Reading chairman John Madejski has scuppered rumours of his departure after the club secured promotion to the top flight for the first time in their 135 year history.

Madejski has bankrolled the club to the tune of around ?40m over his 16 year tenure in charge and has said that even though it feels like mission accomplished getting promoted, he feels that a season in the Premiership as chairman is the least he deserves for the time, effort and money he has put in.

Reading manager Steve Coppell said this after the 1-1 draw with Leicester which took his side up as the earliest promoted side to the top flight in post-war football: “It’s a brilliant feeling, it’s tremendous. I feel great pride in the players, the staff, the chairman for all the hard work he’s put in and all the supporters who’ve come out and followed us.

“We’ve had a huge commitment from the players who form a very small squad. Our last game of last season was at Wigan when they were celebrating promotion and that kick-started something in us to replicate that achievement.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 11:46 am and is filed under Reading. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.