English FA Premiership/Reading 3 Middlesbrough 2: It is not every day you get a visit from the FA's chief executive and the tactical guru to England's head coach. And not every day your team enters the arena to the crackle of fireworks. On this loud and proud occasion, it was a tribute to Reading that they triumphed over their first Premiership opponents and the heady atmosphere in their home.
Reading travelled for 135 years to reach this day, so they can be forgiven losing their way for just 21 minutes. This was a rapid learning curve for a side without a single second of experience at the top. At the end, it was the management apprentice whose fingers were burned. Welcome to the big game, Gareth Southgate.
When TV cameras panned to Brian Barwick and Terry Venables, they captured glum expressions. A first-minute snap of Southgate showed understandable tension. But the most illuminating picture was that of Steve Coppell, who during the dark opening remained poker-faced. Even with all his experience, that took some doing in this Madejski madhouse.
Despite a comeback featuring three goals in 12 minutes, Coppell was far from carried away. He parried excited questions like whether his team could "surprise" the Premiership. "There's no surprises now," was the laconic reply, "because everything is dissected 100 times. It was important to win today. But in the long term, who knows? They have to prove themselves, prove they're not a one-hit wonder."
Seol Ki-hyeon, a 6ft 2in (1.87m) winger, grew, like Reading, with the game. The South Korean created two goals and in the second half tortured Stuart Parnaby, switching from the right as Southgate ordered his first managerial reshuffle. The new boss eventually went from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2. This boldness was to no avail.
The 35-year-old is learning managerspeak fast. On Mark Viduka's late, incorrectly disallowed shot, he said: "He looked level. But I'm not going to gripe about the decisions."
Both managers had good reason to gripe about the officials.
Reading lost Dave Kitson with a knee injury after a lunge from behind by Chris Riggott which demanded a red rather than a yellow card. Seol was poleaxed as Fabio Rochemback ran into him; again the wrong card was issued.
The officials were by no means a bemused minority amid airport-like scenes. Passes went astray with the frequency of baggage. People queued to make basic mistakes. At the back, non-communication ruled. Leroy Lita prodded the winner after a three-man pile-up in the box; Marcus Hahnemann bungled Rochemback's free-kick for Yakubu Aiyegbeni to tap in; Kitson set up his goal with an inadvertent shin connection; and Graeme Murty ventured he was guilty of "shocking defending" before Stewart Downing's beautifully taken volley.
