This season the club's much-admired Academy system is paying tribute to the assistance it is being given by a number of local grassroots clubs.

The Royals youth set-up has always relied on a series of grassroots clubs, who have helped us in identifying and developing talent within youth football and, now, by forming exclusive partnerships with specifically targeted local clubs, that bond between grassroots and professional football can only grow stronger.

"In recent years Reading Football Club's Academy set-up has bore fruit for the club in terms of producing first team footballers of a very high calibre. This has been a result of the great team effort of many people for many years," explained Academy Manager Eamonn Dolan.

"I am extremely grateful for the hard work done by these local clubs - without their help we wouldn't be able to develop the young talent in the way that we have and continue to do.

"The Chairman's vision is to keep Reading FC at the heart of the local community and seeing local boys playing for their local professional club is a great testament to this by positive people working together.

"This is why we have this season formed 'partnership links' with a number of local Charter standard or community clubs within our catchment area."

Reading Football Club are proud to announce the grassroots partnerships with the following clubs….

AFC Caversham FC
Ascot United FC
Barton Rovers FC
Basingstoke Town Colts
Bicester Town Colts FC
Binfield FC 
California FC
Camberley Town FC
Chalfont Saints FC
Crowmarsh Youth FC
Finchampstead FC
Fleet Spurs FC
Guilford Saints FC
New Windsor Youth FC
Shinfield Rangers FC
Twyford Comets FC
Winklebury Wizzards FC - who attended our home game with Southampton.
Woking Cougars FC

"These partnerships are part of an ongoing initiative to work closer with our local clubs in the community and will act as a two-way dialog to help bring local players into the club," explained Colin Barnes, Head of Recruitment at Reading.

"Primarily, we understand how important these clubs are at grassroots level, as they provide players with their first ever footballing experiences and are the feeder to our professional set up.

"At the same time, Reading FC are offering coaching education to these clubs to help their already dynamic and committed members improve their local set-up."

The Reading FC Academy began in the summer of 1999, and since then 24 players have gone on to play first team football for the Royals:

1999/2000
Alex Haddow
Darius Henderson
Nathan Tyson

2000/1
Jamie Ashdown

2002/3
Darren Campbell
Peter Castle

2003/4
Jamie Young

2005/6
Simon Cox
Shane Long
Curtis Osano

2006/7
Alex Pearce

2007/8
James Henry

2008/9
Jem Karacan
Julian Kelly
Gylfi Sigurdsson
Simon Church

2009/10
Scott Davies
Hal Robson-Kanu
Ben Hamer
Nicholas Bignall

2010/11
Jake Taylor 
Jordan Obita
Alex McCarthy

2011/12
Lawson D'Ath 

In addition the following players have been unused substitutes for the first team: Ricky Allaway, Adam Lockwood, Chris Smith, Andre Boucaud, Andre Fashanu, Jonathan Hayes, Pierre Joseph-Dubois, Mikkel Andersen, Oliver Bozanic, Daniel Spence.