For April 27th I'm going back 36 years to 1985 and York City's visit to Elm Park for a League Division 3 fixture against Reading.
It's worth noting that the programme is called "The Royal" with the Royals being one of Reading's nicknames, apparently a reference to the Royal County of Berkshire, not that anyone ever refers to it as that. Perhaps "The Berks" was considered and rejected? My favoured nickname for Reading is of course "The Biscuitmen", a reference to the town's historic association with the biscuit makers Huntley & Palmers. Messrs Huntley and Palmer were, like a number of nineteenth century businessmen, Quakers who successfully established an early global brand that was strongly associated with the British Empire. There are some cracking stories associated with their products. Did you know for example that in 2017, a 106-year-old Huntley & Palmers fruitcake was found in the artefacts from Captain Scott’s Expedition to Antarctica of 1910-1913 (more cake anyone?)? Or that one artist commissioned to design biscuit tins for Huntley & Palmers incorporated illicit images within his designs including those of copulating dogs, copulating people and a man with a cannabis joint? Crumbs, you'll be studying those biscuit tins more carefully now won't you?
So for me at least this game was the battle of the Biscuitmen and the Minstermen. It is not recorded whether Roger Hargreaves was part of the crowd of 2,433 but these two additions to his Mister Men family are still awaited. Reading's Elm Park venue was their home for 102 years (fancy being outlived by a cake!) until 1998 when they moved to their new all-seater Madejski Stadium, named after former Chairman John Madejski. Some would say that it's appropriate that Reading's new home was built on an old landfill site and that the stadium is surrounded by methane vents; not exactly the sweet smell of progress.
Denis Smith's York side fell behind to a goal from Reading's Mark White in the first half but stormed back to win the game 2-1 thanks to goals from Dale Banton and Gary Nicholson in the second period. The result proved to be crucial to the league placings of the two clubs at the end of the season as they finished the season on identical points totals (69) but City finished the higher of the two on goal difference in eighth place and thereby took the biscuit.
CRB Match No. 373
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