National press pick up on Port Vale’s abandoned match against Reading
The national media have been commenting on the dramatic abandoned game between Port Vale and Reading at the weekend.
It’s been a depressing season for Reading fans who last season were able to watch Championship football and prior to that a stint in the Premier League. Reading fans are furious about Yogge’s financial mismanagement of the club. The 55 year-old is accused of running the club into the ground landing them with transfer embargoes and points deductions through poor financial management.
The match kicked off at 3pm but it was stopped after sixteen minutes after hundreds of Reading fans invaded the pitch.
It must have been a bizarre experience for loan addition Jenson Weir, who was picked in the starting XI and making his Vale ‘debut’. There were multiple delays early on as tennis balls were thrown onto the pitch. When play did start, Vale began brightly with Alex Iacovitti having a header ruled out for offside from an Ethan Chislett free-kick. Reading countered with two appeals for penalties turned down just before play came to an end around the sixteen minute mark.
The pitch invasion caused the players to be called back to their dressing rooms as the game was halted by the officials. The protests continued for over an hour. In the early stages, many of the travelling Vale contingent applauded the protesting Reading fans on the pitch. However, there was more controversy later on with Reading fans appearing to be split between those who remained in the stands or left the pitch having made their point and those who remained in the centre circle seemingly determined to see the fixture abandoned.
After some confusion and conflicting announcements over the tannoy, there was finally official confirmation at 4.26pm, that the match had been abandoned and it will now need to be replayed.
The Guardian newspaper commented that: “It’s fair to assume that the majority of them generally spend the week looking forward to the game and do not want to do this. Rather, like the Manchester United fans whose protests forced the abandonment of a game against Liverpool in May 2021 – and those of numerous other clubs – people acted out of desperate fury, sick of watching a major chunk of their identity and heritage be vandalised with the apparent consent of the authorities responsible for safeguarding it.”
Meanwhile, the Mirror reported that: “Gary Neville has called once again for a regulator to come in to help fans who are watching their clubs spiral out of control following Reading’s pitch invasion on Saturday.”
Meanwhile, the Sunday Express commented that: “Jeff Stelling has called out Sky Sports for their coverage of the Reading fan protest that saw their League One match suspended on Saturday. Stelling, a Hartlepool United fan, left the broadcasting giant at the end of last season following a 25-year stint… Stelling wasn’t best pleased, writing on X: “When a club which was in not long ago is in the position they are in, this the biggest story of the day . Why no reporter there? Everyone knew there was going to be a protest!”