The purpose of this website is very clear - it is to help Reading Football Club WIN matches. Obviously, the site can only achieve this aim indirectly at present. My intentions are to do so by:
Promoting Reading FC, to encourage more people to attend games and take an interest in the club
Educating Reading fans - with improved knowledge we can better support the club and more accurately target the opposition
Encouraging fans to provide more vocal and positive support
This website is and will ALWAYS remain ADVERT-FREE. There are some links to commercial enterprises where they will be of obvious interest to Reading fans, but there will NEVER be the sort of banners that are springing up on practically every other football fan's website. (And I might add that I get no benefit, financial or otherwise, from any of the links on this website, other than in some cases a reciprocal link.)
This site does not promote football in general, except where this will benefit Reading FC. That means that if you're involved with some club struggling to stay in existence, or looking for support for planning applications for a new ground, or trying to get off scot-free for the crimes committed by your previous administration, then don't bother asking me for support because you won't get it. Putting it very simply, I don't care if club X goes out of business (as long as X is not Reading!) - in fact, I'd be happy to encourage it in most cases.
Thanks go to:
All past and present players and officials of Reading Football Club, for the inspiration
Steve James, for getting his website up-and-running and showing me that it was possible
Tony Ella who, together with me and Steve, launched the fanzine "Taking the Biscuit" on an unsuspecting Reading public, which probably helped pushed me into a lifestyle where publishing a website is a natural thing to do
Graham Loader, for pioneering Reading FC fansites on the internet
The Scribe, for providing reserve match details and reports, plus some of the local news that I missed out before I moved to Reading
Kevin Steward, for information relating to the Academy
Liz and Lauren Wells, Nigel and Clare Ross, and Jo Perks for information about the Women's Academy teams
All those Victorians who built a railway network, so that I could actually get to games (with absolutely no thanks at all to the fat cats who are currently mismanaging the network, and who can expect to be among the first up against the wall when the revolution comes)
Mary Morrison
As far as I know, this was the first picture of me on the web. (I'm sure that we all hoped it would remain the only one but that is not the case.) This one is from Vale Park, 17th December 1988, at about 2.45. The place is not alive.
There's a policeman under the "O" of "Port Vale" and two fans just in front of him leaning on the crush barrier. I'm the one on the right, standing next to someone I don't know, and wondering where my mates are. (The answer was that the soft gits had all gone in the stand because they thought it might rain, allowing this photo to be taken.)
It's not immediately obvious from the photo but I've got about 17 £1 coins in my pocket because the Port Vale turnstile operators were so backward they'd never seen a £20 note before. The following week I had a hole in my pocket instead.....
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