KELLY CHAMBERS has confirmed that discussions are ongoing whether to make Madejski Stadium the permanent home of Reading Women next year.
Over 2,000 fans turned out to watch Chambers’ side lose 2-1 to West Ham on their first return to the Mad Stad of the season last month, more than double the average attendances of their usual home matches at Adams Park in Wycombe.
And with London Irish recently announcing they will be leaving Reading to move to Brentford in 2020, there could be an opening for the women’s side to officially groundshare with the men.
“It’s something that has been spoken about,” Chambers told The Wokingham Paper.
“With the number of games that are on the pitch at the minute, it just wouldn’t take another team.
“We all know what rugby does to a football pitch, so I think once London Irish move on, they can probably protect the pitch a little bit more and be able to bring us in and be able to bring crowds like this in week in, week out.
“The club are definitely supportive.
“The men’s first team will always come first but the less games there are on this pitch, it gives us the opportunity to come and play here.
“It has been spoken about that if London Irish do move on, do we just get more games or does this become our home.
“They’re conversations to have in the near future.”
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Reading will play a second match at Madejski in April with another big attendance expected.
And Chambers is confident the crowd numbers would continue to rise if her side played at the Mad Stad on a regular basis.
She added: “We know that if our games were in Reading, we’d get fans and we’d get attendances like this week in, week out.
“That’s the frustrating part being at Adams Park in Wycombe. But I’m hoping that new people that have come have liked it, enjoyed it and actually fancy a little trip to Adams Park at the weekends and to have a good day out.
“The fans were singing and shouting the whole game last week, which is great.
“You just hope that in the not too distant future we’ll be playing here week in, week out.
“If we can have crowds like that, it will be fantastic.”
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