The illustrated Italian newspaper La Stampa Sportiva featured the Reading team with the caption explaining that this is the English squad that will face the Italian national team in Turin on the 18th May.

1913 Newspaper Photo

Reading goalkeeper Dr Burnham gathers (or drops?) the ball during Reading's 2-0 win in the prestigious friendly against the Italian national team, on the 18th May in Turin. Dr Burnham was the only amateur in the squad, but was a useful member of the party as he was a fluent in Italian. The crowd looks on the thin side, and whilst the figure of 15,000 is doubtful, the stadium itself covered a vast area. The heat was such that 'all the lady spectators were provided with fans'.

1913 Newspaper Photo

Reading were invited to tour Italy in 1913 because of the link to former player Willy Garbutt, who by then was managing the country's oldest club, Genoa. They provided the Biscuit Boys with their first opponents, and we won 4-2. Five games were played in eight days, which produced four wins and just one defeat. Milan were beaten 5-0 and we ended the tour with a 2-0 win against the Italian national side - not many club team's can claim that! This is the Reading team before the Genoa game, and I think I've identified them correctly: Smith, Lofthouse, Burton, Willis, Hanney, Burnham, Stevens, Comrie, Bailey, Brown and Morris.

1996-97 Newspaper Supplement

The Trinity Mirror publishing group announced last week that several of their titles would continue as online editions only. This includes the Reading Post, which will continue online as Get Reading, and from my point of view this means no more pre-season/special pull-outs and squad photos, such as this example from 1996. See similar items here.

1926-27 Team Photo

The Reading team were pictured on the Elm Park pitch in the week before the FA Cup fifth round clash against Brentford in February 1927. The backdrop is the recently completed Norfolk Road stand, which replaced the rickety 1896 original structure. A crowd of 33,042, our highest ever home attendance, squeezed into the ground to see Frank Richardson score the only goal of the game for the Biscuitmen.

1898-99 Magazine Photo

Reading were the subject of a feature in the Golden Penny magazine, with photos including this shot of the team taken at Elm Park before the 1-0 win against the soon to be defunct Brighton United on March 4th 1899, which features the club's first England international, centre-half Johnny Holt. I'd like to thank Melanie Bishop of the Supporters Trust At Reading, who kindly sent me the scans.

1927-28 Postcard

A couple of years ago I decided to see how many team photos I could source, with the aim of covering as many seasons in our history as I could. I'm proud to have recently completed a run which now includes team pictures of every season from 1900 to present. Often the players' names are printed with the photo, but sometimes not - and this is a problem that can usually be solved by delving into the local newspaper archives. However, for some reason this photo did not appear in the press, so I've tried to identify them using other pictures. I think I've got the names except for two which frustratingly drew a blank! 

1986-87 Team Photo

Newly promoted Reading's big summer signing was winger Paul Canoville, who joined us from Chelsea for £60,000. He started superbly and looked like becoming a firm favourite when he suffered a knee injury after a horror tackle at Sunderland in October 1986. He attempted a comeback early the next season, but was sadly forced to quit league football at the age of just 25. Paul is top-right, back row here.

1904-05 Football Album

Taken from The Daily Graphic Football Album, this is another new picture to me and adds to my team photo collection. I've mentioned before about captain Herbert Smith not normally being around for the photo shoot - he is here, but only courtesy of an obvious cut-and-paste job!

1907 Newspaper Photo

Not a Reading match here, but this is the clearest image I've found featuring the covered terrace known as the 'chicken run'. Built next to the original stand in 1905, it provided extra covered accommodation for 1,500 supporters, and continued half way round the 'town' goal. The rickety structure was blown down when a storm hit the town at the end of 1925, which also badly damaged the stand. This was replaced with the familiar Norfolk Road stand which lasted until the Elm Park's demolition in 1998.

1985-86 Newspaper Photo

On this day 29 years ago, 12th October 1985, Reading achieved their twelfth win from the start of the season with a 2-0 victory at Newport County, beating Spurs' record set 25 years before. The Royals stretched the run to 13 the following week, setting a mark which stands as the best start of any club in English league history. A gallery of that season can be seen here

1972 Newspaper Supplement

An eight page special pull-out issued with the Reading Evening Post, which was kindly sent to me by Royals fan Cliff Austin. After beating non-league Blyth Spartans 6-1 in a third round replay, Reading faced reigning league and cup double winners Arsenal at Elm Park, one of my first live matches when I was nine years old. I saw a fantastic game and we were unfortunate not to earn a replay after a 2-1 defeat.

1905 Newspaper Photos

This set of photos was published on the 18th February, and shows action from the FA Cup 2nd round tie at Fulham. The game ended 0-0 as did the replay, with Fulham sneaking a third meeting 1-0 (none of your penalty shoot-out nonsense then). The two Southern League matches ended 0-0 and 2-0 to the Londoners, meaning that Reading failed to score in all five encounters that season. That fact is even more surprising when you consider the Biscuit Boys finished as runners-up in the league.

Newspaper Supplements/Pull-Outs

The Reading Evening Post and Reading Chronicle have always published team photos, and started issuing full or double page colour pictures from about the mid-eighties. I kept most of them along with pre-season and special pull-outs, but for various reasons some of these I missed. If you have anything not featured here that you would be willing to pass on to me, please get in touch!

1926-27 Caricatures

This cartoon was drawn by "Areff" in 1959, and features the famous Reading team that reached the FA Cup semi-final in 1927.

1907-08 Football Album

This page from The Daily Graphic Football Album, which was produced annually during the early part of the century, has been kindly sent to me by Jim Donnelly. The photo was used by tobacco firm Taddy & Co. in their series of 'Prominent Footballers' for the Reading sub-set of 15 in 1907. Well, the 14 players here plus captain Herbert Smith, who, as the only amateur in the team, rarely appeared in team photos as he had other things to occupy himself!

1967 Cartoon

Ron Fennell, aka "Areff'", contributed his wonderful cartoons to the Chronicle and later the Post during the latter part of the 20th century. This example, from the Reading Chronicle, depicts one of our best results of the sixties, when Third Division Reading dumped top flight West Brom out of the League Cup on a memorable night at Elm Park, in September 1967.

Steve Death

The legendary goalkeeper would have been 65 years old today. Steve played in my first ever Reading match when I was nine years old, was at Elm Park for the whole of my teenage years, and defines my early days of supporting Reading. He made 537 league and cup appearances for us between 1969 and 1982.

1892 Berks & Bucks Cup Winners

A contemporary newspaper account which perfectly sums up the excitement the game can bring, and this was undoubtedly the first example of 'football fever' to hit Reading.

Where'er we are, where'er we be, "Ta ra ra" is sung with glee; but never before has the popular refrain been chanted with such gusto as it was on Saturday, when Reading having beaten Wolverton the "Biscuit Boys" spontaneously chortled their interpretation as follows:- "Ta ra ra boom de ay, for Reading won the day", and so on and etcetera. And didn't they just give it voice, too! Rather! Why, they put so much into their singing as had the Reading players into their play, and from the hour the game ceased till long after midnight there was nothing but a bustle and a whirl, and a whirl and a bustle in the Reading camp, and what with repeated outbreaks of cheering, and outbursts of "Ta ra ra", Reading was kept alive until, oh, till far into the small hours, and methinks that such a display of feeling over a football match has never before been witnessed in the town of Reading.

1967 Newspaper Photo

Reading enjoyed a derby win at Swindon on 4th February thanks to this goal from George Harris. The winger had joined us from Watford in July 1966 and scored 25 goals in his first season, helping him to the Player of the Year award. He went one better with 26 the following season, meaning 51 goals in two years - impressive stats by anyone's standards, let alone a winger.

1900's Cigarette Cards

In the late 19th Century, tobacco firms realised that by giving away a picture card with a packet of cigarettes they could encourage brand loyalty, and people could collect sets of a particular subject. Given that the majority of smokers were men, cards were issued to reflect their interests, so sport, and football in particular, was well catered for. In those days photographs were not the norm in newspapers, so the cigarette card issues of the time serve as a valuable historical resource. Cigarette cards virtually died out with the outbreak of war in 1939, but they are very much the ancestors of the modern day cards and stickers issued by the like of Topps and Panini. Cigarette card gallery

1990-91 Newspaper Supplement

A lovely item issued by the Evening Post and part of a gallery of newspaper specials on this page. This was one of a few kit combinations the club tried around that period and you have to say there's no real identity with this. Thankfully Mark McGhee brought the hoops back in 1992 when he took over as player-manager.

1966-67 Magazine Photo

When this photo appeared in Soccer Star magazine on the 7th April 1967, Reading were firmly entrenched in mid-table of the Third Division. However, the very next day saw the team start a magnificent run which saw us win the final eight games of the season and eventually miss promotion by just two points after finishing fourth. The change in fortune was due in no small part to the goals of George Harris and a new signing, a certain Roger Smee.

1988 Newspaper Specials

Both local papers issued special supplements in the lead up to the Reading's first appearance at Wembley Stadium for the Simod Cup final, and they form part of my collection of that special day which can be seen here.

1937-38 Team Photo

This is the last season that Reading played in stripes, but they hinted at the change in style with the fetching hooped socks. This photo replaces a poor version in the Team Groups section, which now numbers over 160.

1901-02 Football Album

I've finally found a photo from this season, which means this site now shows team pictures for every season stretching from 1900 to 2014. If this team look a bit of a handful, it's because they were - inside-left Henry Griffiths (second right, middle row) was convicted of being drunk and disorderly (after an incident at the club's own social club!) and full-back Tommy Clinch (far right, top row) was banned for six months by the FA for fighting. From the extremely scarce Golden Penny Football Album.