Back in the early noughties, in the year of my Farnborough Town’s side Isthmian Premier title success, we played a home league game at Reading’s Madejski Stadium as part of a tie-up with the club that saw their reserves use our Aimita Stadium.
Just before I moved to Preston, my final act as the manager of Stevenage in January 2012 was to knock Brian McDermott’s Championship team at Reading out of the FA Cup at the Madejski.

What a great stadium it is and what great victories they were. Reading felt big, it did things properly, and it felt like it would only ever be rising.

Reading went on...