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Reading a team, overall, with a good league record at Burnley. I know that shouldn't count for anything but it often does and it did have me wondering if this was the day we might lose our unbeaten home record this season. But it shouldn't have been the case and we went into the game with the best home record in the division this season.
Danny Fox returned from injury and his inclusion, at the expense of Brian Easton, was the only change to Tuesdays' team. Easton got a place on the bench with David Edgar dropping out altogether.
A bright start is what we were looking for but it didn't happen and with just over seven minutes gone we saw referee Nigel Miller, who was to be a real headliner during this game, point to the spot. Leon Cort was caught out by Shane Long and there could be no argument with the award of the first foul of the game, nor the yellow card subsequently given to the Burnley central defender.
At this point Miller has to be referenced in the report, and he will surely be on several other occasions. He had a nightmare that was even bad for this incompetent official but it has to be said, and Brian Laws has said it, that we lost this game because of our own poor performance and not because of this shocker of a showing from one of the worst match officials you are ever likely to see.
This early decision was one I couldn't disagree with, that was until I saw the television replays that clearly show the foul was OUTSIDE the penalty box and the award should have been a free kick.
Between them the officials got it wrong and Long benefited by hitting his penalty powerfully and low to Brian Jensen's right to give Reading a precious early lead, a lead that in the end they never looked as though they might relinquish.
It needed a response from Burnley but that response didn't come. Reading were as organised a side as I've seen all season. They closed us down quickly in midfield. They didn't, as Brian McDermott said, allow Jack Cork to get on the ball and we just couldn't put anything together at all.
It wasn't all about the good play of Reading though, far from it; this was much more about our poor showing. The closest we came was when Chris Iwelumo almost got on the end of a teasing right wing cross from Wade Elliott, but overall we weren't troubling a Reading defence that, marshalled by Matt Mills, a former Burnley target, looked to be in control.
Mills is an uncompromising central defender who upset Steven Thompson when he last played at Burnley for Doncaster, such that Thommo received an early red card in that game. This time Mills could have played Burnley right back into it when he fouled Iwelumo on the right hand side of the box. Iwelumo looked up in vain for a penalty that wasn't forthcoming.
A spot kick then could have seen us go in 1-1 at half time, and with that scoreline who knows what might have happened after the break. We didn't get it, and in all fairness we didn't deserve to be level, and went in 1-0 down and looking for a boost.
A good percentage of our goals this season have been second half goals so I'd no worries and did think we'd get back into things. We actually started the second half a bit better and did test Reading keeper Adam Federici a couple of times.
Meanwhile the crowd were getting increasingly restless with referee Miller whose decisions were so difficult to fathom that I suggested selecting six winning lottery numbers might be easier. I've never had much luck on the lottery but I still think winning the jackpot would be easier than working out what this idiot is doing.
At 1-0 you are always in with a chance but at 2-0 it gets more difficult and Cort's second foul of the afternoon proved to be as crucial as his first. This time he gave away a free kick that was played into our box. Fox got his head to it but only into the path of Jobi McAnuff who made no mistake.
He'd done nothing up to this point and in truth this should have been close to the end of his afternoon. His goal celebrations warranted a mandatory yellow card, not forthcoming, and a minute later he was yellow carded for kicking the ball away, an offence Miller had already shown was not worthy of a yellow card when Long was twice pulled up for it.
McAnuff should have gone. He didn't. A minute later Cort did and deserved to. His third foul of the afternoon, only Chris Eagles committed as many fouls in this game, was deemed worthy of a second yellow card and off he went.
I've no complaints about either of his yellow cards and quite rightly we were down to ten men for the rest of the game and it left us with a real dilemma. It looked initially as though Laws was going to bring on Michael Duff, but at 2-0 down I'm sure there would have been a reaction had he done that. Maybe had he done so then the score might just have remained at 2-0.
Ross Wallace had come on for Dean Marney just before that second goal and rather than use Duff, Laws replaced the disappointing pair of Jay Rodriguez and Iwelumo with Steven Thompson and Martin Paterson.
We gave it a go. Paterson was adjudged offside at one point with another crazy looking decision and Thompson was then clearly fouled in the box right in front of the watching Miller who had actually managed to get close to the play for once.
Needless to say we didn't get it and what then happened was Reading rubbed it in with two somewhat fortunate goals in the last five minutes. The first of them came when a ball across was heading nowhere until an unfortunate deflection from Andre Bikey played it right into the path of Michail Antonio and then Simon Church got a cross horribly wrong and it sailed into the top corner. There was a suspicion of offside on that last goal but further viewing showed them to be some distance onside.
4-0 was a crazy scoreline and as poor as we were we didn't deserve that. Neither did we deserve Miller and I pity the next two clubs that have to endure this totally incompetent referee. It's not the first time we've suffered him and worryingly it probably won't be the last. Someone needs to tell him that he's not the star turn.
What we did deserve though we got, and that was no points and the end to our unbeaten home run.
Brian Laws was the last visiting manager to succeed at Burnley at this level. After that defeat to Sheffield Wednesday in February 2009 we went 2-0 down in our next home game to Crystal Palace.
Since then we'd scored an incredible 31 goals at Turf Moor at this level whilst conceding just 3, and all three counting for nothing in our 4-3 win against Preston. That was until yesterday.
I was very much glass half full and looking to the stars after Tuesday night and I'm certainly not going to allow our first defeat since Middlesbrough get to me. There's enough depression and anger to last a life time on the message board.
We'll have had some difficult games before we next play on the Turf. It's Villa on Wednesday followed by trips to QPR and Norwich. Anything out of those games will be good news and hopefully we'll be starting another home run when Doncaster get here.
The teams were;
Brian Jensen, Tyrone Mears, Leon Cort, Andre Bikey, Danny Fox, Jack Cork, Wade Elliott, Dean Marney (Ross Wallace 65), Chris Eagles, Chris Iwelumo (Martin Paterson 75), Jay Rodriguez (Steven Thompson 74). Subs not used: Lee Grant, Michael Duff, Brian Easton, Graham Alexander.
Yellow Cards: Leon Cort, Wade Elliott, Jack Cork.
Red Card: Leon Cort.
Reading Adam Federici, Andy Griffin, Zurab Khizanishvili, Matt Mills, Ian Harte, Jem Karacan (Simon Church 75), Brian Howard, Jobi McAnuff, Hal Robson-Kanu, Jay Tabb (Michail Antonio 82), Shane Long. Subs not used: Alex McCarthy, Shaun Cummings, Alex Pearce, Noel Hunt.
Yellow Card: Jobi McAnuff.
Referee: Nigel Miller (Co Durham).
Attendance 14,895.