If you didn't support Reading who would you support and why?

[RoyallyFcuked]

Manchester United, to be honest I've always loved, followed and supported both clubs from a very young age, and Reading used to be further down the divisions and United were kind of my big team. Reading are always No1 though. If I had to choose another club apart from these two it would probably be Spurs.

[MeMeMe]

Support !!.. now that's a hard one for me...other teams near me that I could support I never would do.. Oxford, Swindon. So i'm left with Bristol or Southampton. I'll hang up my supporting boots then !

Now being a 'Fan' is a different thing.... I would be a 'fan' of Brentford as I was born near there and went there with my Dad when very young. But live too far away now to be able to Support them by going to games.

[JimmytheJim]

Orient

[Will95]

FAO those who went to school in the general Reading area:
What sort of proportion of your fellow youngsters supported Reading as their main team?
Please give some indication of how recently you were at school.

Just curious.
Never lived in Berkshire, and went to school in North Hampshire, only a few minutes from the Berkshire border.
Despite Reading being the nearest decent team (Absolutely nobody supported Aldershit), only 2 others in my year were regular Reading fans, and a few in the year above.
The 2 others in my year weren't even Reading fans when I met them, plolastics!

Live on the Hampshire/Berkshire border, 'bout half an hour out of Reading, it's probably 40% Reading fans:58% Man United/Chelsea/Liverpool/Southampton fans out here. The other 2% would be Arsenal, Spurs, QPR, Millwall, Forest, know 1 or 2 who support each of them.

[under the tin]

FAO those who went to school in the general Reading area:
What sort of proportion of your fellow youngsters supported Reading as their main team?
Please give some indication of how recently you were at school.

I was at Alfred Sutton Boys school 1971-76.
I reckon out of the 180 odd lads in my year, there were about 4 other Reading fans.

Steve Kirby was one of them. I had a day out with him when we went to see his "other team", West Ham.
He showed me the cheap way to get to Upton Park.
Get on a bog unit at Reading West (no ticket office), ride to Reading general, walk to platform 4b, get on a Waterloo train (never had a conductor on it), get off at Richmond, run the ticket barrier, hey presto! you are on the Underground network at zero cost.
Oh, to be young again. If I tried to run a ticket barrier nowadays, I'd need a defibrillator afterwards.

P.S.
To answer the OP's question.
Had we merged with O*f*rd, I would have defected to Portsmouth.
Got family down there, it was a good old fashioned ground with a proper home end, but mainly due to my utter loathing of f/cking Southampton.

[Green]

FAO those who went to school in the general Reading area:
What sort of proportion of your fellow youngsters supported Reading as their main team?
Please give some indication of how recently you were at school.

Just curious.
Never lived in Berkshire, and went to school in North Hampshire, only a few minutes from the Berkshire border.
Despite Reading being the nearest decent team (Absolutely nobody supported Aldershit), only 2 others in my year were regular Reading fans, and a few in the year above.
The 2 others in my year weren't even Reading fans when I met them, plolastics!

Live on the Hampshire/Berkshire border, 'bout half an hour out of Reading, it's probably 40% Reading fans:58% Man United/Chelsea/Liverpool/Southampton fans out here. The other 2% would be Arsenal, Spurs, QPR, Millwall, Forest, know 1 or 2 who support each of them.

Pretty impressive sample size tbf, given you know 1 or 2 for each team in the 2%. ~375 people if we take an average of 1.5 known from each of Arsenal, Spurs, QPR, Millwall, Forest.

[maffff]

At prospect 1997-2002, in my year there can't have been more than half a dozen that would openly admit to being Reading fans. That increased a little by the end.

So many people I knew then only supported a big team, mostly Man U, or thought football was shit. One of the guys I was pretty good mates with was always Reading, one of my other mates was Man U and Reading, which evolved into just Reading, and another only cared about WWE [ghey]. Now they go home and away to every game and are 'proper diehard' fans.

In my class at Moorlands it was only me and one other I know of. His 'other team' was Liverpool. We went Wembley together in 1995.

[Green]

I get the feeling there are more Reading fans these days.

It was pretty niche in my primary school days, became more mainstream by secondary school I guess but even then it was most people's second team behind a Man U, Liverpool or London side.

[WoodleyRoyal]

went to school with a guy called mark draper and he used to support which ever team mark draper played for. csb

[CemeteryJ]

Anorthosis
Grandad's home town

Rayo Vallecano
Lived in Madrid, needed to support a local team that weren't any better than reading. Also they have a daily 1hr radio show, perfect for learning Spanish.

FC Köln
Same reason as above but in Germany.

[westongeezer]

Live in the West Country, family support Wet Spam..............and are from Bow originally, but I like Birmingham City, always seem to have to work at it very similar to us, never been a easy ride being a Reading fan either, but I also like there support great fans too.

[From Despair To Where?]

At prospect 1997-2002, in my year there can't have been more than half a dozen that would openly admit to being Reading fans. That increased a little by the end.

So many people I knew then only supported a big team, mostly Man U, or thought football was shit. One of the guys I was pretty good mates with was always Reading, one of my other mates was Man U and Reading, which evolved into just Reading, and another only cared about WWE [ghey]. Now they go home and away to every game and are 'proper diehard' fans.

In my class at Moorlands it was only me and one other I know of. His 'other team' was Liverpool. We went Wembley together in 1995.

At Primary School, there were a couple of kids whose dad played for Reading so the school had quite close links with the club. As a result, there were a few (20+ out of 250 kids) who supported Reading. Not bad for the late 70's/early 80's but generally everyone else supported Liverpool or Spurs.

I was at Reading School from 1982-89 and we were relatively successful so there was a decent uptake in the number of kids going to Reading games. Don't know about the overall school but in my form group, there was about 10 who went to games, many of us travelling away as well whenever the archaic practice of Saturday morning school would allow.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

FAO those who went to school in the general Reading area:
What sort of proportion of your fellow youngsters supported Reading as their main team?
Please give some indication of how recently you were at school.

I was at Alfred Sutton Boys school 1971-76.
I reckon out of the 180 odd lads in my year, there were about 4 other Reading fans.

Steve Kirby was one of them. I had a day out with him when we went to see his "other team", West Ham.
He showed me the cheap way to get to Upton Park.
Get on a bog unit at Reading West (no ticket office), ride to Reading general, walk to platform 4b, get on a Waterloo train (never had a conductor on it), get off at Richmond, run the ticket barrier, hey presto! you are on the Underground network at zero cost.
Oh, to be young again. If I tried to run a ticket barrier nowadays, I'd need a defibrillator afterwards.

P.S.
To answer the OP's question.
Had we merged with O*f*rd, I would have defected to Portsmouth.
Got family down there, it was a good old fashioned ground with a proper home end, but mainly due to my utter loathing of f/cking Southampton.

This is lovely stuff. The good old Bog Units. There's still a few tricks out there with fare jibbing, but its a lot harder now.

[RG7Fan]

Well I grew up in Hereford so not sure what my answer should be ...

[trueroyal1871]

It would be Southampton for me having cousins that have supported them for years that used to take me to the Dell when I was young.

[TommyF]

Liverpool. I was seven, and staying with family in Everton. Everton were playing away so my Dad (unwillingly) walked us to Anfield to see the red enemy play against Spurs.

Liverpool ran out 7 - 0 winners and I never thought I could ever support another team (can anyone better that as their best ever first game?).

I didn't either, until I was 14 and because 210FM were covering Reading better I found myself more eager to find our if Senior had scored than Rush, and I was reading the paragraph on the Reading match in the Sub before I was reading the 4 page match write up for the 'pool. Realisation dawned on me that Liverpool were my second team. Not a bad second team as the season before they had won the treble. A good time to bow out.

But the year before Reading had also won promotion into Division 3. So really, I was just a plastic glory hunter aware that Liverpool couldn't (and didn't) repeat the performance of the season before.

[grey_squirrel]

To answer the question correctly you firstly have to differentiate between supporting and following.

To support a Club you have to physically go and watch them.

Merely following a Club means taking an interest in them, their results etc, which is what most people/kids who live in Reading only do when they say they "support" Man U or Chelsea or whatever.

So if I didn't support Reading, I wouldn't probably support anyone, but maybe follow someone like Morton, or Lincoln City. Somebody totally random.

[Green]

To answer the question correctly you firstly have to differentiate between supporting and following.

To support a Club you have to physically go and watch them.

Merely following a Club means taking an interest in them, their results etc, which is what most people/kids who live in Reading only do when they say they "support" Man U or Chelsea or whatever.

So if I didn't support Reading, I wouldn't probably support anyone, but maybe follow someone like Morton, or Lincoln City. Somebody totally random.

Supporting means different things to different people.

Don't buy into your prescriptive "You need to do x and y to be a proper fan".

[Barney]

Was at Stoneham school 1972-1977. Less than half a mile from Elm Park.

There were not really that many RFC fans at Stoneham during that time. Probably not helped by us being mostly in the fourth division during those years.
It did pick up around 1975-1976 when we got promoted. Interest did grow for some of the bigger games around that time. Home games to Tranmere, Crewe, Lincoln..and a tasty midweeker home to Brighton spring to mind.

Being Reading born and bred, I simply could never 'support' any other team. I just wouldn't feel the passion.

If ever I end up living down in Devon, I might go and watch Torquay or Exeter.

[Green]

Was at Stoneham school 1972-1977. Less than half a mile from Elm Park.

There were not really that many RFC fans at Stoneham during that time. Probably not helped by us being mostly in the fourth division during those years.
It did pick up around 1975-1976 when we got promoted. Interest did grow for some of the bigger games around that time. Home games to Tranmere, Crewe, Lincoln..and a tasty midweeker home to Brighton spring to mind.

Being Reading born and bred, I simply could never 'support' any other team. I just wouldn't feel the passion.

If ever I end up living down in Devon, I might go and watch Torquay or Exeter.

Not Plymouth?