1898 Three senior officials from the Rugby Football Union, including its President and Secretary, met in Pangbourne to set up a rugby club in Reading. The new club which resulted from this, Berkshire Wanderers, played their first game at the county cricket ground in Kensington Road, Reading, in September, beating a London XV 19-6.
The club had no ground of its own and had a nomadic existence but still managed to field sides on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the inter-war years. The fixtures included many of the teams we would recognise today, including Old Redingensians, Windsor, Guildford, Swindon, Reading University, Thames Valley (now Maidenhead) and Newbury.
1938 The land at Holme Park, Sonning, was purchased and the pitches laid. Without a clubhouse, the local pub was used as a clubhouse initially.
1945/6 A clubhouse and stand were erected (the stand can still be seen, on the opposite side of the field to the current clubhouse).
1950s/60s With an ever improving fixture list (all ‘friendlies’ of course), Reading thrived, with a good fixture list and supplying many players to the Berkshire side in the county championship, the most important competition at the time.
1956 The club changed the name to Reading, in order to keep the town name after the founding of another club locally, which became known as Abbey (now Reading Abbey).
1968 Gordon Richens spearheaded the building of a new clubhouse, expanded in 1975 through the efforts of Colin Barrett.
1970 Reading won the first-ever Berkshire Cup final, beating Marlow at Braywick, Maidenhead’s ground. It was 1986 before this feat was repeated but Reading went on to dominate the competition after that.
1974 Brian Dilley set up the mini rugby section. 1975 John Silverthorne set up the revived Reading Colts team. Many of these youngsters later developed into key 1st XV players and sparked Reading successes.
1987 The RFU leagues started. Reading started in South West Division Two and were promoted, despite losing their first league fixture at home to Berry Hill.
1995 The club went professional, with sponsorship and two full-time American internationals. Success followed as the players travelled to all parts of the country (including to Aspatria, on the Scottish border, and Penzance). They reached as high as 6th place in the Third Division. Each division included just ten clubs, so 26th in the country was a tremendous feat.
1996/7 Reading staged Powergen Cup games against Saracens and Bristol. Both games were won comfortably by the opposition but Reading acquitted themselves really well.
Early 2000s The team alternated between Division Three South and South West Division One as difficult decisions were taken with regard to finances. Reading last appeared in the National Leagues in 2009/10 when they were relegated with Chippenham and Maidenhead.
In South West Division One East Reading were re-acquainted with the likes of Windsor, Swindon, Maidenhead and Newbury – teams from the Berkshire Wanderers days.
For 2014/15 coach Paul Gaster oversaw a team of players who were not paid and who had to pay their own subscriptions. With the very existence of the club once in danger because of financial problems, the committee, led by previous Chair Craig Hunter, and last year Andy Clark, has worked hard to deal with the debt. There is no doubt that Clark will want to make sure finances are sound before any possible future expansion on the pitch.
2015/16 The team lost 7 of their first 8 games and relegation threatened. Improved play and recovery after Christmas saw the side comfortably avoid relegation. They will need to continue this improvement this year in what is quite probably an even stronger league than last year.
2016/17 Reading started well, winning two of their first four matches; however, they then lost all but one game over the rest of the season and were relegated with over a month to go. Paul Gaster resigned as coach, Paul Boulard taking over in the short term. Andy Arter then took over for the latter part of the season and was appointed Director of Rugby.
2017-2018 A new Head Coach, Ben Wills, inherited much the same squad which had lost 20 of its last 21 matches the season before. Ten games were won as the team finished 7th out of twelve.
Written by Ted Goodhew