For over half the life of our club its nickname was ‘The Biscuitmen’. It’s ironic, really, given the most important man ever to work at Huntley & Palmers – George Palmer – disliked both football and professionalism! George, of course, gave his name to Palmer Park and George Palmer primary school but it was the newspapers of the 1890s who first defined us as the Biscuitmen.
Professional football boomed in that decade as never before. Clubs like Reading began to travel greater distances to play matches. One way of giving faraway clubs an identity for their readers was to nickname them after that town’s main industry. In Reading, there was no question what that was. By 1900 Huntley & Palmers biscuits were world-famous and the giant redbrick factory buildings that ran along the main railway line dominated the townscape.
So, in the match reports we became the Biscuit Boys, the Biscuits, the Biscuiteers, the team from Biscuitopolis, all eventually eliding into the Biscuitmen. Likewise, Luton were the Strawplaiters, Millwall the Dockers, Northampton the Cobblers and so on.
Though many of our important players of the early 1890s worked in the biscuit factory – literally biscuitmen – the Palmer family were much keener on supporting cricket and athletics and put no money into the newly professional club.
That had changed by the 1920s when we reached Division Two (today’s Championship) and the FA Cup semi-finals. The company wanted to be in on the success. For our 1926-27 cup run they produced some wonderful biscuit-themed souvenirs. Alas, they were over-confident in producing an FA Cup-shaped biscuit barrel. Urban legend has it that after our defeat in the semi-final all the tins were shipped to India. At least one remained at home and is one of our most treasured souvenirs.
Being known as the Biscuitmen didn’t come with any formal approval from either the club or the company – it was much more the supporters’ and the journalists’ choice. In fact, the second-best team in Reading in the 1950s was Huntley & Palmers own factory team, who played in Kensington Road, literally in sight of our old ground at Elm Park.
Two forces brought life to the Biscuitmen nickname. The Supporters’ Club designed and sold Biscuitmen badges – as well holding regular Monday night Bingo sessions (players as guests) in the factory canteen in the early 1960s.
More significantly, the Reading Chronicle had a gifted cartoonist AREFF (Ron Fennell) who used a baker / biscuitmaker as what we might now call an avatar for the club itself in his cartoon strips. These appeared weekly and showed the biscuitman in a variety of poses that fitted with the club’s performance in the previous week. Here’s how the poor fella felt after we lost an FA Cup replay 0-7 at home to Manchester City in 1968.
And here’s a more optimistic one from 1964. The biscuitman is chasing the printer (Watford), the glazier (Palace) and the bicycle-maker (Coventry) up Division Three. He didn’t catch them.
As a business Huntley & Palmers struggled in the 1970s, with the factory closing in about 1976. In view of this the club decided to have a new and more formal nickname. Fans were asked to send in their suggestions, and, from a short-list, manager Charlie Hurley selected the Royals.
The Royals is also used by Kansas City (baseball), Rajasthan (IPL cricket), London (hockey) and eleven (!) British football clubs, according to the Dictionary of British Football Club Nicknames. But there’s only ever been one Biscuitmen. The association has been kept alive in an underground kind of way by a fanzine title – Taking the Biscuit – the photo history website The Biscuitmen, STAR’s own We Are The Biscuit Town poster and, of course, the 30-year-old fans’ website Hob Nob, Anyone? Ironically, the Hob Nob was not a Huntley & Palmers biscuit!
And now in 2025 the new home kit for Reading FC pays homage to the decorative designs of the old Huntley & Palmers’ biscuit tins. It’s taking the biscuit – back!
Roger Titford, author of ‘The Lost Years of Reading FC’ and other Reading books.