A new age.....

[Only one Trevor Morley]

As reading continue to prove that they can more than hack it in the Premiership its starting to look likely that we could stay up. Now that we're seven games in and doing well its started to dawn on me that life as a Reading fan will never be the same again.

Whereas at the start of the season there was that sense of uncertainty that has been replaced with a feeling that Reading can hold their own and therefore you inevitably start to think of cup runs, mid table finishes, more glamorous players coming to us....

and its then that you realise that your life as a Reading fan as you have known it for so long - the hope, the excitement of playing a big team in the cup, the inability to imagine what it is like to watch a Reading match in the premiership has gone. and if we establish ourselves then that feeling will not be replaced. I dont know what it is like to be a supporter of a team who does a Charlton or a Bolton and expects to avoid flirtations with relegation and hopes to finish in the top half. Equally I dont know what it likes to be a yoyo club - but what I do know is that I'll never see reading in the same way and that feeling will increase the more we play in the Premiership. We've lost our Premiership virginity slowly and surely - even if we head back to where we came from.

I love being a Reading fan now and I hope Reading stay in the Premiership forever - but I wouldnt want to swap the experience I've had of being a Reading fan that thought 8,000 was a good crowd at Elm Park, that got really excited when Sky showed our game on tv, that allowed you to get nods of approval for supporting a local team not in the Premierships. But its only now - when we've proved we can do well - that I've realised how we can never go back - no matter what happens our bar of expectation will be set that little bit higher.

Does anyone else feel this - or did everyone get on the bandwagon circa 2001! ?

[easxmn]

I think that mentality is what has made all of us literally fall in love with a club such as Reading. When I first took a liking to football as a youngster, I was not one to jump in with a club such as Man U, the perennial winner, like my friends. I, for one, love the underdog. But the joy we find in being the man that likes the "bad" team is replaced, and I believe equaled, when that team makes it. Knowing you were there before they got the media attention, new fans, bigger stadium, world-class players, and more money is a great feeling.

Yet, at the same time I agree. I too will miss it.

[easxmn]

Especially when you see your friend suddenly starting sporting the home kit when he goes out.

[TFF]

I hear you OoTM - it's certainly changed. Some good (the status and the football) some bad (the cost) but overall for the better.

I almost feel sorry for newcomers (anyone post Bolton at Wembley or maybe even Simod Cup) as they have mostly seen a club on the up.

These are heady days.

[readingbedding]

As reading continue to prove that they can more than hack it in the Premiership its starting to look likely that we could stay up. Now that we're seven games in and doing well its started to dawn on me that life as a Reading fan will never be the same again.

Whereas at the start of the season there was that sense of uncertainty that has been replaced with a feeling that Reading can hold their own and therefore you inevitably start to think of cup runs, mid table finishes, more glamorous players coming to us....

and its then that you realise that your life as a Reading fan as you have known it for so long - the hope, the excitement of playing a big team in the cup, the inability to imagine what it is like to watch a Reading match in the premiership has gone. and if we establish ourselves then that feeling will not be replaced. I dont know what it is like to be a supporter of a team who does a Charlton or a Bolton and expects to avoid flirtations with relegation and hopes to finish in the top half. Equally I dont know what it likes to be a yoyo club - but what I do know is that I'll never see reading in the same way and that feeling will increase the more we play in the Premiership. We've lost our Premiership virginity slowly and surely - even if we head back to where we came from.

I love being a Reading fan now and I hope Reading stay in the Premiership forever - but I wouldnt want to swap the experience I've had of being a Reading fan that thought 8,000 was a good crowd at Elm Park, that got really excited when Sky showed our game on tv, that allowed you to get nods of approval for supporting a local team not in the Premierships. But its only now - when we've proved we can do well - that I've realised how we can never go back - no matter what happens our bar of expectation will be set that little bit higher.

Does anyone else feel this - or did everyone get on the bandwagon circa 2001! ?

It's a progression.

Now I'd agree with you if we were watching Div 3 (pre-91 terminology) football or a poor Reading side playing in Div 2 (same here) in front of crap crowds.
I would be wishing that we were back at Elm Park, only because I would be feeling that it was a total waste of time moving and the fans that came from Elm Park were happier there.

The bar has risen somewhat and we are now seeing the best teams playing against us in one of the best football leagues in the World.

Teams with greater pedigrees than us has stumbled and fell in recent years.

I spent my younger years watching Reading play in the Tilehurst End, teenage and early 20's in the South Bank and they were GREAT days.
However the last year has been OUT OF THIS WORLD for any Reading fan my age etc and long may it continue.

But I know that should we get relegated and the wheels totally fall off and we're back watching 3rd Div football in front of 6,500, I will be bemoaning the demise of Elm Park.

As soon as we got promoted, I knew things had changed, but I'm not bothered in the slightest.

But I am very fickle.
I do miss Elm Park, but I miss the laugh with my mates at that age home and away just as much.

[Blue and White Toucan]

I'm with you ReadingBedding.

I miss Elm Park, and all the romance that goes with the nostalgia, Robin Friday, Hicks, Death, the walk home down the Oxford Road etc etc but I am very proud to be associated with and supporting my home town team who are now competing at the top level in English Football.

Times have changed but its been a fantastic ride, but I wouldn't go back and it ain't over yet.

Champions League anyone !!!!

[PREMIERSHIP_ROYAL]

still finding hard to believe to be honest all those years of playing wrexam and stoke, now waiting for chelsea and arsenal unbelievable

[readingbedding]

I'm with you ReadingBedding.

I miss Elm Park, and all the romance that goes with the nostalgia, Robin Friday, Hicks, Death, the walk home down the Oxford Road etc etc but I am very proud to be associated with and supporting my home town team who are now competing at the top level in English Football.

Times have changed but its been a fantastic ride, but I wouldn't go back and it ain't over yet.

Champions League anyone !!!!

Feeling very proud is certainly an emotion that I'm feeling.
Not that I never felt ashamed to be a Reading fan, but now when I say to a random from work or whatever that I am a Reading fan, who is from Reading, I get a response, and a good one at that.
Certainly a few years ago it was a conversation killer, apart from 'yeah you were the lot who phucked it up against Bolton etc...'

I used to know my place as a Reading Fan, you know, a good Cup result every few years punctuated with averageness and mediocrity, but we knew that, we weren't mental, it just so happened that I wasn't brought up in Salford, or North London or Liverpool etc.

Of course, we could still go down and we could even reach a FA Cup final (1st at the new Wembley - how good would that be...)

Ok, so I'm dreaming, but I've been a Reading Fan for over 25 years, dreaming's a full-time occupation.
And now we're living it in the best way we can...

[.:BigDaveInTheDungeon:.]

yep it is a great time to support the royals, even better that i've been able to see the club grow from a little seed into a bigger seed.

[HighburyRoyale]

I went to just one game at Elm Park and started going to the Mad as soon as it opened (having been away at school down in Bath)... then I spent several years at University in Manchester when we were in the old second division with Bury, Burnley, Oldham, Wigan, Blackpool, Tranmere, Huddersfield etc etc and went to 10/15 away games a season and maybe 1-2 home games.

I used to love supporting the worst team of all of my mates - it meant you could join in the whole "Chelsea are sh*t, no Arsenal are sh*t" arguments and say that they were both rubbish knowing that your team were rubbish and you were happy with it.

I come from a different era to whomever it was who started this thread, but I can totally identify with their mentality. When this roller coaster stops and we all have to go back to being depressed by our team losing at home to Fulham or Everton (unthinkable emotions only 3 seasons ago), I think it will feel strange.

Better to have lived and learned than not to have lived at all. I miss being rubbish, but not as much as I love being one nil up against Man Utd!

[Sonic]

A very insightful post OOTM and I certainly know where your coming from. Even if the wheels fall off this season or next, we will never go back to the way we were.

Success in the Premiership could bring its own problems - will we be able to keep the current strong team and squad spirit or will money take over and we become just another revolving door club for highly paid players?

I have great memories of EP, but I suspect that there are some rose tinted glasses at work, as I started going there as a teenager - oh for those years again !!!

The switch to the mad stad has been great, but there were some advantages to life before the explosion of support half way through last season - the traffic for one thing, but also it was nice to be able to say to my son, why not invite a couple of friends along to the game at the weekend and have no problem in getting tickets.

Having said all this I would'nt swap this season for anything. Seeing my team line up against Man Utd, not as some cup under-dogs but as equal league competitors was fantastic.

It was even better when Doyle put the penalty away

[ayjaydee]

Has anyone else noticed the preponderance of "we" now instead of "you".

As in Monday morning work conversations - "We" won again I see - as opposed to not so long ago - see "you" lost at the weekend.

But, back on topic - I too will never forget the Elm Park years, Percy Freeman in the Whore's Bed the night before a match supping his 8th pint, the walk from town especially for a midweek game when you could see the floodlights in the distance, the smell of the urinal on the Southbank etc. But would I want it back? Nah, happy in my "new home" watching a better standard of football year on year, enjoying trips to virgin stadia.

[Millsy]

I love being a Reading fan now and I hope Reading stay in the Premiership forever

Good post OOTM, I've been meaning to make a similar post for a while.

I'd say I have always loved being a Reading fan infact even moreso when we were small and obscure. Whilst I'm happy now for Reading I feel it's not my Reading. It's a new plastic Reading with new fans, new players, new stadium, new outlook, new hopes, new aspirations etc etc.

I know you probably didn't mean you *only now* like being a Reading fan but rather that you like it *even now*, but still I just wanted to make the point that whilst it's all good at the moment, I miss the old days and if we mess up and end up in league 2 playing in a rubbish stadium again with crowds of 5000, i'll be just as delighted to be a Reading fan, if not more so. Reading till I die.

[HighburyRoyale]

Yeah - I think I agree with that.

Bring on Grays Athletic at home in the Pepsi League Division 3 South in 2012....

[handbags_harris]

losing at home to Fulham or Everton (unthinkable emotions only 3 seasons ago), I think it will feel strange.

I'd argue the point there. Unthinkable 5 or 6 years ago to be losing at home against Everton, but the realist in me thinks back to a time in 1992 when we lost 2-0 at home to Fulham in Division 3. Now that was poor. However it was Reading, it was what makes football so good, the whole range of emotions you get. You don't get those emotions as a "big club" supporter. There's no worse feeling walking away from an old Division 3 game knowing you've played shite and lost against the likes of Wigan Athletic, or York City, or Chesterfield. However almost everybody came back the next week to go through the same trials and tribulations against Newport County, or Wrexham, or Hartlepool Utd. That is the realism behind the mentality of the now minority of reading fans, the mentality I have. My first game was in 1989 as a little 7 year old, and I grew up supporting Reading back in the later Elm Park days. I loved Elm park, and I still do. The traditionalist in me misses it, and I still resent the fact we've had to move. However I know we had to move to be able to expand as a club, and finally we're here, we're where every football fan aspires to be, at the top end of the league. Reading FC are amongst the top 20 Football Clubs in England, yet to the regular Elm Parker, it's still somewhat remiss. It's just not Reading. But I like it!!

[readingbedding]

Mind you like anyone gives a phuck anyway.
We're just a tiny strand now of the Reading Fan.
Not that it matters and it's nice to chew the fat every now and then.

But, the Club is all that matters, and things are very good these days and long may it continue,
Even though to some it it is very 'unreading'

[bobby m's syrup]

[quote="ayjaydee"], Percy Freeman in the Whore's Bed the night before a match supping his 8th pint, the walk from town especially for a midweek game when you could see the floodlights in the distance, the smell of the urinal on the Southbank etc. quote]

Anyone remember when the floodlights were fixed to the top of the stands?

[bobby m's syrup]

Has anyone else noticed the preponderance of "we" now instead of "you".

As in Monday morning work conversations - "We" won again I see - as opposed to not so long ago - see "you" lost at the weekend.

But, back on topic - I too will never forget the Elm Park years, Percy Freeman in the Whore's Bed the night before a match supping his 8th pint, the walk from town especially for a midweek game when you could see the floodlights in the distance, the smell of the urinal on the Southbank etc. But would I want it back? Nah, happy in my "new home" watching a better standard of football year on year, enjoying trips to virgin stadia.

Anyone remember when the floodlights were fixed to the top of the stands?

[royalroo]

Oh, the memories and romance of Elm Park........ unfortunately i know no different due to my move to the Colonies in '74.
The memories of the windows of a Walsall players bus being smashed outside the ground..... sweet sweet memories.

[Corky341]

The first replica shirt I could afford was the 'Argentina' style one. Hiddious as it was, I used to wear it with great pride during our PT sessions. (Army). I found it would attract 'real' football supporters. I could speak to Oldham or Rotherham supporters and talk football. Now it's all about how much will we pay for whom. It seems to me, a lot of 'supporters' of the big clubs are more concerned with money and prawn sandwiches than with what actually goes on, on the pitch.

I also miss the long walk up to Elm Park from the town centre.