Fleetwood Town Fans Verdict: In The Hat

The fans had a comfortable win to react to as a youthful Royals wide progressed to the next round of the cup.

We were all hoping for.a more of an exciting first-round fixture than Fleetwood Town at home. I don’t know, perhaps something like Harborough Town at home? (More on that later).

Fleetwood at home is what we got though, and we had to do our job, which we did.

It was a scrappy game in truth. I haven’t seen the stats but I’d imagine we had most of the ball but there were no real periods of pressure on the opposition goal from either team. However, we made our moments count and that was the difference in the end.

Here’s how the fans reacted...

Into the third round

As mentioned the most important thing from Saturday was to get through to the next round.

The atmosphere was really strange at the crowd; before the game it felt a bit like we were about to watch an open training session rather than a game, but the players got through the potential banana skin nicely.

It was by no means a great game for the neutral, but the job got done and the fans were happy about that...

Promising performances from the youngsters

The game was always going to be a chance for some of the academy boys to get a chance in the first team. Truthfully, it was a surprise not to see a few more given a go.

Louie Holzman, Ashqar Ahmed and Shay Spencer were the three to really make their first proper appearance in front of the Reading faithful, all of whom did adequately enough.

They will face tougher tests than Fleetwood in the coming months for sure, but the fans enjoyed seeing them get a run out...

Second-round draw

It says a lot about how eventful Saturday’s game was that reaction to Sunday’s draw has made it into the Fans Verdict...

However, in any case, Harborough at home is one hell of a tie. I believe they’re the lowest-ranked team left in the cup, and if Saturday’s game falls into the ‘banana skin’ category, then this one definitely does.

From a personal point of view, getting them away from home would’ve been nicer, but hopefully we can pack out the SCL. Or at least get more than 2,500. Here’s how the fans reacted...

Conclusion

I’m not going to lie: as you can probably tell, I was struggling to find many tweets for this game. But if there’s ever a game for that to happen, a first-round home tie against a team in the league below in front of a crowd of about 2,500 is probably the one.

It was a shame to see the ground so empty. At the end of the day it’s still a chance to go and watch your team play, but I guess it’s a sign of the times - both in terms of where the football club is, and where the FA Cup is.

However, being drawn at home to the lowest-ranked team in the competition rescued it somewhat. What a tie that is for Harborough, but there’s already that looming sense of dread building in me.

We have previous with games like this don’t we? *Cough* Kidderminster Harriers *cough*.