Legendary Reading FC kitman Ron Grant has described this months legends match as “lots of hard work” but he cannot wait to lay out the kit one last time.

A Royals supporter of more than 70 years, Grant became club kitman under Mark McGhee in the early 1990s until the departure of Steve Coppell in 2009.

An iconic figure of a joyous period of Reading FC history, he is now Memberships Secretary for the Reading FC Former Players Association (RFPA) who are organising this celebratory occasion.

Raising money for young persons’ charity, No.5, teams made up of Steve Coppell’s famous 2005/06 Championship winning side will go up against Brian McDermott’s 2011/12 Championship winning side.

With names such as Graeme Murty and Jobi McAnuff already announced, it is set to be a brilliant afternoon at the SCL Stadium, but Mr Grant revealed that it should have taken place last spring.

Speaking to the Reading Chronicle, Mr Grant said: “We’ve been planning for this for two years now. It was originally planned for May 22, 2021, but Covid came along and messed everything up. I’m not sure we’d have been ready. It was a way of getting a reunion of the two squads together.”

 

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“It’s been very difficult with the year being lost. We alerted as many as we could then, but we’ve got to retrace our steps now. Professional footballers aren’t the easiest to communicate with when they played football, let alone now they are finished.

“It has been a lot of hard work; I had a lot of the contact details which aided but it’s now difficult as we have to confirm everything that we have put in place over the last 12 months. I do worry that we haven’t dotted every I or crossed every t, but we’ve had our meetings and liaised with the club throughout.”

 

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Leaving his role at the end of the 2000s, Grant is now in his eighties but insists he will still lay out the kit for the match, for old times’ sake.

He summed up: “As the former kitman I’m kidding myself that I can still put the kit out.

“The day is all about the supporters and the players coming back to have their own reunion. It will be lovely to meet up as you never know when you will meet up again.”

 

Click here to find out more about the RFPA.