Swindon Town v Reading: What happened to the rivalry?

This Thursday night game in front of the ITV Digital cameras had hardly been an advert for lower league football as the local grudge match ended with no goals and three players having been sent off.

“It was Valentine’s Day, but not very romantic in the slightest”, says Dan Hunt, Swindon Town fan for over 30 years and contributor to The Loathed Strangers Podcast.

“A game marred by low quality and three red cards. Even though Swindon played for 40 minutes against ten men, I don’t remember us coming very close to winning that. A proper derby game in the sense that it had a lot of passion, a lot of red cards, but not a lot of quality.”

The 150th competitive meeting between Swindon Town and Reading had not been a classic, but everyone would have to wait another 21 years for the 151st fixture to come around.

“At that point in time Reading were heading in one direction that ended in the Premier League,” said Dave Harris, a Reading supporter since 1989 and writer for The Tilehurst End, “Five years after that game Reading were finishing eighth in the Premier League, whereas Swindon were becoming the first Premier League club to be relegated to League Two.

“It only takes one good owner to make a club, and we had ours in Mr John Madejski, but with Swindon, it is just this continual revolving door of owners that haven’t had the best interests of the club at heart or been able to sustain the club. It has been exactly the same with Reading, really, since Madejski sold up in 2012.”

The two sides had been practically joined at the hip since their first meeting in 1889, the battles on the pitch could only really be prevented by wars off it, with the only lengthy gap between matches coming during the Second World War, but all of that seems to have vanished now.

Harris said: “We were both founding members of the Southern League and up until the 1960s and what I think you could say was the Don Rogers revolution, we played each other a hell of a lot. We were largely similar-sized clubs, with similar levels of success, similar fan bases, similar pull, and a similar industrial history. It is a long rivalry, and it is one that does still fester under the surface and there is no love lost between the two teams.”

At 23 years old, I have never witnessed a competitive match between the two and think of Reading more as the club that loaned us Simon Cox and Hal Robson-Kanu than one that is to be despised like Bristol City or Oxford United. This is despite the 150 matches against the Royals dwarfing the 117 played against City and 62 contests with the U’s.

“It is undoubtedly a derby match for Swindon,” said Hunt, “But I would count the big local derbies as Oxford United and Bristol City. In that order. They certainly drum up the most feeling inside me. Reading are probably in the next tier with Bristol Rovers.”

Harris seems to be used to being shown something of a cold shoulder from fans on the other side of the Berkshire-Wiltshire border.

“Reading fans certainly see Swindon as our biggest rival, that goes without any real doubt. Historically we have had Aldershot, but put it this way, I am 41 and I have never seen us play them.

“We have not played each other for 20 years, but on the terraces, we still sing about Swindon, they are the ones that always get the fans’ ire.

“But we are a bit like Leicester. The big East Midlands rivalry is Forest against Derby, who absolutely hate each other. It was described to me by a Leicester fan as they are like the slightly annoying cousin. With Oxford and Swindon really despising each other, Reading are just there, let’s face it. It is beyond doubt that they don’t like Reading, but they have far more interest in each other.

“We are the annoying cousin of what I suppose you could call the Didcot Triangle relationship.”

That is not to say that the feeling cannot be as visceral after a big win, according to Hunt the reverse fixture in 2001/02 produced delirium in the away end after the final whistle.

“The one that really stands out is October 2001, when we went to the Madejski and won 3-1, which really felt like a landmark victory at the time. It was only my fifth away game; I was only 13 and my dad had only been letting me go to away games for six months to a year. We were on the away coaches with one of my best friends and his dad with pretty low expectations. I just remember the atmosphere being electric and luckily for us, it was a Swindon performance to match.

Neil Ruddock celebrates in front of the Swindon Town fans (Image: Dave Evans)

“There were some fantastic post-match scenes, Razor Ruddock grabbing his crotch towards the Swindon fans in celebration, which sounds quite grotesque, and it was, but it felt quite iconic of that season. It absolutely felt bigger because it was against Reading. It felt like their side was a bit of a juggernaut, so to land that final blow was really sweet.”

Despite the violence on the pitch the last time these two faced one another, it was never a game that was filled with too much animosity off the field between the two fan bases.

Harris said: “It is never a nice atmosphere between Reading and Swindon, but I have never personally seen any major trouble between the two clubs. If there was ever going to be any trouble between two clubs, then it would actually be Reading and Oxford. Every time I have seen a Reading-Oxford game there has been trouble.”

It is also not a rivalry where you will see too much hostility towards those who move between the two, in all there are 86 players with ties to both clubs, including four different Joneses, and 26 transfers directly from one to the other.

“You will quite happily see players move between the clubs and we have had some good players come from Swindon, like Jimmy Quinn,” said Harris. “There are a couple [we don’t like], the one that really springs to mind is Paul Bodin. Simon Cox was one that it was a bit irritating that he did so well at Swindon when he was ours. He ended up joining us again in 2014, but he had had his best years by then.

“If there are any notable former Swindon players that turn up at the Madejski then they will get the old “Swindon reject” treatment. I know Matt Ritchie got a bit of stick when he turned up for Bournemouth.”

But with all the waiting that has been required to get to the 151st competitive meeting of the clubs, that feeling is likely to be dialled up on Tuesday evening.

It might only be the EFL Trophy, but with 21 long years having gone by since the last round of this 134-year grudge match, it has become a must-watch for those yearning for the old days.

“I will certainly be going to it. I won’t be overly despondent if we lose, but it is always nice to put one over on your rivals,” said Harris.

Hunt said: “The 1,000 away fans go to show the pent-up rivalry. There is that latent urge that Swindon fans really want to land another blow on Reading, even if it is the EFL Trophy.”