Monday’s papers are full of pictures from a great sporting weekend, many of them containing the tears and anger of those clubs relegated from the holy grail that is the Premier League.
The Daily Mirror is full of Reading fans in tears, clutching their shirts or their friend/mother, and the even sadder thing is that come this time next season, they won’t know who Reading Football Club are.
Why? Because they are no longer in the Premier League, thus meaning they are no longer a fashionable club to support. Football, as so many people see it, will no longer be on their doorstep, and Chelsea will gain a legion of new fans.
When Reading were last in the Championship, they couldn’t get more than 18,000 in for the first game of the season. In fact, look at the half season averages for Reading, and you can see the true support base in around 14,000-16,000. The rest are filled with ‘glory-hunting fans’, who see the possiblity of Reading doing good and fancy a piece of the action.
This season, expect for the ‘big’ games, they failed to sell out the Madejski Stadium…the commodity that is RFC luckily died on Sunday, and as a result, the club can return to being the club that it deserves to be.
They might have played in the Premier League, but the organisation and way the club is run, is firmly set in the Championship. This was a jolly, get the money in while we can, sod the supporters who followed us in hard times, whore the club out to anyone and everyone, and get them on board.
I’m not a sad man, but I was once one of them fans. I travelled across the country, watching the Royals play, and felt a part of the community. I was a season ticket holder for 4 season (given up to try and persue a refereeing career), watching us fight our way out of Division Two, and the dream of playing in the Premier League was just that, a dream.
1995/96 was my first season watching the Royals, I remember my first game well. They lost 4-1 to Ipswich. But that didn’t matter. It was the being at the ground (Elm Park in those days), and feeling, smelling and sensing football in a completely different way. Standing on my stool to watch the game from down the front, I couldn’t have been happier. Memories come flooding back as I write this blog, and they all end the season Reading went up to the Premier League.
Why? Because it was no longer my club. They were a team to watch, not to feel part of. I still followed, but from arms length. Where previously I would shout and scream at the team, I now watch (when I can get the tickets) and feel unattached and unloved. No longer is it an arm around me on a warm summers night, instead, its harsh and undeserving, leaving me feel like a cheap, ten-pound hooker.
Which is why I didn’t cry yesterday. In fact, I didn’t feel upset at all. Next season, there will be 18,000 tops in the Madejski Stadium for the first game of the season. And I will be one of them. Finally, I have got my club back, the club I loved and which helped me through my childhood. The Premier League may have been and gone, but I’d rather have the club I love back for good.
