10 Amazing facts about Reading FC

• Reading Football Club (RFC) is the 6th oldest League club and the oldest in the South of England but no-one knows exactly when RFC were founded. The club badge shows 1871 but it might have been 1872!
   
• Reading have lost more FA Cup ties than any other League club. How come? Reading and Notts County were the first clubs (of those now in the League) to enter the Cup in 1877. As County won it in 1894 Reading have suffered the most defeats, one per season ever since 1877.
   
• Reading hold the record for the worst ever defeat in the FA Cup sustained by a team now in the League. RFC wore the wrong boots and went down 18-0 while the Preston goalkeeper watched much of the game from under an umbrella. At the time, in 1893/94, RFC were an amateur club but within 7 years had turned professional and reached the Quarter Finals, beating teams as good as Preston on the way.
   
  
  Trophies from Reading Football Club's past
   
• There used to be several other teams in Reading - the Hornets, the Minster, Abbey and South Reading, all of whom also played in the FA Cup. But it is years since Reading played in a Reading derby - perhaps the last was a massive 24-0 thrashing of the Reading Wednesday League in 1897.
   
• In the 1930s Reading were almost unbeatable at Elm Park, losing only 13 games in 8 seasons. At one point RFC were unbeaten at home for 55 matches (2 and a half seasons). This was a new record which stood for over 40 years.
   
• Reading's Arthur Wilkie holds the record for the most goals scored by a goalkeeper in a League match. Against Halifax in 1962 (before substitutes were allowed) he injured his shoulder, took off the green jersey and switched to playing on the wing. And then scored twice in a 4-2 win!
   
  
  Left to right - the RFC kit from 1906,
  the 1908 Reading Collegiate School kit
  and the current RFC kit
   
• Reading hold the English record for most minutes played without letting in a goal. It's 1103 minutes and includes a run of 11 matches in 1979 without conceding during which our defence was unchanged: Steve Death in goal, Gary Peters, Mark White, Paul Bennett and Martin Hicks.
   
• Reading hold the record for most wins from the start of a season - 13 in a row in 1985/86. RFC went on to win the Division Three Championship.
   
• Reading were the first of the 40-odd clubs who joined the Football League in 1920-22 to score 5000 League goals. Adie Williams scrambled the 5000th home against Wycombe in September 2000 but, due to a miscalculation, the framed certificate went to Darius Henderson - who got the 5001st!
   
  
  Reading Football Club memorabilia
   
• In 1913 Reading toured Italy and beat Pro Vercelli, the Italian champions, AC Milan (5-0) and then the full Italian national team. The leading sports newspaper Corriere della Sporta wrote "without doubt, Reading FC are the finest foreign team seen in Italy." We have never returned there!

All of the objects above are on display in the museum during the Football exhibition.