Essay on The ‘Real and Fake Hoops’ !

Bear in mind that I 'grew up' on the football fan forum circuit, so to speak, where good-hearted banter between rival fans is the nature of the day, and some of the best ever chat of all-time has come with the QPR guys. In the last five years I’ve come around from disliking you all to having a real soft spot! Even so, I hope you won’t go over the top on this!
I thought that in light of our forthcoming cup match against QPR, it might help to shed light on a subject that has surfaced fairly regularly between our teams in recent years. Later in the season I’ll be producing (as I normally do on our specialist “RR”) the more regular large sections of QPR’s footballing history, a detailed description of your part of London, and an in depth look at the ground. But now, so as not to duplicate things, something rather different – the question of the ‘Real Hoops’! OK, as I have just said, this has been a bone of contention between the two sides over recent years, especially those of us who were regular contributors on the BBC 606 service so let’s look into this issue in a little more detail –


Firstly, it sounds a bit silly, but are there minimum and maximum dimensions to make a hoop a hoop? That’s a difficult one to answer. Too few and they become large bands without definition: too many and they become merely a sea of close-knit lines. But we have to understand that we are talking about horizontal circular lines around the shirt of the footballer, couldn’t be simpler so in my opinion ALL qualify as hoops.

The first ever Reading FC shirt to have a hoop of sorts goes right back to our founding season but were the second example – bands so small as to be really nothing more than lines, but still hoops never-the-less. Here it was – the 1872 shirt:

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Unfortunately, it seems that our next kit (whenever a change might have been made, but in the period up to 1892) is pretty well undocumented; I’ve even seen specialist site kit web pages begging for answers - just in case your great-great-granddad had a photo lounging in his loft.



QPR’s first ever colour scheme was a combination of light blue and navy blue and was tailored into a halved kit when they were founded as St Jude’s in 1882, and quarters when they were renamed as Queens Park Rangers four years later.



From 1891 till the 1938-39 season Reading definitely played in a striped shirt every season – here’s an example, taken from the years 1929-1934:

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Meanwhile, in 1892 QPR had taken to wearing a green-and-white hooped shirt, in an era which lasted until 1924. Generally the socks were green as well, except for a few seasons (1903-1905 and 1920-1922) when they were black. Here’s an example of the attire from 1903-05:

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However, by the late 1920s QPR had taken the hoops on board, this following design being their first ever blue-hooped shirts, dating from 1926-1930. Also, see the black socks continue, fairly unusual for most English teams over the years:

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Therefore, you’ll see that the renowned blue and white hoops didn’t make their very first appearance as a QPR home kit until the late 1920s, but have been worn almost ever since apart from a blue shirt with white sleeves in the 1948-49 season and six years of white shirts from 1953 to 1959 (more on that in a second). Compare this to Reading’s hooped short appeared in their first season of existence, if you agree that so many circles around the shirt constitute hoops, but at least as far back as 1892 (and probably further back still) we had dropped them ...



In the 1938-39 season Reading once more reverted to hoops; however hardly anyone could have remembered the previous generations when blue hooped attire were worn, and we certainly could have never claimed any ‘real hoop’ propaganda at that time. Then came the outbreak of war and the football league season came to a halt during the war years – so here at least is proof of Reading’s last kit before the wartime cease in league activity:

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After the war, QPR switched to a blue shirt with white sleeves in the 1948-49 season, but this may be ‘forgiven’ in our present study as it is claimed that this was as a result of post-war rationing. But a slight break in their long-term claim to continuous ‘hoop wearing’ were indeed the seasons 1953 to 1959 when completely white shirts were worn. Here’s an example from the 1953-1954 season, quite an exception to usual QPR kits:

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When QPR reverted to hoops in the 1959-1960 season they did so with a vengeance – the socks alone seemed to make up for those years spent in a white shirt!:

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Hoops were worn by Reading FC for many consecutive seasons after the war until the 1965-69 years, when for some reason that I don’t know we suddenly switched to all-blue tops – and here was the new blue top:

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--- PART TWO just coming up - unfortunately there's a limit to ten on the number of images allowed in each post ---

 

Hoops returned to Reading in 1969, but these were becoming ever smaller numbers of circular bands around the shirt after the mid-1970s until just three bits of blue were left by 1982. In 1983-84 these were finally again discarded in favour of old-style stripes which became modernized in 1984-85 to striped ‘blocks’:

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We then entered an entire RFC decade without ‘hooped’ tops ...


Meanwhile, our West London half-neighbours were setting up Irish connections and with Guinness executive Ernest Saunders a long-term QPR supporter it was no surprise when “the black stuff” became the club’s first ever shirt sponsor in 1983 and the word ‘Guinness’ became the first ever publicity word to appear on the front of a QPR shirt. The relationship lasted for three years before Guinness were replaced on the hoops by the slightly less prestigious Blue Star Garages. However, as far as I can tell this did not affect the first strip blue hoops choice, except by the introduction of red trimmings, and unusual sock design – here’s the 1985-86 season:

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By 1989-90 the Reading striped shirt – already hoop-less remember - was thrown out in favour of an all-blue shirt once again, something we hadn’t witnessed since the 1968-1969 season. In 1991 it became even stranger, with blue shirts and a white-ish top.

See here you can see the 1989-90 and 1991-1992 Reading shirts:

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When Queens Park Rangers pulled on a green and white hooped change kit in the early 1990s eyebrows must have been raised amongst non-Rs fans; however, those in the know however would have recognized the strip as a revival of one of the club’s earliest strips/colour schemes that was worn from 1892 to 1924 – it should be stressed that this was the second kit, and not the first choice which remained blue hoops …



Back again to Reading, and in 1992-93 the hoops returned, albeit only 2 main blue bands, with the number of blue bands growing after 2004 – here’s the 2005-06 promotion team kit, and the height of our recent ‘blue-ness’:

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During the last decade blue shorts have generally been preferred, although some seasons show white ones with blue trimmings. 2003-2006 were our most ‘blue’ years, whilst 2001-2003 and 2011-2012 were our ‘whitest’ seasons.

I like our present strip – 2012-2013:

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In this recent period, the colour of Ranger’s blue has rarely altered. White was more dominant than blue in 1999-2000 and 2009-2010, and blue more dominant in 2008-2009 (where the shorts were blue too). In 2006 QPR recuperated the old red trimmings but this experiment did not last for more than one season. The current season, 2012-2013 shows just about the smallest size hoops from QPR’s entire history – ironically they seem rather more like age-old Reading shirts!

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Who then are the ‘real hoops’?? Let’s weigh things up:

First team to wear blue hooped shirts – Reading.
Longest actual run in blue hooped shirts – Q.P.R.
Most years played with blue hooped shirts – Q.P.R.
Less change to the shade of blue – QPR.
Team with most years in blue shorts – Reading.
Team with most years in white shorts – QPR.

Make your own minds up – who are the ‘real’ hoops?!! In my own opinion QPR (unfortunately!) have a far stronger claim than Reading and on more fronts … so sorry, fellow Royals fans, I think we should lie low about the ‘fake hoops’ claims!!

Anyway, all meant in good faith, let’s enjoy our games against Q-P-R. this season.

daib0

 

Fair enough. Honest report from a reading fan..but personally in my opinion..Reading werent even a real football team until about 20 years ago.....sure there are loads of old public school teams that could make a claim...

Not convinced they are a real team now...what have they ever done?.....

 

Really really neat history...well done diab0. Brilliant.

I think our ideas about fake hoops come not from the origin but from "as far back as the older supporters can remember", that is to say the 1980s. And from one of our nicknames sooperhoops...have Reading got a similar nickname???

But I am proud of our little group of hoop wearers...Morton, reading and of course the mighty Rs

 

Behave Queens!!!...this is a nice man

 

sorry honey..just fishing for a bit of fun....

seriously, enjoyed the post and well done to the poster for his conclusions.....

Good luck this season D, but obviously i hope we beat you. !

 

Nothing I've not seen before but interesting all the same.

Not that I really care but, for me, the most imporant factor would be that if you asked 1000 people to name a team synonymous with blue and white hoops, the vast majority would say QPR.

 

Quick summary, Reading had them 1st, weve had them for the longest time dating back from now.

Having them 1st means nothing otherwise Juve would be famous for wearing pink and not the black and white stripes.

QPR are blue and white hoops, Reading are blue and white with various designed of horizontal stripes, plain shirts and hoops.

 

has swords moved to australia

 

Daib0, great read and very well laid out with plenty of illustrations. I never realised that there were so many changes of strip down through the years. Let's hope the current strips are our most successful on the pitch; good luck!

 

thanks for not overbiting into me! Just tongue-in-cheek really, still I've read histories of both clubs of course but never saw anyone do an article putting both together simultaneously going through the different eras.
I've been a fan since the late 70s when you were flying in the old 1st division and us in the 4th (mind you, Robin Friday was a legend!) so to those of us who have seen a bit of history just being able to rub shoulders with teams like yourselves now is marvellous ... I'm not too worried about the cup game to be honest, 17th in the league would do us nicely, but will gladly add a contribution or two after the weekend games ...

Cheers

 

Very interesting comparative study Diab0. Enjoyed that and explains to a large extent where the 'fakes' tag comes from.

Doesn't explain you lot chanting the 'come on you Rs' dirge though. I know from experience that the dirge was pumping around LR in the mid-60s and has been ever since. Don't know when it started. More importantly I don't know when Reading started using it. All I know is that Rangers have been popularly known as 'the Rs' for decades whilst Reading are regularly referred to by their nickname of 'the Royals'.

If you were wearing proper hooped shirts (no comments please on our current silly off-the-shoulder, thin hooped look!) and chanting 'come on you Royals', the 'fakes' tag wouldn't be so appropriate. As it stands, of two hooped Rs located just off the M4, one has a stronger claim to 'original' status - and on that I'd concur with your, albeit reluctant, conclusion.

Great article though mate.

 

Very good daib0
Now fake off

 

Excellent post daib0, a really interesting read

Not sure about our black socks phase though! Maybe we were the trend-setters for Man U...

 

Simple response to the thread:

Hoops are only hoops if they go all the way round the shirt, and Reading's shirts are solid blue on the reverse - so therefore they are stripes, not hoops.

Case closed, m'lud...

 

With the exception of this seasons shirts, they do have hoops now but hardly did in the last decade.

 

Enjoyed that!

 

I found that an interesting history lesson, thank you Diab0 and quite honestly find the bickering about who has the right to claim to be hoops embarrassing. I hope you get the 17th spot, boy we were glad for it last year

 

amen...!!

 

Yep, interesting that, but on this I differ from many of my own fans. I'm not a monarchist, so the 'Royals' grates me! I'd prefer anything else: Berks boys, Thames Valleyers, Reading ranters, whatever! A previous nickname, the Biscuitmen, was based on the location of a major biscuit maker in the town [for those who like a bit of gentle history this would tell you more about the biscuit connection to the town: http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/9674099/1 ]. When the company closed down, in the 70s if I remember off the top of my head, a competition was held in a local newspaper to determine a new nickname. The Royals came out the winner. But many real fans don't go for the 'R's but for the "Urzzzz" (with a long 'u' sound), 'R's seeming more plastic when referring to our team.


Here's more about a Royal connection -
When Prince Charles left the navy in 1976, he wanted to do something to help young people in the UK from poor backgrounds. Reading Football Club is one of the club's that works with the Prince's Trust. In partnership with the Prince's Trust, the Reading Football Club Community Trust delivers a 12 week course for young people aged between 16 and 25. The course is set up to increase the youngsters confidence and self esteem.