Eight days ago, give or take an hour, I - and a few others - were standing on the pitch at Madejski Stadium. Well, this is about an old Reading FC pitch that you can go and stand on pretty well any time you want.
In 1878, Reading decided to move from the Recreation Ground. This was because the public open space was no longer suitable for the size of crowds, and an enclosed ground was needed. The one chosen was the Reading Cricket Ground, which was the eastern third of what is now Kings Meadow. It didn't run all the way to what is now Napier Road, but was located adjacent to the river. At the time the ground was fenced off, with a pavilion in the north-west corner. Here's a picture of the site today:
Up until a few years ago, there was still an iron fence which showed the western boundary of the ground (although I've no idea if the fence itself was that old). This has gone now, but you can still see where the pavilion stood - about here:
A number of major events took place in the four seasons Reading played at this ground. Firstly there was a game against Old Etonians in the FA Cup 2nd round - Old Etonians won 1-0. As far as I know, this leads to our only mention in the Eton College Chronicle, in an end of year review.
Eton College Chronicle In the 3rd and 4th ties Reading and the Minerva Club respectively were met. The former match was won only by one goal to nothing, but it was played at a time when the frost rendered real football almost out of the question, as the ground was far more fit for skating than for running.
Incidentally our game really was the second round, despite what the quote says - education standards obviously aren't too high at that school. But they were good at sport, appearing in six FA Cup finals in this era and winning it twice.
Later the same season saw Reading's first trophy win - the Berks and Bucks Challenge Cup. Now this may not immediately sound impressive, but it was the first season of that competition, and it is the second oldest county cup competition in the country. Allowing for the FA Cup and Scottish FA Cup as well, that makes it perhaps the fourth oldest football competition in the world, so at this time there were really very few teams that had won anything. The final was played at Reading Cricket Ground, and Reading beat Marlow 1-0 after extra time.
The other significant event is much sadder - Reading's captain H F Rogers collapsed and died during the first game of the 1879-80 season. The game was abandoned, and all fixtures were cancelled for the first half of the season, including scratching from our FA Cup tie.
In more recent times, the Kings Reach development has gone up just to the south of where the Cricket Ground was. A number of Reading's Irish players have lived there, but they probably won't have known that their predecessors played on the park outside their windows.
Now Reading Cricket Ground had one rather obvious disadvantage - it flooded on a regular basis. The Ordnance Survey map of the time even has big writing across it saying "Liable to Flood". The Old Etonians game described above was played in December, and presumably took place on a frosty day just after a flood. Other match reports talk about the pitch being waterlogged.
For that reason, Reading sometimes had to use other venues for games. One of these was the Recreation Ground, which although nearby seems to have coped rather better. Another ground used was Coley Park, which later became the club's home and will be the subject of Part 6. But there was at least one other ground used as well - if you went to Elm Park by car, you may even have parked next to it without realising.
So in the next part - it's fun to play at the Y-M-C-A.
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