MATT BARLOW: Anger outweighs hope as Reading fans fear club being ground into the dirt… after owner Dai Yongge wasted millions chasing Premier League jackpot
- Reading fans are angry with club owner Dai Yongge and EFL over the shambles
- Forty years ago they saved the club from a proposed merger with Oxford United
- Club are bottom of League One following a third points deduction in three years
Those who had marched in 1983 thought this time it was different. Yes, they were taking to the streets once more to save the club they loved amid genuine fears it might cease to exist, but Reading had changed, they insisted.
Forty years ago, when Robert Maxwell proposed to merge it with Oxford United and create a new club called Thames Valley Royals, they had barely risen above the third tier and drew crowds of 5,000 to Elm Park. These days, it is a bigger town and they have a stadium with a capacity of more than 24,000, plus scope to expand should they return to the Premier League.
‘We didn’t have a history in 1983,’ John Ennis told crowds assembling with banners, placards and the usual coffin draped in club colours, outside Blue Collar Corner in the town centre at the start of Saturday’s march.
‘We are a much bigger club with a much bigger fanbase. The town supports us… and we will win because they can never take our club away from us.’
Reading fans protest against owner Dai Yongge in a bid to save the League One strugglers
Ennis, a Reading councillor and longstanding Royals supporter, hailed it as a ‘day of hope not just anger’ but there was anger. Probably more anger than hope, to be fair. Some of it directed at the EFL for presiding over the shambles but the bulk of it reserved for Dai Yongge, the club’s owner they want out.
Yongge, a Chinese businessman whose family built a fortune from shopping malls, bought Reading in 2017, completing his takeover days before a defeat on penalties against Huddersfield in the Championship play-off final, then wasting millions in search of top-flight status and its associated jackpot, the prospect of which feels more remote than it has for years. ‘Some fans loved it because it seemed ambitious but you could see trouble coming,’ said Steve Double, another veteran of the 1983 march.
‘We were throwing crazy money away on ridiculous transfer fees and wages. Expenditure was twice our income. He’s put everything on black to get Reading back into the Premier League, it’s landed on red and he’s walked away from the table.’
After collapsing from 2-0 up to lose 3-2 at home to League One leaders Portsmouth on Saturday, Reading start the week bottom of League One with six points from 14 games, eight points from safety having been deducted four points by the EFL.
It is a third points deduction in as many years. Yongge has effectively taken 16 points from his own team, while performing a vanishing act along with his chief executive officer Dayong Pang.
‘Dai is an enigma,’ said Caroline Parker, board member of the Supporters Trust at Reading and one of the driving forces behind the Sell Before We Dai campaign. ‘We don’t know what he’s thinking, what he’s doing or what he’s going to do. He’s AWOL and doesn’t communicate.
‘The place is a car crash. We are officially the basket case of the EFL and we are all sick of seeing the terminal decline of our club. We know it’s going under. It’s being ground into the dirt and if he doesn’t go there’s a real threat of administration or liquidation. We are not going to sit by and watch. We are going to fight.’
Reading fans are acutely aware that two other clubs once owned by Yongge — Beijing Renhe in China and KSV Roeselare in Belgium — no longer exist.
‘This is not us being hysterical,’ said Parker. ‘He has a track record for wrecking football clubs. A second-tier Belgian club has locked the doors and never returned. We have every right to be worried.’
Potential buyers prey on these fears. Fans have become wary of a consortium led by William Storey, although a Frasers Group helicopter spotted in the car park at the Select Car Leasing Stadium yesterday fuelled the hope that Mike Ashley might be riding to the rescue, presumably among those forgetting what a soulless shell he left behind at Newcastle United.
It is another sign of the desperation. More than a thousand marched on Saturday, including Dave Kitson, the former centre forward whose goals helped propel Reading to the Premier League for the first time as Championship title winners with a record points tally of 106, and local MPs Matt Rodda and James Sunderland.
They ended the march behind the Sir John Madejski Stand, where a huge photograph of the former owner gazed down, a reminder of happier times when the club ran sustainably for the good of the community.
Madejski bought Reading in 1990, built it up and reached the Premier League in 2006 before selling in 2012, initially to a Russian consortium who sold it to Thais who sold to the Chinese, splintering the company as it changed hands.
Dai Yongge, pictured with former Reading boss Jaap Stam in 2017, has done a vanishing act
The Thais still own a hotel at the stadium and a piece of development land nearby. The stadium itself was sold to another of Yongge’s companies for £26m, then sold again for £39.8m in 2019. Reading pay £1.5m a year to rent it back.
It is the sort of mess fans of Coventry, Charlton, Derby, Wigan, Bolton and Portsmouth might recognise, although solidarity was in short supply from 3,000 in the away end as the early part of Saturday’s game was disrupted by tennis balls thrown from the stands.
Pompey fans felt little solidarity came their way when they were gripped by crisis. Now they are on the rise again, well run, top of League One and unbeaten since March.
At least they offer proof that there can still be a healthy future for those clubs fighting to survive.
Mansfield boss Nigel Clough says footballers nowadays are unable to cope with criticism
Clough nugget still rings true
Nigel Clough reflected on his 25 years as a manager with a nugget of wisdom passed down from his father Brian.
‘If you’re worth your salt as a player, you want to be told the truth,’ said the Mansfield boss, explaining the biggest change he had seen was that players were less resilient, unable to cope with criticism and more in need of an arm around the shoulder.
‘I remember my Dad saying there’s very few things more dangerous than a player who thinks he’s played well when he hasn’t.’
Rudge finally finishes his autobiography
John Rudge shelved the book he had been writing in 1999. After 16 years as Port Vale manager, he had been sacked and was aware his next move, crossing the Potteries to become Stoke director of football, might not go down well. He spent 14 years at Stoke, helping them to the Premier League.
Then he returned to Vale Park, initially in an advisory role before his appointment as club president in 2019 — confirmation of his legendary status, which prompted the 79-year-old to dig the old manuscript from a cupboard and finish the autobiography.
To Cap It All is out now, published by Pitch. It is a quarter of a century in the making, with proceeds going to a fund opened by Vale fans to erect a statue in his honour.
Charlie Setford was on the bench for Ajax in the Europa League at Brighton on Thursday night
Brothers making their mark at Ajax
On the bench for Ajax in the Europa League at Brighton on Thursday was Charlie Setford, a 19-year-old goalkeeper born in the Netherlands to English parents.
He has been in the Ajax academy system since the age of seven, keeps goal for Jong Ajax in the second tier of Dutch football and is under contract until 2027.
He represents England, as does his younger brother, Tommy, also a goalkeeper in the Ajax Under 18 team.
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