Royal Reflections – the musings of a lifelong Reading fan...
After watching my first live game of professional football for quite some time this weekend, it inspired me to think back to what grabbed me about the game as a youngster and led me to become a ‘fanatic’ of, at the time, a relatively obscure Berkshire club and follow them through the ever-present ebb-and-flow until arriving at their current destination... potential extinction.
In fact, it’s probably not that weird that I ended up supporting Reading given that I was born in Royal Berkshire Hospital in 1991 into a family who had all been raised, educated and worked locally their whole lives. You could say it was ‘in my blood’, but after moving to South West Wales when only a couple of weeks old I had far less exposure to the area and the club. So perhaps it was fate or an aligning of the stars (two things I vehemently don’t believe in...) that despite encouragement by friends and relatives to support a “proper club” like they did, I eventually settled on The Royals.
Thus began my love affair with football, and what a place to start than in the old Football League Division 2 where Reading found themselves. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending how you look at it, I was too young to remember the 1995 Division 1 play-off final between Reading and Bolton at Wembley. A season tinged with bad luck, with changes to the structure of the then relatively new ‘Premiership’ to move from 22 teams to 20 meaning Reading’s 2nd place finish was only good enough for a place in the play-offs that year, followed by Stuart Lovell’s now infamous missed (technically saved...) penalty that would have made it 3-0 to Reading at half time and instead inspired Bolton to a late comeback and a 4-3 win in extra time.
Anyway, back to the what was the present and after a disappointing spell saw the club drop down into Division 2 at the end of the 1997/98 season, the Royals moved into their new 24,000-seater Madjeski Stadium in 1998 and under the guidance of owner John Madjeski (yes he named it after himself) there was a renewed sense of purpose around the club, or so I’m told anyway as this still predates my official start date as a die-hard biscuitman.
My first live experience was the 2000/01 Division 2 play-off at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, convenient in its location relative to my living situation at the time, so I put on my ‘Martin Butler 9’ shirt and took off with my Mum and Uncle to watch Reading vs Walsall for a place back in the second tier of English football. In a season where Butler and Jamie Cureton had broken club records in scoring 50 league goals between them, it was no surprise that Cureton’s opener ultimately led to a 1-1 draw after normal time before Butler scored a 91st minute header to put the Royals 2-1 up at the start of extra time. But it was Walsall, inspired by Don Goodman (who I'm pretty sure didn’t lose a header all game), who scored two goals in the second half of extra time to take the glory back to the midlands.
Despite the disappointment of the result, the experience of watching ‘MY TEAM’ play live and to see my two favourite players score in the flesh meant that my 10-year-old self was instantly hooked. This was to be the start of it, of a passion and a commitment and a dedication to an organisation that meant something to me, and whilst my friends in school had no idea who Nicky Forster or James Harper or Darren Caskey were (and often mocked my choice of ‘terrible team’) I actually somewhat enjoyed the fact that I supported my ‘hometown club’ despite my actual home now being over 200 miles away. It was at this point that the rollercoaster of supporting a football team began. After the play-off final loss to Walsall, the Royals re-grouped for the 2001/02 season, and in his third season as manager Alan Pardew led them to promotion by finishing second in the league thanks to a late last-day equaliser from Jamie Cureton against Brentford. It speaks volumes to my newfound dedication that now 11-year-old me was having palpitations sat waiting for updates from Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports News.
That one moment, even if I didn’t know it at the time, was about to kick-start a real purple patch for Reading as they went on to win Division 1 (then and now known as ‘The Championship’) with a still-standing record points tally of 106 and reached the promised land of the Premier League for the first time. But as is football, there were plenty of highs and lows along the way...
- Alan Pardew leaving to go to West Ham (boo!)
- Record 106-point promotion under Steve Coppell
- 8th place finish in the Premier League in our first season
- Relegation from the Premier League on the last day of our second season (bloody Danny Murphy...)
- Losing to Swansea in the Championship play-off final (you’ve probably noticed a theme here)
- Promotion back to the Premier League under Brian McDermott
- Immediate relegation the following season (despite Adam Le Fondre heroics)
- Losing to Huddersfield in the play-off finals under Jaap Stam (yep, definitely a theme...)
Obviously, this is not a hard-and-fast or definitive list, but just things that stuck out to me as some of the real peaks and troughs of the near 20 years that this period covers at Reading F.C.
Which quite neatly takes us to where we are today, where the club has eventually been relegated back into League 1 (the old Division 2) and so has almost come full-circle from where my own personal journey started. However, this time it is not as a result of typical football ebb-and-flow but instead due to reckless and negligent ownership that has led to unpaid wages, points deductions, fines, embargo's and Reading in its current guise being on the brink of administration and insolvency.
Whilst I won’t go into the details surrounding the Dai Yongge saga (there’s plenty already out there should you want to) I think the potential impending doom that swirls around the Royals today, mixed with the heady dose of a recent live match day, just gave me food for thought and reflection on what Reading has given me over the years. Perhaps it’s been this combination of my own club’s plight, mixed with some of the changes that have come into the game recently (we all love our own eras, right?), that have led to my slight disillusion with football over the past couple of years.
But I digress, even if an overambitious yet under-qualified man from the other side of the world ultimately kills off my club, that will never take away the Kitson, Sidwell and Lita combination to comeback in our first ever game in the Premier League against Middlesbrough in 2006, or Jobi McAnuff briefly turning into Maradona against Liverpool in the FA Cup in 2010 (before remembering he was Jobi McAnuff when it came to the finish) or the countless other moments of joy, grief and everything else in-between that has been my life as a fan of Reading Football Club .