By Alan Sedunary

Nigel 'Strap' Meek has turned the attention of his 'Ultimate Reading FC Database' towards Steve Coppell's managerial career at Reading after he 'celebrated' (if that's the right word!) his 200th game in charge, at Blackburn on Saturday.

Since his appointment four years ago Reading have experienced unprecedented success as his overall record shows:

League
P175 W85 D41 L49 F253 A189
Attendance 3,566,486

FA Cup
P13 W4 D5 L4 F22 A22
Attendance 256,707

League Cup
P12 W6 D1 L5 F18 A19
Attendance 201,053

Total
P200 W95 D47 L58 F293 A230
Attendance 4,024,246

Steve currently lies in 10th place in our all-time list of managers as far as games are concerned, although by the end of the season he will be closing in on Ted Drake in sixth place.

League and cup games by manager

1 Harry Johnston 367
2 Maurice Evans 365
3 Roy Bentley 322
4 Ian Branfoot 312
5 Charlie Hurley 270
6 Ted Drake 234
7 Andrew Wylie 229
8 Jack Smith 225
9 Alan Pardew 216
10 Steve Coppell 200

During his time at Reading Steve has only used 46 different players in the League, although they have come from 14 different countries. More remarkable is that Steve used one less player than Tommy Burns did in his 59 games in charge!

Clearly Steve likes a settled League team and he has an obvious (with one possible exception) 'favourite' line up. Using the players he has selected the most times produces the typical Coppell Reading line up:

GK - Marcus Hahnemann

RB - Graeme Murty
LB - Nicky Shorey
CB - Ivar Ingimarsson
CB - Ibrahima Sonko

CM - James Harper
CM - Steve Sidwell
RW - Glen Little
LW - Andy Hughes

CF - Kevin Doyle
CF - Dave Kitson

That back five has played more than 720 games for Steve, with Marcus leading the way with 164 League games under his boss.

As far as substitutions are concerned the Hunt for Convey switch is the most used in the club's history, having troubled the fourth official 31 times although in contrast Bobby has only come on for Stephen twice.

On average Steve has made 2.2 substitutions a game, bringing on all three in 80 games and not using any subs in seven. The only time Steve has made a triple substitution was at Burnley in November 2003 but it was to no avail, we still lost.

Our favourite switch came February 2005 when Steve felt he needed a more experienced head against Plymouth so he replaced 38-year-old Les Ferdinand with Martin Keown, who was only four months away from his 39th birthday!

Until anyone can prove otherwise we are claiming that as a League record for the combined age of a player and his replacement.