I'll be upfront and say the purpose of this tale is two-fold, firstly as a summary of the year for our growing email list, some of whom have only recently joined us, and secondly to hopefully provide encouragement to anyone out there thinking of organising Rangers venues, clubs or indeed RSCs.
The Spark
I've been in Reading for nearly 10 years and in that time I've met many Rangers fans in the passing - but rarely during a game itself. I was quite content to watch games in the house or my wee local pub, which was quite accommodating for our bigger games, mostly Old Firms. Oh and when wee Nacho stepped up to take a rather memorable spot kick last May to give us a big date in Manchester. In the build up to the UEFA final I did notice on the FF 'where are you travelling from' thread that quite a few fans were leaving from Reading station - so was I - why didn't I know these people I thought?
Fast forward a week and a half and I am walking into town with my big pal Scott to watch the Queen of the South SCF - despite the English Premiership playoff coinciding with the SCF surely the multi-feed, multi-purpose 'Walkabout' would have us on at least one screen. As we walked in at 2.45 there was no sight of the SCF build up, just a throng for the English playoff and something called cricket on the other screens. I asked the American barman if they could turn on our game and he said 'I can't, we're down to two feeds and some people are watching something called cricket'.
This shocked me - I'd vaguely heard of something called cricket but didn't actually believe people would voluntarily watch such a monotonous pile of drivel. But good grief, there were. Then our Yank hero said something that pleased and intrigued me: 'heck I'll turn your game on instead of the something called cricket because I've had loads of people in to ask for the Rangers game'. Loads of people, eh. At that same moment I heard a Scots accent just next to me - I turned and met a Mr & Mrs allyblue for the first time. I told them the good news - we were on. It was a chance meeting, but a very important (and fun) one.
All in all, seven of us watched the final, rebuffed the naïve passer-by who argued it was good for Scottish football when QotS equalised. Oh dear. He changed his mind quicker than we could turn snarl to bite. Later, as we toasted the efforts of the team over the season we spoke about the lack of options for Rangers supporters in a town like Reading: A town that had an established Celtic community based in an identikit Irish theme pub. A decision was made - we'd needed to bring this loose Rangers interest together.
The Interest
I posted a thread on FF in June to canvass interest - the response was way above my expectations so I sent a PM to the 25 people who replied with interest to meet over consecutive July Saturdays at the Three Guineas pub by Reading railway station. I cycled down to the first meeting with low expectations thinking we'd be lucky to have more than 4 people there but as I walked I towards to pub I could see a group of maybe 15 sitting round a table, several in team colours. Great! I got home 4 hours past my allotted pass.
The following Saturday a further 8 or so turned up. Yes, the demand for a Rangers group was evident - we had to do something about this, though the approach was to walk before running - we were too fledgling to be a formal RSC - after all we didn't have a home yet. Our primary aim was just to have a venue that fans could come to as and when they liked, with no prior commitment.
The Home
It was felt that Reading town centre, as the centre of Berkshire and with the best motorway & train connections in the county, should be our base. The short list of suggested pubs was indeed short - 2 in total - and as I work in the centre of town I was quite happy to go around and sound the venues out. The first was far too small and was quickly ruled out - but the other was perfect in size (large & with approx 15 TVs in it), location and willingness of the staff to host us. Oh, and it had a name that generated bluenose mirth and Yahoo ire in equal measure - 'The Orange House'.
As the pub only had one satellite feed we accepted we wouldn't have exclusivity, but regular priority. We knew that we wouldn't displace say an Arsenal v Man Utd game - but other than Big 4 v Big 4 we would be given preference. Over the year this translated to (almost) every Rangers game (sadly with little European flavouring) with the exception of maybe 3 or 4 games.
The Attendances
About 18 unfortunate souls turned up to watch us go out of Europe to Kaunas. The new season had shuddered to a shock halt before it had started. But we dusted ourselves off and advised them that we should have a decent turn out for the first OF game of the season - 31 August. We broadcast it hard on the FF message boards, went on the official RFC site and got a listing in the Rangers News. My hope was 30 for that game, if we could get that we were up and running - by kick off we had 45 in place. And boy did we all enjoy the show that day! Their pub's tills were overflowing too. Later that afternoon two Yahoos came in, not knowing that there was a new Rangers show in town. Fair play they stayed and took the banter on the chin! Here's a snap of that day's party time!
Throughout the season attendances varied from anything between say 8 and 35 for non-OF games, hitting 50-60 for Old Firm games. But what struck me was how many casual or occasional visitors we had - our pool of visitors over the year was easily in excess of 100. We had achieved our primary aim: that of having a venue Rangers fans could come to watch Rangers as and when they chose. As one semi-regular
Attendee (when he isn't Out of the Office!) remarked - 'this is perfect for my life now, I haven't got time to go to games but I still want to watch it with Bears'. This was probably a truism for the majority of our visitors.
The Georgian Rangers
In the early season I asked a friend, volunteering in post-war Georgia, if she would have use for some old football jerseys for the displaced youths cramming into Tbilisi. Yes she did, so a round up of 50+ Rangers jerseys, t-shirts etc along with a few other jerseys was organised. These were couriered to Georgia and on 16 November a football tournament was held for the war displaced Georgians. A group from Kidori were kitted out in the blue of Rangers and won the tournament. A huge thank-you to the Bears and to our heroine Sian, who organised the whole thing in Tbilisi.
Here's a photo of the winning team - and lets hope it contains a future star to follow in the footsteps of Shota & Zurab who can one day grace the famous Ibrox Park!
The Champions
Well there's not much to add about the football on show that people don't already know. We were playing catch up from early on and because expectation was downgraded to hope, there wasn't too much talk of winning the league. After 3IAR, and our financial plight, the pressure to succeed was overbearing. We were up, down, excited, frustrated and when we drew 1-1 with Hibs utterly dejected.
But thanks to a perfect combination of arrogance and mediocrity Celtic gave us the opportunity of winning the league on 24 May. The OH welcomed about 65/70 Bears that day, all expecting a torrid and tense afternoon. Nonsense, it was a breeze, a doddle, and boy what a party! Here's but a few who were still partying a couple of hours after the final whistle!
The Orange House
The OH team were our hosts for our first year. It could probably be described in the 'fun & sports' pub category and was huge. They took a chance on us and for that we will be forever grateful. Indeed, the staff made a real effort on league decider day, decorating the pub in flags and all wore Rangers tops and t-shirts. The manageress told me a few days after Samaras Sunday that the staff all agreed it was the best day they'd every worked - the punters' joy, the free drinks, the staff tip! Brilliant.
By April, they had a second TV feed, more or less guaranteeing us coverage irrespective of who else might be on Skysports. This was promising, as they had been bought over by a new group at the turn of the year, leaving a lot of uncertainty for the staff and pub itself. There was talk of it converting to a nightclub, which would have been of no use to us. But things seemed to be on the up, it was decorated and business was very good. Then 3 days after hosting our Scottish Cup Final, the pub shut. No warning, no clues as to why. Seven hardworking, enthusiastic and dedicated staff made redundant out of the blue. We wish them all the very best in getting back to work ASAP.
This leaves us much as we were this time last year, homeless. But we have time to source a new venue and I am sure we will. One final postscript to this relates to the name. As mentioned above it did cause smirks and frowns in equal measure but had absolutely no bearing on us approaching them. The name was an innocent coincidence. But, while unknown to us at the time, maybe it wasn't quite so innocent as this Berkshire History site extract tells.
In 1688, Parliament took the Crown of England away from King James II because he was a Roman Catholic. Instead, they offered it to his nephew, William III, at Hungerford. William marched to London to force James to leave the country. Their armies fought in Reading, at the Battle of Broad Street, and King William won. This was the only fighting that took place during the 'Glorious Revolution'.
http://www.berkshirehistory.com/kids/reading.html
That's one for this history/trivia buffs!
The End of Season Bash
I took a call out of the blue in March asking if we'd be interested in holding an end of season doo with Willie Henderson as a guest. Yes was the answer even before we learned that Graham Roberts was also available for the evening. Tickets were sold and around 75 Bears gathered at the College Arms pub, Reading on 5th June for our first ever end-of-year party.
Our guests were absolutely superb, the speeches a mixture of comedy and tales from the beautiful game. The night worked like clockwork, pictures handshakes, stories and songs. Plenty of songs! The feedback from the attending Bears was unanimous in its enjoyment of the evening. Happy Bears one and all. To think back only 12 months very few of us knew each other, we had no Rangers group or venue and here we were less than a year later altogether celebrating the championship with Rangers legends. Mission accomplished all round!
Oh and special mention to berkshiretrueblue for his afternoon dash to east London to pick up our first ever batch of polo shirts - these are still available, like the early Model T Fords, in any colour you want, as long as its black! And I'm sure his sons feel similar gratitude as the old fella bid a tidy sum to secure two places in a forthcoming OF charity match at Ibrox on 11 July, managed by The Goalie. Lucky sods!
The Future
Other than finding a home our next step it to formally register the Berkshire RSC 'The Royal Loyal' at Ibrox. We have just been accepted for this and are in the process of arranging our inaugural meeting. Again special thanks to berkshiretrueblue for his efforts on this.
We're lucky as well - the characters, the friendships, the camaraderie has been nothing short of top class - a lot of people have put in a lot of effort so as to avoid forgetting anyone in particular I'll just say a collective thank you to you all.
There's much to do and much to look forward to, none more so than the Emirates Tournament. We'll be there in force and look forward to mingling with the greatest friends we could ever hope for, the Rangers Family.
On Behalf of The Royal Loyal, Sgt Steve