Tracking down the track which will always be Reading FC

Tracking down the track which will always be Reading FC

Richard Howitt on what he believes is the greatest football anthem

After two years, “Sweet Caroline” still seems to be Reading’s “football run-out” song.

Furthermore, I don’t mean it in the Al-Habsi meaning.

But for my generation of fans who began following the club in the 1960s and 1970s, this is the narrative of finding that one elusive piece of music that truly was legendary.

I work abroad now, so I follow the Royals from all over the world and treasure the few games each season when I can join my equally scattered extended family to witness the team that has been ours for fifty years up close.

I used to write a regular young supporters’ column for the Reading FC program, and my mother worked at the ‘Spread Eagle’ bar across the street from Elm Park.

And Reading FC ran out to a jaunty piece of electric organ music preceded by four repeated chords on bass guitar.

To our young ears, this music was more thrilling than “Walk Alone,” “Bubbles,” or the “Z Cars” theme could ever be, we thought, to supporters of other subpar clubs.

The song has stuck in my head ever since my brother and I hummed and sang it while setting out our Subbuteo figurines for our kid-friendly games.

However, that melody was lost to the ages, much like our table football game and Elm Park’s sacred soil.

The introduction of digital music caused me to occasionally try to locate the track, which will always be Reading for me, even if it was nowhere to be found in the Reading FC Shop or in the Club’s official history.

Its numerous song changes and years of no club song have caused it to disappear from all search engines.

Before the internet was created, there was a song with a title that didn’t even appear on the internet.

Since the song was instrumental, there were no lyrics to help you recognise the number.

Although I assumed my own “tone deaf” singing voice would eliminate any chance of success, I did explore employing a music identification service that uses voice processing technology.

The obvious option of asking the Club or other fans via the many social media platforms that I follow religiously was also thwarted by similar modesty.

However, this detective tale ultimately had a happy ending because to one football chatroom.

An exchange between more than a hundred fans over three years on “Reading-Forum” seemed to have embarked on the same quest which I had set myself.

The fans had identified the music as “La la la la la lala laaaa,” and I immediately knew it was the same song.

Shame on the contributors to the site who dismissed this as the Banana Splits’ television theme or – even worse – wrongly remembered this as the Delfonics, Boney M or Bonnie Tyler.

The online chat enquiry has closed in the same failure I had always experienced, three years ago.

But I rediscovered one entry from 2012 from a genuine fan known only as Robert, which unlocked the key to the mystery by recalling that the song title may have been ‘Holiday’.

According to a revived search, this was the Belgian organist’s lone significant UK recording success before he retired to run his own dance halls instead of performing in them.

This was leading to unprecedented levels of obfuscation.

But for the first time in fifty years, I was thrilled to hear a grainy 1960s recording of what was actually the Reading FC pregame music—my personal favourite football anthem—on YouTube.

I don’t deny that Neil Diamond is a wonderful as well.

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