From Sunbury to Reading - The Reading Four Join LI

By BrianC
April 12 2004

In this, the second of the From Sunbury to Reading series of articles, BrianC reflects on our arrival at the Madejski from the viewpoint of an existing supporter. The struggle to come to terms with playing at a strange ground and the impact the locally based supporters have made on London Irish.

The term Reading four is used to describe those Thames Valley based supporters who London Irish have gained since our move to the Madejski. It sprang from an interview with Malcolm Ball, then marketing director of London Irish, shortly after our move. When questioned about the abandonment of the SW London supporter base he said, 'For every one we lose at Sunbury we may well gain three or four from Reading'.

Having been prematurely evicted from the Stoop it is unlikely that the Madjeski was the first choice location for London Irish at the time. ‘This is a disaster’ was amongst many comments made, not least by myself, at the time. The stadium was too big. It was designed for soccer, not rugby. The stewards, being used to soccer crowds, were unfriendly. Transport was poor. It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no decent clubhouse and the catering was poor. Above all we were abandoning the support we had spent many years building up in SW London.

So there we were, rattling around in this huge stadium. The butt of jokes from other clubs, Thames Valley Boks, Not-Nots, etc. Then came the ‘Reading Four’.

For personal reasons I didn’t make many home games in our first season at the Madstad. Those I did make I was firmly planted in Peters patch, amongst supporters I knew from Sunbury and the Stoop. I’m not well positioned to talk about the atmosphere at the stadium in that first year, however I do recall those who made the home games remarking on the lack of any.

In the virtual world new names started to appear. I won’t try to list them at the risk of offending those I forget, but you know who you are. These new people tended to have fewer Irish connections than our previous supporter base. They had fresh ideas and seemed to enjoy the club and the Craic. Whilst I could be wrong, I got the impression that they were somewhat bemused by all our complaints about the Madstad. It is, after all a very comfortable, easily accessible and well provisioned stadium.

It’s never easy to say when things started to change. One particular event that sticks in my mind was our first Madejski St. Patricks Day game, against Northampton. For the first time since we’d been to the Madstad we had a decent crowd, just over twelve thousand, a good percentage of whom were Reading four and some atmosphere at long last in the stadium. This was despite the fact that in the lead in to the game we were in some disarray. We’d had a string of bad results, and were without a coach. Morale in the team was low. We were even worrying about the ‘R’ word.

On the then Rivals board one of the relatively new posters, from memory I believe it was Reading Fatboy, reminded us that the team read the site and that they could do with encouragement rather than just listening to our doom and gloom. The virtual community responded in no uncertain terms. We’ll never know what impact this had on the team but the following Saturday, against all predictions, we won.

Not long after this, very much with my tongue in cheek and in an attempt to stir up some debate. I started a thread entitled ‘The Move to the Madejski has been a Success’. This prompted similar complaints to those that had been aired all season. You can imagine my surprise when a few weeks later the club issued a press release with the same heading, using my words pretty well verbatim. Soon after London Irish signed a seven year lease at the Madejski. The 'Let's move back to Sunbury' lobby was pretty well silenced.

Over the following two seasons, word has seemed to spread out in the Reading area that London Irish was a good place to come to. One could attribute it to clever marketing and attractive pricing. No doubt these have played a part. Somehow I’m more inclined to think that word of mouth did a most of the job. The numbers of Reading four grew to the extent that pretty well every home game now gets a decent crowd and atmosphere. Perhaps more significantly they seem to have embraced the values of the club rather than changed them.

Another aspect of the Reading four is that they seem much better travellers to away games than our traditional support. The growth in numbers travelling to away games has been noticeable, albeit we still have some way to go.

Last summer The Craic held a poll in which a third of those who responded indicated that they had only started supporting London Irish since the move to Reading. We’ll hold the same poll again this summer by which time my guess is that the figure will be over 50%. This is quite a sea-change in only three years of our residency at the Madejski.

London Irish has in many ways, not least because of the growth in crowd numbers, changed since our time at Sunbury. With the arrival of the Reading four is the club less Irish? Yes but arguably that has as much to do with the IRFU cutting us loose as anything. Less friendly? Less fun to be at a game? Categorically no. If anything the arrival of the Reading four has brought an injection of life and energy into the club that was much needed.

The Reading four are very much a part of the London Irish family now.