Reading, since their move to 'The Madejski Stadium', seemed to be the blueprint for a well run club; I remember stories of US stadium builders coming en mass to view our new home as shining example of how to build a stadium at a sensible price. The club was buying and selling sensibly and never paying over the odds. We appointed a frugal manager who added the miracle signings of Kitson (150k) Stephen Hunt (free) Kevin Doyle (70k) Ibrahima Sonko (free), Lita (1m) and Federici (free) after sigings of players like Shorey, Sidwell and Harper before him; we even managed to sell Andy Hughes for half a million!
All players seemed to be on sensible money and the club even employed a limited to 1 season extension policy for players over the age of 30 (even if this was a bit strange). We openly refused to offer Sidwell the contract he desired in our quest to keep wages sensible.
In 2006 we were promoted to the (allegedly) £30m a season premiership, even playing in money spinning Asian competitions such as the Peace Cup and signing a Korean! Sadly we got relegated but not to worry, we had been selling out our stadium and were paying very sensible wages. We had also made a net profit of over £12m in the 12 years we had been at the Madjeski Stadium. Even better news was that we were due parachute payments for two seasons to soften the blow that seemingly didn't need softening.
Simon Cox and Nathan Tyson both played well and earned the frugal Reading money by playing well and earning Reading tidy sell on fees, Nicky Hammond had even apparently paid Cork a small amount of money to pre-emptively buy out Kevin Doyle's sell on to Wolves - we're stinking rich now, no?

Now, Risdale's Leeds... I can understand how they got so skint, but can someone PLEASE explain to me how we have so little money??? (oh, and don't say that Readings players were on big money, they weren't - and those that were, were sold at values which more than compensated for their salaries)