Reviews of The Sum of the Parts
Review from “When Saturday Comes Magazine”, August 2016
Reading fans have seen precious little silverware in their 145-year history, so their 2005-06 Championship campaign, where they amassed 106 points – a total which, if plans to increase Football League divisions from three to four come to fruition, may never be bettered – has acquired totemic status for supporters. Jon Keen, a founding member of the club’s supporters’ trust, uses that season to survey a crucial chapter in the club’s recent history, running from the 1999 appointment of manager Alan Pardew to his successor Steve Coppell’s departure ten years later, and ponders how an unfashionable provincial team with few stars came to dominate the second flight of English football.
Review from The Tilehurst End, April 9th 2016
The 2005/06 season will forever be enshrined in Reading Football Club folklore. The record breaking side which swept aside all opponents en route to 106 points will never be forgotten. It’s ten years since Royals fans were taken on that amazing rollercoaster, but just how was that campaign constructed?
This is the question that The Sum Of The Parts aims to answer, and it does so with great detail, as well as revealing some surprising details about not only the club that campaign, but the years leading up to that remarkable season.
Review from The Two Unfortunates, April 22 2016
Records set outside the uppermost levels of football usually gain no more than a footnote in the record books and rarely enter the consciousness outside of the fan base of the clubs which have set them. Ten years on from posting a new highest points total for the second tier of English football aka the competition currently known as The Championship, the supporters of Reading Football Club are still in the habit of chanting, ‘106…106…We’ve got the Record…106’.
Review from The Football League Paper, April 10th 2016
