READING FC’s fortunes may well have come up in conversation on Sunday after Celtic had hammered Rangers 4-0 in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

For the respective managers were former Royals manager Brendan Rodgers and skipper Graeme Murty.

Rodgers showed he hasn’t forgotten his Reading roots when Rob Creech, joint manager of Bracknell Town Reserves, paid a recent visit to Celtic Park.

“A friend of mine was Brendan’s landlord,” said Creech. “We got invited up there, went to a Celtic game, met Brendan afterwards and he invited us to their training ground the following day.

“We spent two and a half hours in his office and got some good advice from him, it was a great experience.

“When we asked about his days at Reading, Rodgers said they were the right club for him, but at the wrong time.

“He (said) he should not have left Watford (in 2009) when he did, but the pull of Reading,with the connections he had previously, brought him back to the club.”

  • THIS month’s edition of The Cricketer magazine features one of the greatest and most memorable days in the history of Reading cricket.

It was in 1995 when the touring West Indies side came to town for a one-day warm-up match against a Minor Counties XI.

Among those on show were Brian Lara, Richie Richardson, Carl Hooper, Sherwin Campbell and Curtly Ambrose, and they rattled up a useful score of 266-9 in their 55 overs.

But surprisingly that total wasn’t sufficient, as the ‘bunch of amateurs’ went on to win by four wickets with three overs to spare.

The previous day at the Sonning Lane ground the Minor Counties hosted a Young Australia XI skippered by Stuart Law and featuring Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer and Adam Gilchrist.

That racked up an impressive 316-5 in their 55 overs before restricting the part-timers to 245-8, which included an unbeaten half-century from Simon Myles, now with Wokingham CC.

  • THATCHAM Town tell me a lot of non-league officials, players and fans from the Reading area are among the 3,000 who have already booked tickets for their FA Vase final against Stockton at Wembley on May 20.