Reading Minster F.C.

The club was founded in 1874, with the Rev. C. C. Mackarness - a scorer in the 1874 FA Cup final for Oxford University A.F.C. - as the first club captain, and the club remained as a religious-based institution through its existence.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster Club - Annual Supper |journal=Reading Observer |date=10 May 1884 |page=2}} The club played in the Berks & Bucks Senior Cup in 1878–79, losing to the Remnants, in part because of the club's quixotic policy - soon abandoned - of rotating players around the pitch so everyone took a turn in goal.{{cite journal |title=Minster Football Club |journal=Berkshire Chronicle |date=17 May 1879 |page=6}}

The club first entered the FA Cup in 1880–81. In the first round, the club drew 1–1 with Romford at a neutral ground in Ealing.{{cite journal |title=Romford 1-1 Reading Minster |journal=Essex Times |date=6 November 1880 |page=7}} The club scratched from the competition before the replay could take place.

The club's best run in the competition was in the following season. The club beat Windsor Home Park at home in controversial circumstances; the Reading Observer reporting that Minster had won 1–0, with a disputed goal against which Home Park had made a protest,{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster 1-0 Windsor Home Park |journal=Reading Observer |date=29 October 1881 |page=3}} and the Windsor newspapers reporting the score as being 0–0.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster 0-0 Windsor Home Park |journal=Windsor & Eton Express |date=29 October 1881 |page=4}} The Football Association rejected the protest.

In the second round, Minster beat Romford, again in controversial circumstances; Minster took the lead when Romford stopped playing, because of an apparent offside, and late in the match, when Earle of Romford was brought down, "a foul was claimed for this, and being allowed by one of the umpires, one of the Romford men picked up the ball for the purpose of passing it back to where the foul took place, but the referee gave “hands” to the home team." Romford considered a protest but did not file one.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster 3-1 Romford |journal=Essex Times |date=10 December 1881 |page=6}}

In the third round, the club played the Hotspur club of Battersea, who had beaten Reading Abbey in the second round, but lost in a replay at Prospect Park to two late goals.{{cite journal |title=Hotspur v Reading Minster |journal=Field |date=31 December 1881 |page=965}}

The club entered the FA Cup until 1884–85, albeit the club scratched in 1882–83 having been given a walkover in round 1, and the club's worst performance came in a 10–1 defeat to the Old Carthusians in 1883, played for the occasion in the grounds of Park House in Reading, owned by Reading F.C. member A.C. Bartholomew.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster v Old Carthusians |journal=Reading Observer |date=17 November 1883 |page=3}}

The club was always in the shadow of other local clubs, such as Reading and South Reading F.C., and it never reached the final of the local FA's competition. However it did win the Reading Challenge Cup in 1883–84, beating surprise finalists Caversham 2–1 at Coley Park.{{cite journal |title=Reading Challenge Cup |journal=Sporting Life |date=4 March 1884 |page=4}} It retained the trophy in 1884–85, beating South Reading in the semi-final, "much to the evident delight of their supporters, and the evident astonishment of not a few of their opponents."{{cite journal |title=The past season in Berks & Bucks |journal=Reading Observer |date=2 May 1885 |page=6}}

The final recorded match of the club was a 6–0 defeat at Maidenhead United in December 1895; even in this final match the club still featured an ecclesiastical in the line-up (the Rev. C. A. Sturges-Jones as centre-forward).{{cite journal |title=Berks & Bucks Senior Cup |journal=Maidenhead Advertiser |date=11 December 1895 |page=7}}

There is no currently known record of the club's precise colours, but in 1884 the club decided to add a white band (from right shoulder to left hip) to distinguish it from other clubs in the area which had similar colours.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster club |journal=Berkshire Chronicle |date=27 September 1884 |page=5}} Given that red and green were not popular colours, and no local club wore blue on its own, but Swifts and South Reading wore black, it is probable that Minster also wore black jerseys beforehand.

The club played at Prospect Park.{{cite journal |title=Reading Minster Club Matches |journal=Reading Mercury |date=11 February 1882 |page=6}}

• Charles Mackarness, the club's first captain

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Category:Association football clubs established in the 19th century

Category:Football clubs in Reading

Category:Defunct football clubs in England

Category:Defunct football clubs in Berkshire

Category:Association football clubs disestablished in the 19th century

Category:Association football clubs established in 1874

Category:Association football clubs disestablished in 1896