Reading Football Club was founded in 1871, making it one of the oldest in the country. Original members of the Southern League, they joined Division 3 of the Football League in 1920. Having been one of the 'smaller' teams over the years cigarette and trade card issues featuring Reading were a lot less common than for the traditional big clubs, though they were well served by early postcards.

I started following Reading as a young boy in the early seventies and like all kids I swapped gum cards and stickers, but none of them ever featured my team. I became interested in collecting cards around twenty years ago when I found a team postcard from the twenties at a local collectors fair. I was hooked and became an avid collector over the next few years. I discovered Reading players on some beautiful cigarette cards as can be seen here.

All the cards scanned here are from my own collection except for the Brigham set, which can be seen in Card Scans 2. They are amoung the rarest of all football cigarette cards and my thanks go to Keith Moulden for supplying the images.

Using full-screen (F11) will improve viewing.

Many thanks for visiting and please sign the guest book!  Chris Lee