After 500+ Days Of Torture, Reading Fans Can Breathe Again
They think it’s all over... it is now!
May 14, 2025 will go down in history as one of THE defining days in the history of our wonderful football club. Just one of 92 Football League clubs. One that had all the potential to be erased from that number.
Somehow we’ve survived this, but we’ve breathed and felt every moment along the way.
I will make no apologies here: this isn’t one of my normal pieces. This is the one where it all gets a bit emotional and raw. To say that we as a fanbase have been through the wringer is a bit of an understatement. Now we’re out the other side, finally, it’s going to take some time to take stock and learn how to undo all the pent-up emotions that we’ve suffered.
A football fan’s role is a simple one, by and large: you turn up, you support, you go home. But after a while it becomes a whole lot more. Especially if you’ve been a fan of Reading FC. To know is to love, of course, but we’ve had to learn so much about aspects of football that you really never wanted to know about in the first place.
We know so much more about the finances, the inner workings of the club, how it has been divided and where. The absent owner, what shenanigans he’s got up to, what it’s meant for the club, what was next if x or y happened... it was all too much to take in. Why should we have to know so much about something that we can affect so little?
We’ve known our role as fans, but when we’ve felt so helpless to affect matters we’ve wondered what the point of it all was at times. We were losing our grip and none of us could do anything to arrest the slide. That helplessness certainly was something I felt almost every day.
For many years even before Dai’s reign of terror, Reading would be the first thing I thought of when I woke and the last when I went to sleep (and at times not being able to sleep at all!)
The state of play was always at the forefront of my mind. I suppose that’s my own fault for being so attached to the club. It’s something that I did not intend, but it happened that way nonetheless. It happens to us all, one way or another in varying degrees.
I wanted to help but I had no idea how. I was invited to be a part of Sell Before We Dai but I felt like an imposter (which is not unusual even for my normal daily life).
There are some fine, fine people in the group that I can class as my great friends now, but within the cut and thrust of the group I floundered badly. The anxiety multiplied tenfold, but my desire to help will never diminish. I couldn’t just couldn’t separate ‘real me’ from the fan version of me.
But this is just me and my own demons; I’m only one example of the thousands of us that never thought this nightmare would ever end. More importantly than I, we all felt our own pain, misery, disappointment, disillusionment, fear and dread. We all thought at one point or another that this could be our last season. Only 91 would remain. Surely not!
As fans, we are naturally distant from the players and management (if you could ever call it that) and their daily routines. We don’t know how it felt for them. What did they really think? Of course, they never could say.
Fans usually don’t have to think so hard about what happens next on a daily basis. All we wanted was to find answers and a lasting viable resolution, but who knew how to unlock the enigma that was Dai Yongge? (It’s nice to be able to use past tense there!) It seemed almost impossible. Almost.
We have all thought about what got him into the situation where his plaything became a millstone. When did that happen and why? What stopped him from selling the club sooner? How much was his sister involved? We never even knew what his voice sounded like! These kinds of thoughts in my mind just kept rolling over and over and over. None of these questions will ever be answered, I would imagine.
This anxiety became all-encompassing. The worry and the stress was one aspect, but the awesome upside was that this led to the fans having the most incredible bond with the players and management that I have witnessed in living memory - and that’s a very long time!
Our collective admiration for everyone involved at the club, from the staff (former and current) to the amazing sponsors that have bailed the club out on more than one occasion, and of course the players who had to endure this debacle at the coalface. All of this has brought us fans all together like never before.
We truly feel united and I firmly believe we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The fans now understand more than many how close we were to potentially losing it all. It was a thought that I tried to push away to the back of my anxious mind, but it was always there, lurking.
Despite everything - the relegation, the points deductions, the embargoes, the brutal dismantling of the Women’s team, the neglect, the lies, the false dawns and promises - one thing remained: our unified determination to get Dai out. As much as he wanted the money, it was legally where the battle was won ultimately. Smarter minds eventually cornered Dai so that he finally had to concede.
It’s over. At long, long last. We have all been mentally scarred by the whole sordid 500 and something days of torture. We can look forward to so many things again. We can feel like a normal club again - whatever that means.
We can all breathe again. We can all feel less worried and feel less pain. I think we’ll always have half an eye on what happens next, how could we not? But we’ll never forget or underplay our part ever again, of that I am certain.
I’m sure we have all found our own ways of coping throughout it all. I’ve been fortunate to find comfort with awesome fans/friends that have shared their own versions of events. We can all be grateful for having each other’s backs and looking after each other.
We fell back in love with our club in the most incredible of ways (I’m looking at you, Purple Turtle!) in the darkest days imaginable.
We will never, ever will take our club for granted again, if we ever did. We are still battered and bruised and need a hell of a lot of TLC, but we are still here, fighting, as always.
We can finally breathe again. The bounce we will have in the coming weeks and months will be monumental. We will actually hear from the owners! With actual sound and vision!
I think we’re on our way back. We are so, so back.