There's a sense of quiet but growing anticipation at Redingensians Rams Old Bath Road ground headquarters now that the builders have moved out and life gets back to normal after all the upheaval.
You can feel it all around you. It's a steely determination that something big is about to happen and that something new and exciting is in the air.
It's not just the fact that their £700,000 clubhouse extension has been finally completed or that they have kicked off their National League 3 South West season winning four out of their five opening games, it's in the whole club demeanour that simply knows that greater success is just around the corner.
From an almost moribund existence two men in particular, the clubs CEO Gary Reynolds and director of rugby Mike Tewkesbury, have recently brought about a remarkable transformation in the Redingensians clubs fortunes on the field and within a relatively short time, have helped turn them into the No.1 rugby union club in Berkshire.
And there's certainly no signs of them putting the brakes on as their ambition to push the club into the uncharted waters of the higher echelons of modern day rugby drives them on.
As Reynolds, a local Reading businessman, enthuses with an excited glint in his eye: “Wouldn't it be fantastic if a Reading club, a proper Reading club, is in the Madjeski Stadium and makes the Heineken Cup Final? That would be special beyond belief wouldn't it! We are a small county but if we can get a Berkshire U20 side together and go and win the National U20 Championship at Twickenham, as Berkshire did recently, why can't we do it at the very top level?”
“And, if we do it, why can't Rams do it as a beacon club that works with the other clubs and really takes rugby in Reading forward. It doesn't take much. I tell you what, I bet it's a damn sight easier to get there than from Level 8 to here!”
And both he and Tewkesbury know all about that having been the catalyst that has seen Rams transformed from a side scrambling about in the local BB&O leagues and with little desire to go elsewhere into becoming a front-running club in National Division 3 South West, level five of the RFU's league structure.
Of course there have been a lot of other people who have put in a huge amount of time in helping the pair achieve their goals. Reynolds pays a huge tribute to former skipper and ex-Harlequins flanker Tim Bell.
He recalls: “1997/98 were the hardest years of all when our playing section was in terminal decline until, fortunately, Tim Bell breathed some life into it and `Lazarus arose' and off we went!
“That was fantastic, but it's exciting now because we’ve got a successful club that's looking for ways to take itself forward and now that we've got this clubhouse extension out of the way we can get back to thinking rugby, rugby, rugby! Which is much better than thinking about showers and loos, as nice as the new ones are!”
So just where does he see Rams future really lying and just how far up the league ladder does he and his head coach think that they can go?
“Both Tewks and I think that our model can go to National League One (Level 3) but it's a big challenge,” he admits. “Beyond that it's about a completely different commercial consideration. The only way that it would happen then is when London Irish do eventually move out of Reading and go to their new ground.”
But, first and foremost, he realises Rams have to escape the confines of their current league and win promotion.
“We need to go up and take the challenge to another level and the reason is that it will set the bar higher again and this is a young team and they need that stimulus to draw the best out of them,” he explains. “Ironic isn't it? We start to replicate what Reading did all those years ago with a good local side that's beginning to perform. You can never rest on your laurels, however, because you never know when something is going to come along and upset things, but we do have a fantastic coaching set-up here.
“For instance, our 1st team captain, Owen Root, has been coaching while he has been injured [Root is still recovering from knee surgery following a nasty injury last season] and he is very good at it. Paddy Conlon came to see me the other day. He was an excellent prop and made a big contribution to our first team a few years back. He now wants to get into coaching. You have also got a former first team centre in Seb Reynolds coaching our first team backs division, whilst another former player, Andy Saunders, is coaching our Titans [Rams 2nd/Development Team]. And the Club’s all-time record points scorer, Spike Chandler, is also helping out coaching the youngsters, although I have reminded him that his playing days are far from over!”.
“The great thing for all these young coaches is that they start their careers under the guidance of Mike Tewkesbury. The youngsters in the Club have nick-named Mike, “Yoda”, and not without reason because he really is the “Master”.
Reynolds goes on to point out that it is not just youth on the field that has created Rams success over the last few years. “In 1997 we appointed a young first team captain, Dave Cox, to help get us out of level 8, and it worked. In 2004 we appointed a 21 year old head coach, Tom Hoines, and he worked alongside a young 24 year old player coach, Matt Reed, to deliver 2 promotions. When we appointed these kids some people thought we were mad, but they brought a freshness and energy to the side which inspired a young Rams team to achieve great things.”
It's not surprising then that Reynolds is determined that coaching excellence will be the foundation for the Rams future success.
“We have moved Mike [Tewkesbury] away from having direct responsibility for the Colts, although he still spends time with them in a coach/mentoring role, so he has handed the Colts coaching over to Seb and Pete Bloomfield and has now started to work on the clubs coaching cores skills programme,” he explains. “The first part of that finishes in a couple of weeks and then we'll sit down and assess where we go from there.”
“Some people here were sceptical when Tewks came over because he had a little bit of the reputation of being the man that broke Reading and, of course, his previous club Bridgwater also had difficulties, but, in actual fact, that couldn't have been further from the truth because Mike's model, which you can see in operation at our place, is all about developing local talent. We are a coaching club - it's all about developing youngsters.”
Tewkesbury has certainly taken up the challenge with relish and moulded a side that finished second in the National 3 South West table last season, the highest league placing the club has ever achieved, only to be beaten in the promotion play-off match against the National League 3 London & South Division runners-up Old Elthamians.
And, he's achieved it, primarily, with a squad made up of local based players.
“We haven't gone out and bought anyone!” states Reynolds categorically. “What we've done is develop young talent and the side is a tremendous credit to the clubs in Berkshire because you've got boys here from Reading, from Abbey and from Maidenhead. It’s a credit to what the teams do locally and it's a tremendous credit to Tewkesbury.”
“If the RFU want to find out how you retain, improve and motivate kids they would do a lot worse than to give him the job directing the programmes up at Twickenham because he does a fantastic job!”
But where does a club like Redingensians draw its future talent from and is there, in fact, enough youngsters coming through from the grass-roots and the local Reading community?
“Well if you get hold of the report from Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of school inspectors and called `Going the Extra Mile', he says of the top English players in the Premiership, the elite end of rugby, 61% come from the private schooling system which means only 39% are coming through the state schools,” answers Reynolds. “Wilshaw puts down a number of policies that he thinks will address that. I mean soccer is getting a lot more kids in from state schools but with rugby a lot come through from the private sector and we've got lots of state-school teachers coaching here who do a great job but they can't focus on rugby in the same way say that head of rugby Kevin Tkachuk can at Wellington College in Crowthorne, for instance.”
“So that has got to come from the clubs and Wilshaw says there needs to be more links between the clubs and the schools and we think that he's absolutely right and we want to pioneer that and really go to work on it.”
And, he adds: “We're therefore going to liaise with Reading and Reading Abbey to see how we can work together to do more for the schools in the area. Sam Hallett is certainly agreeable to it and I think that you'll find the other guys at Abbey will also be agreeable.”
“You know, Abbey have delivered more talented youngsters than any other club in Berkshire and they have been a production line of good players coming through over the last few years. Their junior and mini sections have been fantastic and that's why they need to get their 1st team back up the leagues and give their kids something to aim for.”
With the future very much in mind Rams also intend to revamp their Colts programme that encompasses their teenage players between the ages of 16 and 19.
“They will still stay being coached by the first team set-up but we are introducing specific skills coaching for juniors and working with our coaches so that we deliver a more consistent improvement in ability to ensure that we have more young players coming through in the future.”
“We've also joined forces with the other clubs in Berkshire to create a legacy from staging the Rugby World Cup 2015 and it would be great if our new facilities and improved coaching standards help more 16-23 year-olds stay in the game."
And Reynolds is not forgetting the women's game as one of his priorities.
“We'll work to develop a ladies side which is one of the targets the RFU gave us in return for the grant for the extension and their support,” he confirms. “Reading have got a good ladies side and we don't want to take Reading's players so we do need to liaise with them so that, between us, we develop our own side and, let's face it, as Abbey already have a strong ladies team, the Nuns, it would be great for the women's game if all three major Reading clubs ran ladies teams.”
All-in-all it's an exciting time for the Redingensians club and everyone at the Old Bath Road ground now has to set about helping the club and it's go-ahead management achieve their goals both off the pitch and, primarily, on it.
As Reynolds sums up: “The plan is for this club, now that we've got a great facility with this massive investment, is to dramatically increase the return on that capital so that we are producing a big surplus. We balance our books at the moment as a club but we need to generate another £60-70k p.a. of revenue and that will not go to players, that will go back into coaching. So we will want to start recruiting more paid part-time coaches to help fulfil our dream.”
And, he adds finally: “We want the rugby to be good to watch and entertaining and if anybody wants to come up the Old Bath Road ground to see the Rams in action they will see this fantastic new clubhouse with its wonderful views from the terraces and a bright game of rugby.”