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Reading 1 QPR 0

Last updated : 06 January 2002 By

Driving to The Madjeski Stadium, we were told the ground was easy to find, "two minutes from junction 11 on the M4". It was, but the traffic around the junction was so heavy, we were forced to go against it, ending up parking a mile away and only just making the kick-off. So much for these purpose-built stadiums designed for the car, fortunately there's not too many of them in this division.

QPR lined up as expected with Bruce in for Murphy and Bignot replacing Doudou – both serving one-match bans. After Rose could have done better with a chance created by Thomson inside two minutes, Reading dominated the early exchanges, coming close to scoring on a number of occasions. Gradually though, they started to run out of ideas and QPR ended the half on top.

The lead should have been ours when Thomson put the ball in the back of the net but it was ruled offside – wrongly so when looking at TV evidence. When Connolly struck the woodwork shortly into the second half, I sensed it wasn't going to be our day.

The only goal of the game came on 58 minutes when Hughes' miss-hit shot fooled Digby and trickled over the line. It came against the run of play, and proved to be a major turning point in the match. Our efforts to draw level were pretty powder-puff – all the possession but no penetration, whilst Reading should have made the game safe from any number of counter attacks that tore our defence to shreds.

The introduction of Langley after nearly a year out was great to see, but to have expected him to produce a little bit of magic to help conjure up that elusive goal would have been asking too much. Near the end he was clattered by a Reading defender and went down holding his right knee – the away end held its breath, but after a bit of treatment Langley was back on his feet and thankfully no worse for wear.

Overall, a respectable showing with little luck on the day – we even had to wait 25 minutes for the ref to give us our first free-kick. Reading celebrated at the end as if they'd won the FA Cup, at least proving what it meant for them to beat us.

QPR: 4-4-2 – Digby 7 – Forbes 7, Ben Askar 7, Palmer 8, Bruce 6 (66mins Langley 6) – Bignot 6, Rose 6 (29mins Bonnot 5), Peacock 6, Connolly 6 (87mins Leaburn) – Gallen 7, Thomson 6. SNU: Evans, Pacquette.