Spectacular Upturns Open Up Path To Top Six

Club colleagues at Wolves, long-time fellow coaches at Leicester, big friends…..and now unlikely rivals in the race for the League One play-offs. The careers of Rob Kelly and Mike Stowell continue to overlap at irregular intervals.

For the second time in less than three months, they were opponents on the touchline at Reading’s home game against Plymouth on Saturday – good reason for Wolves Heroes to drop in and check on their progress.

A bright and breezy 2-2 draw was probably less pleasing to them than it was for neutrals like the Express & Star’s John Lalley and I but kept both interested in a surprise place in the end-of-season overtime.

Reading are sixth, with last Saturday’s visitors a further two points and four rungs back. Closer investigation reveals that both clubs have done remarkably well to be where they are considering their struggles in the autumn. More of that shortly but first the background…..

Kelly is working for the fourth time with Leam Richardson, the experienced 46-year-old he first knew as a youngster in the Blackburn academy that he and Bobby Downes spearheaded in the late 1990s after time together at Wolves.

The full-back didn’t break into the Ewood Park first team apart from a single League Cup appearance against the team from his birthplace, Leeds, but forged a senior career first at Bolton and then even more so at Blackpool and Accrington, the latter with Paul Cook as a team-mate.

And it was at various clubs alongside Cook – a Molineux colleague of Kelly’s during the latter’s injury-decimated playing career – that Richardson subsequently cut his teeth in the dug-out.

The two worked successfully together at Accrington, Chesterfield, Portsmouth and Wigan before a new association was formed when Cook departed and Kelly moved in as assistant and helped the Latics to promotion from League One three seasons ago.

Now, Richardson and Kelly are seen very much as colleagues in the dug-out but not exclusively so. During the 18 months between the manager’s sacking at Rotherham in April, 2024 and his appointment at Reading in late October, the former Wolves man was tempted back to Barrow for several weeks as assistant to Andrew Whing and was said to have had another approach from Uwe Rosler, now in situ at Bochum and Kelly’s boss prior to that at Malmo, Dusseldorf and Aarhus plus various northern English clubs.

Reading is further south than Richardson had ever previously been employed as a player or coach and he faced quite a challenge when appointed as successor to Noel Hunt in late October. 

The Royals of Royal Berkshire were 19th in the table and were freakishly knocked out of the FA Cup by Carlisle in his first game, three goals from the non-League visitors from the 90th minute onwards turning a 2-0 lead into a 3-2 defeat in normal time.

We were delighted to have the bonus of briefly meeting up in the broadcasting area with Mick Gooding four days ago but his senior partner at BBC Radio Berkshire, commentator Tim Dellor, said of the Richardson appointment at the time: “He will need to be a miracle worker to get the current squad close to the Championship this season……expectations ought to be modest.”

Danny Schofield and James Beattie were immediately announced as part of Richardson’s backroom team and Kelly was added a few days later.

Since then, Reading have won more than twice as many games as they have lost – 12 against five – to climb the table rapidly, a 4-1 Boxing Day win at Plymouth boosting the upward momentum.

And the lift-off has made the mid-autumn words of Reading owner Rob Couhig seem highly relevant: “He (Richardson) is a coach and leader who embodies exactly the qualities we want – hard work, diligence, organisation and an absolute commitment to improving players.

“He has achieved promotion from League One in extremely difficult circumstances and proved he can build success. He is humble, driven and builds strong, honest cultures; something I know Royals fans value and respect.

“Leam knows this division, he knows what a winning dressing room looks like and he understands the standards required to get there. He is hungry, ambitious and determined to move this football club forward. We are delighted to welcome him to Reading.”

Looks like Mr Couhig read him pretty well! We had some quality time with Rob and Leam after the game and before they went back to their flats to rest up in preparation for a Sunday warm-down and the start of the build-up to last night’s win at Burton.

Substantial separations from loved ones are no doubt challenging but much easier to cope with when results are so good, as Mike Stowell presumably concurred over a glass of wine in the coaches’ room.

Our regular readers know we met up with the record-breaking Wolves keeper just round the corner from his Plymouth bolt-hole in mid-winter, since when Argyle have continued to flourish.

Having lost their first six games following his appointment in October, they recovered partially but were still bottom of the table well into December. Then came the sustained drastic improvement that has doused all talk of head coach Tom Cleverley being under pressure.

Eighteen League games up to their worthy draw at Reading brought 11 wins and helped make the Devonians one of the away teams of the season, with big victories at Doncaster (5-1), Blackpool (4-0), Orient (3-1) and Wigan (3-0) among their haul. They followed up by beating Stevenage at home last night.

We had a few minutes with goalkeeper coach Mike before the squad set off for home from Reading and learned that a familiar new face has appeared on the patch…..that of his daughter Ella.

The 17-year-old former England age-group keeper has moved from Bristol City on a dual-registration signing, having previously served Cheltenham and Bristol Rovers on a similar basis.

She is wearing no 33 for the Southern Premier Division club and was pictured at her unveiling Ella Stowell signs for Argyle Women | Plymouth Argyle with a shirt coloured just how Wolves fans would want! 

*And finally….another former Wolves keeper was watching from just along the row from us in Reading’s posher seats. We refer to Wimbledon legend Dave Beasant, who played five first-team games during a loan spell at Molineux in 1992-93.