Five of the Best Reading Players of the 21st Century

17 April 2025
By Hob Nob Anyone?

There’s a particular stillness around Madejski on a winter morning, when the floodlights are off and the matchday vans have gone. It’s an unassuming ground. The kind of place that doesn’t beg for the camera, yet once hosted some of the most improbable joy the Championship has ever seen. The 21st century hasn’t always been kind to Reading Football Club — but in those sloping years between the old First Division and present uncertainty, there were players who turned out week after week and did something quietly great.

This isn’t about who shouted loudest or fetched the biggest fee. This is about those who showed up, made things happen, and gave the Berkshire crowd something to sing about. There were goals, there were clearances off the line, and there were seasons that rose unexpectedly — the way a Sunday roast does when everything lands on the table at just the right time. These are five of Reading’s best. You might not agree. That’s half the fun.

Kevin Doyle: The Unsuspecting Finisher

Doyle arrived in 2005 from Cork City, for a fee so low you could easily miss it in a list of loan clauses. There was no fuss, no fanfare. Even the fans didn’t know quite what they’d bought. But by the end of his debut season, he’d become indispensable. Eighteen goals helped Reading to a record-breaking Championship title, and a sense that the club was moving in a direction few had predicted. In the Premier League, he didn’t fade. Quick feet, clever runs, and a knack for scoring goals without ever looking like he was trying to impress anyone.

If you had surveyed the crowd back in the day about who might take home the golden boot, I can guarantee that you would not have placed a free bet on Doyle making the the list of contenders. He was too unglamorous, too workmanlike. But that's where sport gets interesting — when it shrugs off odds and reputations. Doyle kept plugging away, game after game, not for applause but because that was the job. Betting trends tend to follow the brightest lights. Doyle was more like a dependable porch lamp that kept the cold away. And for Reading, in those rare Premier League nights, that light meant everything.

Nicky Shorey: The Overlooked Artist

Not all left-backs cross like wingers and defend like centre-halves, but Shorey did both, often within the same passage of play. Small in frame but broad in influence, he joined Reading in 2001 and stayed long enough to see the club through one of its most memorable periods. His delivery from the left was a quiet luxury, the sort that turns set-pieces into theatre and overlapping runs into miniature moments of faith.

By 2007, Shorey was being called up for England — something nobody had predicted when he’d first joined from Leyton Orient. There’s a kindness to the way he played. Not soft, never that, but thoughtful. Like someone who didn’t mind the hard work if the pass afterwards was perfect. Shorey wasn’t flashy and never needed to be. His best games were full of choices made before anyone else knew they were needed.

Steve Sidwell: The Engine

Sidwell was the heartbeat of a midfield that never got the credit it deserved. When Reading ran riot through the 2005–06 Championship — 106 points, 99 goals — it was Sidwell who knitted everything together. He was box-to-box before that became a fashionable phrase again, and in his prime, there were games where he looked like he was everywhere. Tackling, surging, spraying the ball wide with a kind of casual elegance you don’t often associate with ginger-haired midfielders.

What made him special wasn’t flair, though he had it. It was rhythm. Sidwell dictated tempo without a metronome. He knew when to pause and when to press, when to clatter and when to caress. He was a player you missed the moment he was gone. Chelsea signed him on a free, and even though he never quite found a home at the top level, those who saw him at Reading knew the truth. He’d already peaked — not in fame, but in contribution.

Jobi McAnuff: The Grown-Up in the Room

Jobi joined Reading in 2009 and brought with him the kind of professionalism you can’t train. A winger by trade, yes, but more importantly, a leader. Calm without being quiet, competitive without being combustible. As captain, he led the club back to the Premier League in 2012 and did it in a way that suggested everything had been meticulously planned — even though the campaign itself felt like a series of near misses turned good.

McAnuff never played for the headlines. His crosses were clipped rather than whipped. His goals were timely rather than spectacular. But he had presence. He looked after the younger players, covered for the full-backs, spoke sensibly when the cameras rolled around. In a sport full of impulse, McAnuff was measured. And when he finally moved on, the team was just a little less organised for it.

Dave Kitson: The Reluctant Hero

Tall, angular, and ginger enough to light up a grey afternoon, Kitson had one of the most peculiar rises in recent Football League history. He came from non-league football and hit the Championship like he’d been waiting for it all his life. The goals came quickly — looping headers, scruffy finishes, thundering volleys — all delivered with a hint of awkwardness that made it even better when they flew in.

Kitson wasn’t one for clichés. He once turned down media work because he didn’t like talking about himself. But on the pitch, he let the ball do the speaking. Partnered with Doyle, he was part of a forward line that bullied and bamboozled in equal measure. He might not be the most decorated Reading striker, but he was certainly one of the most curious. And there’s something endearing about that.

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