Move to the Rivermoor

In 2016  the club moved from Palmer Park Stadium bringing an end to five years spent in East Reading to come back West Reading where we last played in 2011 and took up residence at our current home in Scours Lane which was renamed as the Rivermoor as part of our relocation. The move to West Reading came about as a result of the sad demise of Reading Town who previously occupied the ground. Reading Town were sadly dissolved in 2016 after 50 years of serving the community of Reading, we’re now proud to pick up that baton.

The Rivermoor is now the hub of the community, where we proudly have ground sharing agreements with Woodley United and Sister Club Tilehurst Panthers as well as playing host various footballing events throughout the football season. Since 2016 we have also been working hard to improve the facilities at the Rivermoor and picked up the coveted 2018/19 Berkshire Football Award for best ground, an award we are very proud of.

How did the Rivermoor get its name?

The Rivermoor gets its name from its location close to the River Thames (River) and the club’s former name Highmoor (Moor).

Our Chairman Martin Law revealed to Football in Berkshire in April 2020 that “he believes that whatever you have done in life is your history, and you should never lose your history as it’s made you what you are today, whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent as part of that has helped you on your journey.

 One of the things about the Rivermoor is that it is taking the fact we are near the River, so you have got the Thames and It was taking the end of the Moor, the Highmoor.  Martin told them that whenever he says the Rivermoor it brings back his memories of what we achieved in our years as Highmoor, where we went with Highmoor, where we came from, what we went through, the great times we had, all the players that have gone through and all the people that have helped. Martin says the Moor bit reminds him of that and the River is we’re now by the River and moving on, so it was something very simple but to me it actually means something.

When changing our name to Reading City Football Club we kept the ground name as the Rivermoor in a nod to our history as Highmoor and Highmoor Ibis.”

Reading City Years

In the summer of 2018, we took the difficult decision to rebrand from Highmoor Ibis to Reading City. The rebrand ended a long chapter of success and setbacks with the intent of becoming a non-league club the whole town can be proud to be associated with.

Our ambition as a club is to become the football club that everybody under Reading Football Club wants to aspire to play for and be involved in.

When interviewed in 2018 about the name change, Club Chairman Martin Law told the Reading Chronicle “With every organisation you have to have commercial branding associated with your location”. Since then we have worked tirelessly to ensure the brand is well recognised within the local community, the hard work paid off as the club won the coveted 2018/19 Berkshire Football Award for Best Social Media and Website.