LATEST NEWS ON 'The Royals'
May 2004
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30th May 2004 - Key Dates 2004/05

Key dates for season 2004/05 are as follows:

24th june	fixtures released
7th august	first league game
w/c 23rd august	carling cup 1st round
4th september	free weekend
w/c 20th september	carling cup 2nd round
9th october	free weekend
w/c 25th october	carling cup 3rd round
w/c 8th november	carling cup 4th round
w/c 29th november	carling cup 5th round
8th january	fa cup 3rd round
w/c 10th january	carling cup semi-final 1st leg
w/c 24th january	carling cup semi-final 2ndleg
28th january	fa cup 4th round
19th february	fa cup 5th round
27th february	carling cup final
12th march	fa cup 6th round
26th - 29th march	easter - free weekend
16th april	fa cup semi-final
14th may	play-off semi-final 1st leg
18th may	play-off semi-final 2nd leg
21st may	fa cup final
30th may	play-off final

30th May 2004 - Full Pre-Season Fixtures

The club have announced that no further pre-season friendlies are to be arranged. The full list of fixtures is therefore as follows:

Date	Opponents	Venue	K.O.
Tue 13th July	Forest Green Rovers	Away	19:45
Tue 13th July	Bath City	Away	19:45
Mon 19th July	IFK Bergvik	Away	19:00
Wed 21st July	IK Brage	Away	19:00
Sun 25th July	Brentford	Away	15:00
Tue 27th July	Cartshalton Athletic	Away	19:30 (res)
Mon 2nd August	Manchester City	HOME	20:00

16th May 2004 - All The Eurovision Details

Check out the Eurovision section of this site for all the details of this year's competition. The winner's profile, lyrics, final table, how they voted and the 'Squelchy Awards'.

11th May 2004 - 5 Leave, 6 Offers

The end of season player contract talks have begun and already 5 players have been told they can leave.

John Salako, Kevin Watson, Joe Gamble, Andre Boucaud and Andre Fashanu have all been told that they will not be offered new contracts. Meanwhile, the club have confirmed that new deals will be offered to Ashdown, Morgan, Newman, Savage, Soares and Howell.

9th May 2004 - Whimper

Reading ended the season with a whimper at Vicarage Road. This really was back to the dark days of Christmas as the Royals produced an appalling display in front of 4000 travelling supporters. You would never have believed that this was a team who should have been trying to gate-crash the play-off party. In fact, this was a totally unacceptable performance and the players should be ashamed of themselves. Coppdross revisited.

It isn't even worth bothering to try and summarise the main events of the game, as Reading simply didn't provide anything worthy of mention. The players clearly wanted to go off on their jolly holidays, so lets just join them and come back next season.

1st May 2004 - Ginger Special

Steve Sidwell scored a late winner for Royals on a day when Reading fans donned ginger wigs in celebration of the flame-haired midfielders efforts this season.

It was a deserved victory against already promoted West Bromwich Albion and keeps alive Royals' chances of gate-crashing the play-offs, albeit a very remote possibility. It would not only require Reading to win their final game at Watford next Sunday, but also for both Wigan and Sheffield United to fail to win their final fixtures and, perhaps most unlikely of all, for Ipswich to lose at home to Cardiff.

Nonetheless, considering everything that has happened this season, it is an achievement in itself to keep interest alive until the very last game of the season. and Reading certainly finished off their home program in style with an accomplished display that made their visitors look very ordinary. However, despite dominating much of the game, it looked to be heading for a stalemate until Sidwell's lat effort. He collected the ball 10 yards inside his own half, turned and ran straight down the middle of the pitch. With the opposition backing off and options to both his right and left, Sidders let fly early from 25 yards and caught the Baggies keeper by surprise as he watched the ball nestle into the bottom left corner of the net.

A sweet way to finish the season at home - unless of course...!