More than a few eyebrows were raised in Berkshire in the January transfer window of 2005, when former Newcastle and Tottenham Hotspur star Les Ferdinand signed on a short term deal.

Steve Coppell drafted in both Ferdinand and Martin Keown in the January window as Reading looked to build on a promising first half of the season.

However, with no league wins in the league between Boxing Day and March 12, Reading’s promotion push ultimately fell short – with Coppell’s side finishing three points off the play off spots in seventh spot.

Ferdinand scored his last professional goal during his 12 game spell with Reading – scoring the opening goal in a 2-1 home defeat to Coventry City in February 2005.

We caught up with Ferdinand, who’s currently working as Director of Football at QPR and asked his about his memories of the Madejski Stadium.

You spent five months at Reading in 2005. Why did you choose Reading at the time? How did that ‘strange’ move come about?

“To be honest, I decided I wanted to retire a year before but Sam Allardyce persuaded me to play on for another year and he took me to Bolton.

“He said to me at the time: ‘Look Les, although your stats are better than Kevin Davies, he will start because last year he had his best season so he is ahead of you in the pecking order. But you are gonna come off the bench and get game time.’

“So I said ‘Ok’ and took myself to Bolton. At the start of my Bolton career I was playing and coming off the bench a lot but it got to a bad November and the team went through a period of time where we wasn’t winning games.

“So I thought ‘Wow, this is my time, I will get myself into the side now’.

“But I still didn’t, so I came to the end of November, early December and said to Sam: ‘Look this is my last year and I want to play football.’

“He said: 'Les, you are 39, you play, you are in the Premier League’, so I said ‘No, no, no I wanna play, I don’t want to sit on anyone’s bench. I have always had that in me, I want to play, I don’t want to sit on anybody’s bench’

“Big Sam understood and said: ‘Look there’s a few clubs that have come in that have tried and land you but I don’t want you to go. Have a think about it!”

What did you say?

“I thought about it and told him ‘If this is my last year in football then I also want to play’. So, he said that there were a few clubs [interested in me] with Reading being one of them. I went [to Reading] and spoke to Steve Coppell and I liked what he had to say.

“I liked where Reading were trying to go, they were still on the process of challenging for promotion. But when you are 39 and you haven’t played as much football as you need to play, you start picking up little niggly injuries.

“Unfortunately, I had a hamstring injury and it took me ages to come back from that. Overall I had a lot of niggly injuries at Reading and that kind of spelled the end of me in the game.”

But do you have good memories of Reading?

“Yes, I have fantastic memories of Reading. Like I said, the team was on the cusp of the playoffs and did very well and unfortunately we just faltered towards the end and never quite made it [to the Premier League].

“It was the first time I ventured into the Championship and spent five months in Reading.

"And despite getting a couple of alluring offers from other teams after the Reading experience I just realized that it was the right time to call it a day.”

How do you see Reading’s regression in recent years?

“I think you have to be realistic about what team they had when they were in the Premier League and then they’ve come down and tried to come back.

“Listen, the Premier League is the Holy Grail, everybody wants to get back to the Premier League.

"Sometimes you make some decisions in spending that probably are not the right thing and that puts you back a little bit.

“And that’s where both QPR and Reading are at the minute and we’re trying to rebuild in a way that keeps us in the Championship but still keeps us competitive in moving forward. It’s a slow process because everybody wants to be up there in the Premier League.

“You’ve just gotta look at all the teams that are up there at the moment. Look at Leeds, How long has it taken Leeds to get back to where they were before?

“Okay, West Brom got relegated and look like they can get promoted again because they have been able to keep the nucleus of the side and they have some good professionals at the football club that are helping them to do that.

“Both Reading and myself have probably had the wrong sort of professionals at the football club and it’s taking a little bit longer to get there.

“But I think that everything goes in cycles and sure QPR and Reading will get to where we need to get to. Hopefully sooner rather than later!”