“Then how do you mean it?” she asked.

“You’re a good, hard-working reporter who likes to get it right and also get it first,” Ryan said. “I watched my dad work for years around you and I’ll tell you, there’s a reason why he always called you first.”

“No doubt because I wasn’t Stefano,” she said, referring to Rob’s longtime frenemy, Stefano Emiliani.

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Ryan said. “He knew the kind of person you are and he wanted you to be rewarded for playing fairly. And that’s why I took this time with you today, to tell you the same thing.”

Weatherby looked puzzled. “I know how your father treated reporters who crossed him,” she said. “So, I guess I’m a little surprised.”

“My father never aired out a reporter who didn’t show he deserved it by his actions,” Ryan replied. “Of course, if you gave him a reason to, the end result was usually not pretty, I’ll admit. But you didn’t cross me. You gave me an opportunity.”

“To do what?”

“I can’t say now because technically we aren’t off the record,” Ryan said. “But let’s just say that you writing what I said told me a lot of about what I need to know about life at this football club.”

“Well, then I guess I’m happy to hear that,” Weatherby said. “I certainly didn’t expect this kind of a reception from you.”

“I’m not my father,” Ryan answered. “I’m my father’s son, but we are two very different people.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

3 September 2022
Reading v Stoke City – Championship Match Day #8
Theme: Pennies From Heaven – Rod Stewart and Jools Holland

“Ryan, do you hear that?”

Rae looked skyward with incredulity, as the coaches followed the teams out of the tunnel for the start of the match, craning his neck for a reason Ryan could only guess at.

“Hear what?”

“The tannoy,” Rae said, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

Ryan listened, and then smiled too. The PA system was playing “Pennies From Heaven,” the old standard from the 1936 movie of the same name. As a way to make light of the club’s internal tension, it was an inspired choice.

Before long, the crowd of just under 15,000 was singing:

Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven
Don't you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven?
You'll find your fortune falling all over town
Be sure that your umbrella is upside down!

Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers
If you want the things you love, you must have showers
So, when you hear it thunder, don't run under a tree
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me! 

“Somebody either just got promoted or sacked,” Ryan joked as the coaches took their place in the dugout and the match began.

Ryan’s threadbare team had been changed at the last minute due to yet another injury. Kelvin Abrefa, who was going to start this game at right fullback in a clear vote of confidence for the youngster who had just signed a three-year contract with the club, twisted his knee in the last training session prior to the match. It wasn’t anything serious, but Ryan’s comments about “shuffling a pack of 48 cards” to Rae was met with only a sideways smile as they both awaited Hirons’ report.

Still, it changed things, and as long as Ryan was at it, he put Meité at the top for the first time all season. Long had played very well leading the line but was showing signs that he needed a bit of a slowdown. Ryan preferred Meité’s pace to Carroll’s power, though the latter still lurked at the end of the bench if he was needed to make an impact.

Ryan gave what he thought was a rousing team talk about getting back on track and defending the home ground. The team then went through a somnambulant first thirty minutes, full of vigor and energy but with almost no creativity or practical application.

The only saving grace was that the Potters were equally as bad. Nobody seemed to want to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and the first half of the match was truly dire.

It went to halftime scoreless to the surprise of absolutely no one who had spent 45 minutes of their lives they could never get back while watching the contest.

At half, Ryan simply told the players the truth. “If we get the ball in shooting positions, we just have to be better than we were in this half,” he said. “Some of us couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a bass fiddle out there so let’s see some better application in front of goal.”

Of course, to finish you first have to get the ball into the correct position, which both teams had found to be as difficult as walking on a bed of hot coals. In some cases that was due to sound defensive play. In others, it was due to players having two left feet.

The second half began and the difference in Reading’s energy was palpable. However, their play wasn’t a whole lot better, as Loum found himself in the referee’s book only two minutes after the restart.

If anything, shots on target were harder to come by in the second half than they were in the first, so as the half wore on Ryan liked his team’s energy but was wondering where all their creativity had gone. Just before the 70-minute mark, Ryan made his move. Now he preferred Carroll’s power to Meité’s pace, and made the switch, also taking off Hollett for Femi Azeez.

After 74 minutes, with the match still scoreless, Stoke’s Tom Edwards came off with what looked to be a thigh injury and was replaced by Jordan Robinson. With the change, Ryan also changed Reading’s tactic to get men forward. He didn’t want a goalless draw, and readily accepted the thought that he might lose due to the aggressive tactic instead of getting a point the team needed but which no one wanted.

The fourth official held up his board, adding five minutes to the match. As he did, Tom McIntyre took a throw in near the corner flag in the attacking third, finding Azeez. He dropped the ball back to Jeff Hendrick and started a run that Hendrick saw coming. Immediately, the ball was back to the winger and then crossed for the leaping Carroll, who headed home with just over 89 minutes on the clock.

Matija Šarkić leaned back into the Stoke goal, pounding his fists on the turf in frustration. The keeper hadn’t had much to do in the match and when the moment finally came, he got lobbed by Carroll. The way the Potters were misfiring in attack, there was no way back.

Pennies from heaven, indeed.

Stoke 0-1 Reading
Carroll 89

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

The next day was a “victory Sunday”, so there was no training. Ryan woke up nestled next to Annie and took a deep breath followed by a long, luxurious sigh. The morning sun was shining brightly, deflected by the bedroom’s curtains to the far wall and out of their eyes.

“Nothing to do today,” she said softly, laying her arm across her husband’s chest.

“Well, not at the ground, anyway,” he replied. “We do have a whole week without a match, though, so it will be nice to get the players some rest. They need it.”

Weatherby’s headline of “Stale Biscuitmen” in the Sunday Post had said it all. The teams had combined for only twelve shot attempts in ninety minutes, with only four of them winding up on target. It had been a dire one-nil, but one that still gave Ryan the three points he craved.

They had moved up to 15^th in the Championship, which wasn’t a bad place at all for them to be. As importantly, they were five points clear of the relegation zone, which gave them a chance to catch their breath.

Norwich was playing like a machine, having gone ten unbeaten in all competitions to lead Bristol City by three points, 20 to 17, in the league table. It took a bit of living for Ryan to note that without the six-point penalty at the start of the season, his team would be third in that table.

Rotherham and Hull City, two teams behind Reading in the table, both had matches in hand to play and that could have affected their standing  but really, after a frantic August Ryan could have few complaints about how his team had played. Two cup wins and only one loss in the league was a very nice return for a threadbare squad who would welcome its u-21 internationals back with open arms.

After scoring the winner the day before, Carroll had had to come off after his leap to head the ball home gave him a tight thigh muscle. This, added to Abrefa’s injury, meant that the Royals now had six senior team members out with injury, even if Abrefa and Carroll were both supposed to be ready for the short trip to northwest London to face Watford the following Saturday. Guinness-Walker was supposed to be ready for training sometime during that week, but the list of healthy bodies in the senior squad was getting painfully short.

“Matt has a lot of work to do,” Ryan mused, referring to Hirons, who wasn’t getting a victory Sunday at all with that many players coming in for treatment.

Leaning back into the pillows, Ryan flipped on the television. There was good news – a Championship club was rumored to be ready for a board takeover. There was also bad news – the club was not Reading. Instead, it was Blackburn. Of course, in the finest tradition of the footballing media, the names of the club’s “potential investors” were not disclosed even as the story, such as it was, refused to go away.

The news continued. Lucas João, the highly-paid veteran striker who had been loaned a league downward to Derby, had scored his first goal for his surrogate club. However, the fact that it came in the Papa John’s Trophy Northern Section Group F against Manchester City’s u-21s might have taken a bit of the gloss off of the accomplishment. For his part, João commanded a salary in excess of £750,000 and that wasn’t sustainable, especially on Yongge’s budget.

Better news came from Mbengue’s exploits with France’s u-21s. He had played very well and scored his first international goal in France’s 3-0 win over Turkey the day before. He was already on his way back to Berkshire and would be available for selection against Watford.

And then, a surprise.

The Sky Sports presenter was pictured in front of a Reading logo and he made Ryan sit up with a start with his words.

“Reading have reportedly sacked a member of its game-day operations team for a pre-match song deemed critical of ownership,” he said, and Ryan frowned.

“The song ‘Pennies from Heaven’ was played prior to Reading’s match with Stoke over the weekend, in reaction to a media controversy between manager Ryan Ridgway and the club’s Chinese ownership group headed by Dai Yongge. Now, club sources reveal that the individual who made up the pre-match music list has been sacked by the club with immediate effect.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ryan snarled at no one in particular. That was a good thing, because no one in the front office would have listened had they heard him in any event.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

It wasn’t terribly surprising that most of the news around the club for the next few days was about the sacking.

There was a sense on the staff that was close to revolt, and the indignation was palpable all over the organization.

Naturally, Ryan was asked about it.

“I feel terrible about it,” he admitted. “Even though I didn’t do the deed, a life has been affected by innocent fun, and that’s really too bad. The fans will have more to say about this later on, I’m sure.”

Ryan knew that Sell Before We Dai had already put out a statement which, in essence, said, “it’s just one more reason for this guy to sell up.”

The controversy ran white-hot for a few days while Ryan tried to prepare his team for the next match, only with some time between matches, for a change.

Yet the conversation quickly veered back to the incident at the ground, and finally ownership relented to some very strong public pressure and reinstated the sound technician, who in return quite kindly thanked the management for giving him a second chance.

He was also bulletproof in a sense now, and he was well aware of it.

The storm clouds still hung over the team, though, and Ryan most certainly did not appreciate that. He had simply replied to a question and inadvertently started a kerfuffle that had now become the talk of the town. It wasn’t supposed to work that way.

Rob, for his part, counseled his son to lean into the controversy.

“You can’t shy away from it, Ryan,” he said. “You’ve appealed to the fans to support your judgments and now one of them got his P45, even though he did get his job back. You can’t back away from that position.”

“Why do you always seem to want me to slap the owner in the face?” Ryan asked.

“He slapped you first. Twice,” Rob reminded him. “You can deal with it in one of two ways; you can turn your back on it and test your relationship with the fans, or you can meet it head on. No one is saying you have to throw Dai under the bus, even though you might get the liberty of the town if you did. But you reached out to  the fans and they want you to reach back to them in return.”

Ryan thought it through, and then sent an email to the fan relations department.

“Play this song before the next home match,” he said. “Tell everyone that it came from me.”

# # #

[WLKRAS]

That last line feels very "Tell Cersei I want her to know it was me"