In celebration of Reading Football Club's 150th anniversary, The Reading Chronicle spoke with 15 figures from the Reading community, past and present, to find out above all one thing: What makes Reading FC special?
Dylan Kerr
Defender
1993-1996
Appearances: 89
The club itself and the supporters. The players that we had in my time at Reading were special players. We weren’t big-hitters. We were hard-working, humble, and honest professionals. But it was more the supporters that made Reading for me.
We had a connection with the supporters and sometimes clubs don’t have that connection with the fans now. When I was at Elm Park we used to stay at the stadium, we used to go to the local bars, we used to eat and drink with the supporters and with the staff. We were a massive family and that made us successful. As a whole, not just as a football team but as a club.
We had good people who worked at the club…that people on the outside may never meet or understand the roles they had at the club. But there were people who worked in the office, worked in the hospitality, worked in the bars, worked as cleaners…we were always sharing things, we were always working together. We had a connection with the fans because we let them into our bubble and they respected that. And whether we had a good game or a bad game they were always supportive of us.
And the Chairman, he built a massive massive foundation. Obviously, it’s changed now because he’s no longer involved in the football as such, but he built that club. He brought the glamour back into the club. He identified a coach that could come in and bring the right players with the right character and the right attitude and the right winning mentality.
Everything was positive and that went from leaving home in the morning to going back home at night. We always went to work with a smile, came home with a smile and we took that into games. And like I said, there were so many people in the background who worked so hard at Elm Park, a small club, a small venue. There were nights where the last man to leave the ground locked up! Sometimes we’d be in the player’s bar or the director’s bar, or the Chairman’s lounge till probably eight/nine/ten at night! And last one out locked up!
Stand-out memory:
There are too many good memories! I think meeting and playing with so many good players, that’s probably the best memory I have. People can say I won Player of the Year, people can say that I scored a great goal against Stoke City. But I think the best memories were the players at the club, the players who were brought into the club like I was to build a legacy. We kick-started a new era for Reading Football Club, for the fans, and for the town itself. So I think the biggest memory is playing with so many good players: so many honest, humble, and hard-working players.
I’ve got great memories. From playing, from training. We had some great days. (Olympic gold medalist decathlete) Daley Thompson used to come and train with us. He was the only man that came to my wedding wearing a tracksuit! He wore nothing but a tracksuit! He trained at Reading and did very very well so I invited him to my wedding, everyone’s all suited and booted and he comes up in this track-suit he probably bought from a charity shop!
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