Harte hoping to bring career full circle
The Royals travel to the Cardiff City Stadium for the second leg of their Championship play-off semi-final following a goalless opening 90 minutes last Friday.
Victory would allow ex-Carlisle United defender Harte to return to the home of English football — 14 months after a humiliating 4-1 Johnstone Paints Trophy final defeat to Southampton.
And that painful loss is all Harte can think about ahead of the return leg in the Welsh capital.
Harte, 33, said: “It would be nice to get back to Wembley after last year. I played there for Carlisle and we got beat 4-1.
“It was my first time playing at Wembley and that was nice but it wasn’t a nice feeling to lose by that scoreline in a final.
“It was one of the lowest moments of my career. Hopefully we can get back there and achieve something great by winning promotion.
“There’s still a lot of hard work to be done in the tie but if we can do that, it would be fantastic.”
Harte believes Reading hold the advantage of reaching Wembley with Cardiff ready to blow up under the pressure.
Cardiff have not played at home since their 3-0 defensive horror show against Middlesbrough and left-back Harte reckons those frazzled nerves will destroy the Bluebirds’ chances.
Harte added: “The pressure will be on Cardiff because their fans will expect them to go forward.
“We saw recently against Middlesbrough that if things don’t go quite right then their fans get on the players backs.
“We can score goals and we can go anywhere as we have proved in previous games and win.
“Cardiff will have to come out and open up and play against us. Hopefully we can capitalise on that and hope to do a similar thing as what Boro did.”
Harte also believes the possible return of Jimmy Kebe from injury could prove decisive for Brian McDermott’s men.
Harte said: “Even if we just get 60 minutes out of him, I’m sure with his pace and power he can cause them problems.”
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