Reading's first game of the 1880/81 season should have been played at their normal home, Reading Cricket Ground. But as that was under water at the time, they instead found an alternative venue. Which was just as well, as it allowed Reading to beat Old Philberdians 2-1.
The place chosen was "Mr A C Bartholomew's meadow". Arthur Bartholomew was a Reading player of the time - like all the players he was an amateur, and his day job was that he had a school. This school was based at Park House, in Southcot Crescent. That's the road now known as Parkside Road - Park House was on the site now occupied by the Reading YMCA. The YMCA has been completely rebuilt in recent years, but the building they used before that was the same one used by the school in the 1880s, with bits added on.
The school also had a field, presumably used for healthy muscular activity rather than for grazing livestock, and this is where the game would have taken place. The field was on the other side of Parkside Road, extending as far as Tilehurst Road to the north, most of the way to Liebenrood Road to the west and roughly to Shirehead Close to the south. That means the bulk of it is now occupied by Wingrove Road. So maybe someone reading this lives on the site? And I bet others parked there before attending Elm Park, which really was only just around the corner (but obviously not in 1880).
Here are a couple of photos of the site today:
In Part 6 - another ground move, the one that Athletico Spizz Energi Oil has been waiting for.
