Thames Valley Royals

[Red]

Why would they build a new club? They could just go along to Reading Town...

They were Lower Burghfield back then I think?

OK, but in Red's post he said 'if it happened today', so I dont really care in they were Lower Burghfield before 1993.

Nice showboating and good knowledge from Z175, but whatever they were called I wonder if they'd welcome it really, perhaps their ambition isn't to get to the football league. Better to start a new club, you can pretty much go in at Reading Town's level straight away anyway I think.

[WoodleyRoyal]

home ground? Palmer Park Stadium?

[Red]

Initially ground share at Reading Town I reckon, aim to build a new one or maybe even buy the ground from them like AFC Wimbledon did with Kingstonian.

[Z175]

OK, but in Red's post he said 'if it happened today', so I dont really care in they were Lower Burghfield before 1993.

Ok, but in my post I just said that I thought they were Lower Burghfield back then, I don't really care whether ....

oh never mind. Sorry.

[Fox Talbot]

I read somewhere that within a day or two the proposed name was changed to Thames Valley United. That gives you a clue what would have happened. Essentially it would have been an Oxford take-over of Reading.

Maxwell would have sold Dixon, Elm Park and used the money to bolster OUFC. The stadium at Didcot plan would never have got off the back of an envelope so all games would have been at the Manor. A few muppets from Reading would have gone along to support TVU but most of our support would have given up on football or gone to support a London club.

One poster makes the good point about whether we could have done a AFC Wimbledon in 1983. There was a lot of anger in the town at the time about this, it really did galvanise people (given that our better crowds were about 3000!) but the whole supporter trust culture just wasn't there then to make this seem easily possible.

Reading is too big a town not to have a football club so somebody wouldhave started something by 1990 and it would have probably reached the League by now.

[WoodleyRoyal]

Surely the point in merging the two was to get both sets of fans. Other wise what was the point, oxford weren't getting the crowds, i don't see how eliminating the "enemy" i.e. RFC, would boost oxfords crowds there would be next to no Reading fans going to watch oxford.

[Fox Talbot]

Surely the point in merging the two was to get both sets of fans. Other wise what was the point, oxford weren't getting the crowds, i don't see how eliminating the "enemy" i.e. RFC, would boost oxfords crowds there would be next to no Reading fans going to watch oxford.

That's what Maxwell was thinking / hoping but football's a lot more tribal than that, which Maxwell didn't understand. Also, and he would never have said this, if it didn't work he could have blamed Reading fans and asset-stripped our club - i.e. sold EP etc.

IIRC the OP asked what would have happened if, rather than why did Maxwell try to ...

[Red]

All this talk of asset stripping the club - we are talking about the same Elm Park right?

OK the land had a nominal value but I wouldn't have thought we're talking millions here. That can't have been the aim.

[Handsome Man]

All this talk of asset stripping the club - we are talking about the same Elm Park right?

OK the land had a nominal value but I wouldn't have thought we're talking millions here. That can't have been the aim.

It was worth millions - look at all the houses that were built on it. Even in the early 1980s, Reading houses were expensive.

My memories of Thames Valley Royals was that it would have been a takeover of the club by Oxford. They were the better team with bigger crowds at the time; not manu of our players would get into the new side and few of our fans would ever have travelled to Didcot. At the time, I thought if I was goingto travel anywhere to watch a football match it would be Portsmouth becuase they were sexier. I would have ended up at Portsmouth Poly and enjoyed decades of success, Cup Finals, internationals, etc.

[Victor Meldrew]

The structure of professional football in this country is crazy with most clubs in the 5th tier now professional and even at some lower levels whereas in most leading European countries fully professional stops after the first or second tier.
In retrospect this might have been a good thing as it could have started a trend for amalgamations to the extent that there might have only been two tiers of fully professional players and crowds approaching those in Germany with bigger and better grounds being built and it might even have led to football being nowhere near as the ridiculously expensive sport that it now is.

At the time football was not ready for this sort of thing but franchising could well be the way of the future,e.g Bristol having a 40,000 seater stadium to cater for a combined Rovers and City team.
The tribal aspect of your local team could well disappear in time especially if the new team were a new brand such as Bristol United.
One day I think the change will happen but everything moves so slowly in this country whether that is traffic or football so that change may take a long time to happen.

[WoodleyRoyal]

I think the AFC Wimbledon success has changed a lot of peoples attitude now though. Taking the Bristol example, one of those clubs would become the dominant team in the merge, you would imagine city if it were to happen tomorrow. Rovers would form a break away club, the tribal aspect as others have mentioned is too strong, they wouldn't share a stadium with their arch rivals. It has taken AFC Wimbledon 9 years to get back to the FL, maybe the exception to the rule, but just goes to show its certainly an option.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

"In the spring of 1983 Oxford United had surely blown their promotion chance. The score from Belle Vue, Doncaster mattered little. The Teleprinter chattered away meaninglessly. Then suddenly the mood changes. David Coleman, not a man noted for his calmness, is on the verge of apoplexy. As the Reading result comes up (a no goals draw with Gillingham) he reports that he has sensational news concerning Reading and Oxford United. A teasing few minutes elapse while Coleman tells the armchair fans who has beaten who. And then the news: 'Reading and Oxford are to merge. The new club will be called the Thames Valley Royals' (TVR). So that was it. Reading were to be closed down. Reading Football Club would exist no more"......

Anyway we know how that turned out.

But what i want to know is, if it had gone through, what do you think would have become of TVR? Would the merged clubs had any more success on the pitch than RFC had had? Would local fans have abandoned TVR to support, say Reading Town? We see AFC Wimbledon in the football league this year for the first time, a club run by the fans and for the fans. What would the Madejski haters have to moan about then?

Discuss.

boring post. but i bet TVR wud have had MORE AMBITION, maxwell would have soent some dosh not fallen over side ona boat.

he wouldnt have sold GILFY,KITSON,,DOYLE,LONG, etc for big money and bought no one

[manny96]

"In the spring of 1983 Oxford United had surely blown their promotion chance. The score from Belle Vue, Doncaster mattered little. The Teleprinter chattered away meaninglessly. Then suddenly the mood changes. David Coleman, not a man noted for his calmness, is on the verge of apoplexy. As the Reading result comes up (a no goals draw with Gillingham) he reports that he has sensational news concerning Reading and Oxford United. A teasing few minutes elapse while Coleman tells the armchair fans who has beaten who. And then the news: 'Reading and Oxford are to merge. The new club will be called the Thames Valley Royals' (TVR). So that was it. Reading were to be closed down. Reading Football Club would exist no more"......

Anyway we know how that turned out.

But what i want to know is, if it had gone through, what do you think would have become of TVR? Would the merged clubs had any more success on the pitch than RFC had had? Would local fans have abandoned TVR to support, say Reading Town? We see AFC Wimbledon in the football league this year for the first time, a club run by the fans and for the fans. What would the Madejski haters have to moan about then?

Discuss.

boring post. but i bet TVR wud have had MORE AMBITION, maxwell would have soent some dosh not fallen over side ona boat.

he wouldnt have sold GILFY,KITSON,,DOYLE,LONG, etc for big money and bought no one

It's not boring though really, is it? What the OP has done is write 'discuss', meaning they're interested in hearing what others have to say and not just presenting others with one's own entrenched and warped version of reality. He's also not on a wind up and can write in English.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I think Didcot was mooted as a likely venue for the new team.

Incidently, Reading and Oxford met at the Manor shortly after the announcement - they were at the top and we were fighting relegation from 3rd tier.

We scored twice very late on to secure a 2-1 win - one was a pen scored by Kerry Dixon after a wait for ages as some Oxford nut kicked the ball off the spot.

Unfortunately still went down the next week - Exeter(?) scoring a very late equaliser in a 3.15 kickoff at Newport as a lot of fans were celebrating safety at Elm Park.

[Tony Le Mesmer]

I think the town itself would be be a very different place. JM has had a big influence over the town since he became chairman, with local projects and business deals. Green Park and the A33 relief road would not have happened without the Madejski Stadium. Its probably impossible to quantify the positive influence Reading FC has had over the local economy in the last 20 years.

[West Stand Man]

"In the spring of 1983 Oxford United had surely blown their promotion chance. The score from Belle Vue, Doncaster mattered little. The Teleprinter chattered away meaninglessly. Then suddenly the mood changes. David Coleman, not a man noted for his calmness, is on the verge of apoplexy. As the Reading result comes up (a no goals draw with Gillingham) he reports that he has sensational news concerning Reading and Oxford United. A teasing few minutes elapse while Coleman tells the armchair fans who has beaten who. And then the news: 'Reading and Oxford are to merge. The new club will be called the Thames Valley Royals' (TVR). So that was it. Reading were to be closed down. Reading Football Club would exist no more"......

Anyway we know how that turned out.

But what i want to know is, if it had gone through, what do you think would have become of TVR? Would the merged clubs had any more success on the pitch than RFC had had? Would local fans have abandoned TVR to support, say Reading Town? We see AFC Wimbledon in the football league this year for the first time, a club run by the fans and for the fans. What would the Madejski haters have to moan about then?

Discuss.

boring post. but i bet TVR wud have had MORE AMBITION, maxwell would have soent some dosh not fallen over side ona boat.

he wouldnt have sold GILFY,KITSON,,DOYLE,LONG, etc for big money and bought no one

You clearly haven't a clue. On to the old 'ignore' list you go.

[Bandini]

I think the town itself would be be a very different place. JM has had a big influence over the town since he became chairman, with local projects and business deals. Green Park and the A33 relief road would not have happened without the Madejski Stadium. Its probably impossible to quantify the positive influence Reading FC has had over the local economy in the last 20 years.

The only reason for lots of ex-Reading residents to return to the town.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

All this talk of asset stripping the club - we are talking about the same Elm Park right?

OK the land had a nominal value but I wouldn't have thought we're talking millions here. That can't have been the aim.

It was worth millions - look at all the houses that were built on it. Even in the early 1980s, Reading houses were expensive.
.

You also have to remember this was an era when even Man Utd were only banking about £4 million a year. Selling off Elm Park for a figure like that would be phenominal compared to what the club is worth.

It's a big reason why property speculators hovered round football clubs like vultures in the 80s - the returns for selling off a stadium would be massive compared to the outlay of buying the club.


So yes, I believe Elm Park would have been sold off, the money probably going mainly to Maxwell's back pocket, and the move to Didcot dropped as "unfeasible" after a couple of years.

Would the club have reformed AFC Wimbledon style? Probably not. The clubs that have done well on that front have all had a ready-made ground to move into - usually their original ground. Clubs that have had to start from scratch haven't fared quite as well. It's much harder to convince the public you are a serious replacement for the old club if you are playing in a fenced-off field with a couple of bus shelters as the only covered accommodation.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

The structure of professional football in this country is crazy with most clubs in the 5th tier now professional and even at some lower levels whereas in most leading European countries fully professional stops after the first or second tier.

Other countries would be pro too. They just can't afford it as their crowds aren't good enough.

In retrospect this might have been a good thing as it could have started a trend for amalgamations to the extent that there might have only been two tiers of fully professional players and crowds approaching those in Germany with bigger and better grounds being built and it might even have led to football being nowhere near as the ridiculously expensive sport that it now is.

It'd hardly make any difference at all. How many amalgamations would genuinely make sense even from a hard-nosed business perspective? There aren't exactly loads of cities with multiple teams, where both clubs aren't big teams currently. The idea that amalgamations would give us a strong top two divisions is fanciful.

[Red]

All this talk of asset stripping the club - we are talking about the same Elm Park right?

OK the land had a nominal value but I wouldn't have thought we're talking millions here. That can't have been the aim.

It was worth millions - look at all the houses that were built on it. Even in the early 1980s, Reading houses were expensive.
.

You also have to remember this was an era when even Man Utd were only banking about £4 million a year. Selling off Elm Park for a figure like that would be phenominal compared to what the club is worth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsSWJvlojgc

We're also talking pre 80s property boom too. Don't get me wrong, Maxwell was no saint and of course he was in it for the cash - but the business strategy simply wasn't as straightforward as "get hold of Elm Park, sell it off, do a runner"