Steve Coppell has admitted that he initially tried to play down his 1,000th game in management - but tributes and compliments led by a video from Sir Alex Ferguson made him realise just how important his achievement was.
Saturday's official matchday programme for the Ipswich game featured tributes from the likes of Ian Wright, Mark Bright, Martin Tyler, Eamonn Holmes and Sir Trevor Brooking, while Ferguson subsequently sent a video message that Steve and the players watched on the team bus to Doncaster on Tuesday, the same day it became available to watch on our online TV station Reading World.
After seeing so many of his peers speak highly of him, Steve admitted it had been an emotional experience. He told World after Tuesday's match, "The more I read about the 1,000 games the more significant it became to me.
"There were articles in our programme at the weekend about players I've selected, players I've been associated with and the games I've been involved in. All of that put together encapsulated my managerial career.
"Lucy [Rushton] our analyst had done a little DVD for the bus, and on it was the message from Sir Alex Ferguson. I've always considered him the don of all managers.
"All managers will appreciate what's involved in getting to 1,000 games, but he, as he gets closer to something like 2,000, would respect it even more. So for him to say a few words was meaningful to me and it just set me in a good frame of mind before the game.
"That all made me very determined to get three points on Tuesday because it was fitting for me to celebrate with a win. So I'm very grateful to Dave Kitson for the goal, it was a terrific finish. We were right behind in the dugout and it was good to see it go in that corner of the net."
World subscribers can watch the Ferguson message in full now - see our free preview clip and remember you can sign up for less than 10p per day.
Also on World are tributes from our players, a special interview with Steve about his career highs and lows and much more including 12 minutes of Doncaster highlights.
