CHRIS Gunter admitted his first league goal for more than five years left him in a state of shock after the right-back helped Reading FC to a 2-0 victory against his former club Nottingham Forest.

The Wales defender converted from close range in the 61st minute after another Forest old boy, Garath McCleary, had given Royals an early lead.

It was McCleary's fourth goal of the season, while for Gunter it was his first in the league since he bagged the winner for Forest against Doncaster on August 16, 2011.

And after finally ending his 1,901-day wait, Gunter beamed: “I didn’t know what was going on.

“I had a fantastic time at Nottingham Forest, and certainly the celebration was nothing against them – it was more shock than anything.

“The ball fell to me and I managed to score, that’s the way football works sometimes.

“Two former players scoring – I’m sure the Forest fans will be saying that.

“Whoever scores, it was important that we won the game, but I’ll certainly take it because they don’t come around too often.”

In fact, it was McCleary's cross which set up the chance for Gunter to end his barren patch as Reading recorded back-to-back Championship wins to move up to fifth in the table.

Gunter, 27, added: “It came off the studs of one of their players and it just fell nicely.

“I carried on my run to almost try and distract one of their players and leave Garath one-on-one – it just happened to fall to me.

“I would say it was a good finish, but I was that close that it would have been harder to miss it.

“But I’ll take it and try and enjoy it a little bit. It’s a nice feeling and one I don’t get very often.

“It was a good win for us, it moves us up the table a little bit and it’s back to back wins, so we’ll move onto next week now.”

Reading's saw their unbeaten home record this season ended by Aston Villa in their previous fixture at Madejski Stadium.

But Jaap Stam's side have responded with successive wins against Rotherham away and now Nottingham Forest at home to move into the play-odd positions.

“It was important, we needed to bounce back from losing our last home game where we lost our unbeaten run,” stressed Gunter.

“Back to back wins in the league are important for us. It wasn’t an absolutely fantastic display, but we scored two goals and kept a clean sheet.”

Reading were not at their best during Saturday's clash and Stam's side relied on another eye-catching display from goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi to keep Forest at bay.

But Gunter insists the important thing was to grind out the victory.

“We’ve set high standards in terms of what we do on the ball in possession this season,” he explained.

“We’re not always going to reach those, and it’s important that when we don’t, we find a different way to win.

“There were some good bits of play but overall we could have done better.
“There are times in the season when you play really well and you feel like you don’t get the rewards you deserve.

“So we’ll take not playing fantastically and winning the game, but obviously we’ll be looking at it and making sure we do improve.

“It is important in this league to keep clean sheets. A lot of the games we’re involved in are quite tight, I don’t think we’ve won by two goals many times this season.

“The longer we can keep the ball out of the net, it just takes one or two chances then.

“With the players we’ve got going forward and the way we play, we think we’ll always be able to nick a goal.

“That’s why it’s important to get clean sheets and I thought the back four and Ali in goal were fantastic on Saturday. We worked hard as a team for that and everyone takes pride in it.”

Reading travel to Wigan Athletic this Saturday (3pm ko) in the last fixture before a fortnight's international break.