As football fans we are all prone to the occasional exaggeration. The start to this season though has clearly been one of the worst for a long time. The videos below only highlight how lucky we've been, and hard much worse things could be.
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Reading 5-1 Blackpool – 28 January 2014
If Reading fans think they’ve had a difficult 2014 then they should spare a thought for poor Blackpool fans. This clash at the beginning of the year was just a sign of things to come for a year that has brought almost complete misery for The Tangerines. For Royals fans this video is a timely reminder of the qualities that Garath McCleary will bring on his return from injury.
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Reading 3-1 Blackpool – 24 March 2012
This was one of those games that could be defined as being "a good advertisement for the Championship." Two decent teams going for it, a wonder strike, and some shocking misses. With our famous away wins at West Ham and Southampton, which followed this match, it’s easy to forget how impressive this performance from Brian McDermott’s champions was. Blackpool were no mugs that season and were unlucky not to win promotion themselves.
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Reading 2-1 Blackpool – 21 November 2009
There are definitely some similarities with the start to this campaign and that of 2009/2010: second season after relegation from the Premier League, big name departures, senior debuts galore for academy graduates, and an unconfident team looking to play passing football but liable to collapsing defensively. BUT this season has not been as bad, yet. This video shows Brendan Rodgers’ only home win of his short spell in charge. To put things into perspective, Reading’s next and second home win of the season would be at the end of January.
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Blackpool 2-2 Reading – 13 April 2009
There is some truly terrible defending from Reading on this clip only matched by an unbelievable miss from Keith Southern. The Bloomfield Road pitch is also a shocker. Only Jem Karacan remains from this Reading team, and how young he looks too!
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Blackpool 0-2 Reading – 11 August 2001
No silly Noel Hunt style celebrations from Phil Parkinson and Nicky Forster here. Just shear joy at scoring at a ground with two stands! Whoever made the stupid decision to wear our red away kit, though, should hang their head in shame.
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Blackpool 0-4 Reading – 23 April 1994
Now I wish I had a video of this match. Reading fans who went claim this was one of the club’s finest away performances EVER. So good were the Royals, it is alleged that Blackpool fans applauded the soon to be Division 2 champions off the pitch. If I ever get round to converting my old RFC videos to DVD then we might have some real gems of footage from two of the most exciting seasons in the club's history. Until then this video of the two games to follow Reading’s 4-0 victory will have to do.
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Please share your memories of these games below and let us know if you enjoyed these videos. If so we will look at doing a similar feature for future games.