Handy Guide To: Reading FC

Trawling tinterwebs to see if there was ever a worse “Guide To" than Strett’s feeble and misguided attempts to imitate art, I was dumbfounded to find we are due to play a competitive nPower Championship fixture against a little-known club called “Reading FC" early next week.. curious as ever, I decided to find out what I could about this non-entity of an also-ran so that you may appear informed as you discuss the upcoming match down the pub.

Here we are then:

Reading FC were formed on Christmas Day in 1871 in readiness for the birth of football thirteen years later, in a manger, in Derby. You probably won’t find Reading on any maps, but it’s a small borough of Aldershot, if you’re looking it up.

Originally “The Biscuitmen" because of the factory in the town, “The Royals" were renamed in the 70’s after the Huntley and Palmers factory closed. Their biscuits in tins were exported globally, making them a British version of coca-cola, instantly recognisable across the world. GSE, take note; THAT is a global brand!

Reading FC only became members of the Football League in 1920, 49 years after forming, and even then only because the whole of the Southern League were voted in, en bloc. Nobody really likes Reading, perhaps because it should be spelled “Redding".

As is the way with Reading, their meteoric rise to the upper echelons of football took another 86 years, gaining promotion to the Premier League in 2006 after winning the Championship.

Like us, Reading hold a record for accumulating points in a single campaign, securing 106 as they gained promotion in the 05/06 season. They gained promotion against Leicester, secured the title by beating us 5-0 and got the record with a 2-1 over QPR. Fair play to ‘em.

Club Chairman Sir John Madejski, is in the process of selling his majority shareholding in RFC to the Russian Mob. Madejski made his money by starting up Auto Trader but has business interests in retail, hotels, restaurants and media in addition to publishing. A generous philanthropist, oddly enough Madejski still chooses to dye his own hair despite being very, very bad at it.

They play at Madejski Stadium, a 24,161 stadium built to replace historical home Elm Park in 1998. It’s not a happy hunting ground for Rams, with the last 8 trips garnering 3 points and -15 GD That said, at our place the last 8 have brought 10 points and -3 GD, so they are something of a bogey team for us.

Reading manager Brian McDermott, of whom LMA Chairman Howard Wilkinson was once heard to enquire "Who..?" was the Swedish leagues Player of the Year in 1984, playing for IFK Norrkoping. Glamorous.

Famous fans of the club include perpetually-pleased-with-himself Ricky Gervais, Kate Winslet and the ambiguous oddity Leo Sayer. Chris Tarrant is also rumoured to be a fan (insert your own “final answer" gag here)

Reading hold the Premier League’s record for highest scoring aggregate defeat, losing 7-4 to Portsmouth. No other PL records are worth discussing; this is the worst possible one to have. Frankly, even mentioning any others would be churlish in the extreme.

There is a large Polish contingent in Reading’s population, so much so that the local paper Reading Chronicle has run special editions in Polish entitled “Kronika Reading". It turns out Tomasz Cywka must be from there, as he has now gone back to ‘wherever he came from’ as per Clough’s instructions.

Reading is famous for it’s festival which runs alongside and shares a bill with one in Leeds. Something else they have in common is Ian Harte, a talentless cheating diver of a leftback who is inexplicably favoured by people who know nothing of the game.

Serial quitter and ever-tearful Steve Coppell was voted best manager of Reading FC in the last century. Remarkably, Coppell managed to stay in the job for over five years despite having a greater propensity to jack than the Reynolds Girls.

That’s all I could discover on Tuesday’s victims of The Mighty Rams’ Footballing Superstars Experience @ Pride Park.. as always, please share whatever tidbits you may have discovered for yourselves below.