Reproduction of any of the images from the Parsons Collection are
available for sale with an optional frame from the STAR shop.
If you are passionate about football and passionate about Reading FC then join us at STAR.
STAR (Supporters Trust At Reading) is a non-profit Supporters’ Trust set up in March 2002 by Reading FC supporters for Reading FC supporters.
Parsons Collection
Football postcards depicting RFC players and team from the late 1890s through to the late 1920s. Read more below...
Footballers Battalion
STAR's Journey to the Somme following the final resting places of RFC Players in The Footballers Battalion. Read more...
The royals Family
Characters aimed to represent the different types of fan in the years just before we became STAR. Read more...
Historical Team Images - The Parsons Collection
One night in 1999 a ‘mature’ gentleman by the name of Parsons came to The Football Shop (the old RFSC HQ in the East Stand) and said ‘you might be interested in these.’ It was three albums of football postcards dating from the late 1890s through to the late 1920s, a mix of team groups and players and I‘d never seen anything quite like it before.
He said it had been his father’s and, as he’d no further use for them, he was giving it to me in the hope we could use it for the benefit of the supporters of Reading FC. There were about 80 cards altogether which I took along to the next meeting of the RFC Collectors and Historians Society. They considered that it was the best collection of such material to come to light for many years and it included some items no-one had seen before.
We decided to keep the Reading part of the collection as an asset of the Supporters’ Club (and later STAR). About a third of the material related to other clubs (Southampton, Villa, West Brom principally) and this we sold for a few hundred pounds. STAR can offer for sale copies of the Reading photos you can see on this site.
One of the many roles of STAR is to enrich and protect the heritage of Reading FC, particularly in the absence of any formal museum run by the football club. Of course we welcome more donations of significant material from Reading fans with the promise we’ll look after it and make it as widely accessible as possible. We’re currently working with the Reading Museums Service and there is a Loan Box of Royals’ artefacts travelling around the schools and old people’s homes of the county.
Roger Titford, Chairman RFSC (1998-2001)
The Legend of Robin Friday - ebook available
The Legend of Robin Friday is a 50 page e-book/digital photo essay written by former Supporter's Club Chairman Roger Titford about one of Reading's greatest heroes to mark the 20th anniversary of his untimely death. It combines a retropective on how Robin became a legendary figure nationally and the best collection of images of him in action that brings his magic to life.
It's available for £3 in digital format only and published in association with When Saturday Comes.
You can view sample content and purchase a copy by following this link.
You can see a further collection of RFC Cards put together by Chris Lea, with information about the RFC Society of Collectors and Historians by visiting his website.
In 2011 RFC won an award from the Football League for their video remembering the Reading players who fought in the first world war. You can watch the video on the Football League website.
You can view all the Reading FC kits from 1872 to the present design on the Historical Kits website.
Do you know of other websites on the subject of the History of RFC? Please contact us to let us know.
1983 - One man and a mad dream
The strange story of Robert Maxwell and the Thames Valley Royals. In 1983 Reading FC nearly ceased to exist. A plan to merge Oxford United and Reading to form a new team called Thames Valley Royals nearly succeeded. Read an account of this troublesome time for Reading Supporters that first appeared on 1st April 1993 in Rage Online - an independent voice of Oxford United Supporters. Read the story here.
