Royals to help out local rivals

By Mark Sugar
March 23 2004

Reading FC are to help out local rivals Swindon Town after the Robins announced they are to move to a new 22,000 all seater stadium.Swindon are to take advice from Reading after they left Elm Park in 1998 to move to the Madejski Stadium.

Well it's a site we thought we wouldn't see-Reading helping out their local rivals. On Monday 22nd March Swindon Town Football Club announced plans for a new 22,000 all seater stadium on a brown field site in West Swindon. And the Royals will be cooperating to help out the Robins.

Chief Executive for Swindon Mark Devlin said yesterday at a press conference 

"We will be travelling around the country to take a look at selected new stadiums to try and lean on peoples experience as far as some of the difficulties we have experienced. The model that is in place would be Reading. If you look at the attendances at the old Elm Park, they were around 5,000 so I would expect attendances to rise significantly."

The Royals completed the move to Madejski Stadium back on the 22nd August 1998 after 102 years at Elm Park. The Madejski Stadium cost the Royals £50,000,000 which boasts a hotel, training dome and some of the best facilities in the Thames Valley. All aspects of the "supporter" were taken into considerations in terms of leg room and space.

The stadium has proved to be a success outside football with London Irish Rugby Club now tenants at the Madejski Stadium and also the club has held a major religious festival at the stadium. Only weeks ago the Reading Marathon finished at the Madejski Stadium, in front of the East Stand

But like all new stadiums the Madejski Stadium has suffered its problems. The relief road linking the Junction 11 of M4 to the Basingstoke Road took a year to complete. At the same time traffic round the South Reading area was very bad on a match day. The stadium was very inexperienced in terms of staff knowing what to do.

But 6 years on its fair to say the stadium is now very well run and their are plans to expand the stadium's capacity to 37,000, with new tier's being added to the North, East and South Stands. Their are also plans to double the 4 Star hotel taken its total to 240 rooms.

The attendances since moving has seen a dramatic increase with the club hitting getting attendances of 14,000 on a regular basis, a major increase since the days of Elm Park. 

As long as the Robins don't take advice off Oxford United on building new stadiums then they should be ok! Anyone that hasn't been to the Kassam Stadium is recommended not to go.