A remarkable goal settled an unremarkable game as the Watford manager set his sights on automatic promotion to the Premiership and his Brighton counterpart claimed his side could still avoid relegation from the Championship. The scene, as colourful as it was unpleasant at a “family” club like this, was the consequence of trouble among the 5,500 Brentford supporters at that end of The Valley. When instigators were identified and pulled out, possibilities loomed of a riot as others swarmed to join in, only to be headed off by the police posse and some rugby-tackling stewards.. Alexei Smertin was the man of the match, controlling the lively midfield battles.. Followers of Charlton need no reminding that it has been a while since their team won the FA Cup, but the club decided to jog any faulty memories by replaying the highlights of the 1947 1-0 victory over Burnley at half-time yesterday. How ironic that massed in front of the giant screen alongside the Jimmy Seed Stand were yellow-bibbed police and security stewards in orange jackets. It is then that the club’s ambition and resources will be tested.

A smart new railway station would be no consolation for a return journey to the Football League.. Martin Allen had talked about marching – rather than riding – into The Valley but the gap of more than a league between these two sides proved decisive as Charlton reached the last eight of the FA Cup for only the third time since they won the competition back in 1947 They have never been beyond the quarter-finals since. Brentford were not exactly cannon fodder in some footballing Charge of the Light Brigade -they are too capable for that – but they did bravely carry the fight throughout a committed contest with little prospect of real reward They were also undone, to extend the image, by a Russian. Steve Coppell is a very, very steady man with a wealth of experience and although he doesn’t want to talk about promotion until the job’s done, his back-room team have already spent time searching for the right players. If you go back over the last few seasons you can see that the clubs that have survived, as far back as when Birmingham City came up, did invest well in players.”Norwich, Palace and Sunderland may all have felt that with increased wages and the possibility of immediate relegation they could not push the boat out, but these days every promoted club is virtually guaranteed £18m in broadcasting and merit money, as opposed to £500,000 in the Championship.If it takes an act of faith to entrust about half of that to the manager, Pardew and Paul Jewell have justified their respective chairmen’s backing and so, almost certainly, would Coppell, given how well he has built the team since taking over in October 2003.In the meantime, Sheffield United, a public limited company, are going down the path of a share issue intended to raise £10.7m, of which about £7m will be set aside for “additional investment in players’ wages and for working capital purposes”.Neil Warnock, who was tempted to make the leap to the Premiership with Portsmouth in November, will hope that much of that working capital comes his way.Signing a crop of 30-somethings last month (including three new strikers) ought to help ensure that promotion is secured one way or another after 12 years below stairs. John Madejski wanted to make sure the business had some sort of financial stability and we built a lot of non football-related facilities and income.

He believes: “Reading have the speed and the energy in the team to have a real impact in the Premiership.” It is taken as a given that they will get there, despite a first defeat in 34 games at Luton on Friday night.What is equally clear is that leaving loveable but tatty old Elm Park eight years ago for the Madejski Stadium, just off the M4 with its hotel, conference centre and rugby union tenants, has made them infinitely better equipped to compete at the higher level than they would have been in 1995, when a 2-0 lead was lost in the play-off final against Bolton.Nigel Howe, Reading’s chief executive, says: “The difference between Elm Park and the Madejski Stadium is really a revolution. I think Sunderland have spent about £3m and it doesn’t always equate because wages distort that, but it is a rough guide.”Pardew has naturally taken a particular interest in the attempts by his former club Reading to follow in West Ham’s footsteps. There is no reason why the teams who get promoted cannot spend the same kind of money. We have obviously spent a bit more now because we are safe and have dipped into the future with the signing of Dean Ashton. Although Murray denied that, the outlay was still barely half of West Ham and Wigan’s, and the difference in subsequent fortunes is clear.As West Ham’s manager, Alan Pardew, put it last week: “The one thing that is a bit of the benchmark for the teams that get promoted now is to look at what West Ham and Wigan spent, which is around £7m. Unfortunately for loyal Blades, it referred to an area round the railway station rather than their team.

But on a night when United matched the runaway train that is Steve Coppell’s Reading, the notion of regeneration in the city might have prompted some thought – concern even – about exactly how much investment will be required if the next stop is indeed to be the Premiership.
The evidence from clubs taking that route in the past two seasons leads to a depressingly straightforward conclusion: those that spend stay up and those that try to survive on the cheap return whence they came.Two years ago, Norwich City and Crystal Palace spent less than a £1m each in transfer fees during the summer, trotting out the old line about giving a chance to the lads who won promotion; West Bromwich Albion invested £6.2m, brought in three more players in the January transfer window and escaped relegation on the final day.The recent public spat at Sunderland between Mick McCarthy and his chairman, Bob Murray, stemmed from McCarthy’s words being interpreted as suggesting that the club’s spending policy was designed with the likelihood of relegation in mind. Supporters arriving by train for last Tuesday’s hugely enjoyable 1-1 draw between the Championship’s leading teams, Sheffield United and Reading, could hardly have missed the large posters proclaiming £50million worth of rebuilding. “Ridiculously, in the second half, I was thinking of making substitutions to win the game, not to save it,” he said. But he added that he felt his side were “not yet out of the woods”.Asked about the penalty, and McCarthy’s sending-off, Kelly said: “I thought it was a penalty immediately, but it was a very harsh decision to give him a red card.

Blackwell, who criticised the officials for “a very poor game” that produced four yellow cards and one red, admitted his team had only themselves to blame.Kelly, who succeeded Craig Levein in the manager’s role at Leicester last month, was satisfied with his team’s heroics and admitted that he even began to think of stealing a victory against the odds. The first thing he did afterwards was to apologise to the rest of the team – that shows the spirit in the camp now.”. There were only five in all.
Given the encouragement of recovering from an early deficit, when Iain Hume fired Leicester ahead after four minutes with a low, right-foot shot, Leeds should have dominated. The dismissal of the defender Paddy McCarthy, who was also sent off in the fixture at Elland Road, for pulling down Rob Hulse, not only gifted the visitors a penalty, but also numerical advantage.Robbie Blake, with a cool low shot in Paul Henderson’s bottom left corner, scored from the resultant spot-kick, but from then on Leeds offered almost nothing as an attacking threat and the game degenerated from a roller-coaster into a stalemate. We were really not quite at it and there was something missing I don’t know why It just didn’t happen.