The Royals were named as 'Family Club of the Year' at the Four-Four-Two Football League awards last weekend, and marketing manager Sara Jacob has spoken on receiving the fantastic honour.
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Everyone must be delighted to pick up the award after all the club's hard work?
Yes, it was absolutely brilliant to receive the award. We've worked very hard this season to aim towards becoming a family club and since we've been at Madejski Stadium it's always been the aim to create an atmosphere for families. We do have lots of families that attend and so we do lots of ticket promotions and activities through the 'Young Royals' to keep them coming back, and also to reward them for coming to every game. It's not just about coming to the football, it's about entertainment outside even if it's only face painters or football freestylers - just something a bit different each time. Mainly though it's about making it affordable, £1 ticket offers and under 16s coming in half price - it's just about making it accessible to everyone.
We've also pushed the Enjoy the Match campaign, in an aim to create a more friendly atmosphere.
Lots of clubs have a family area but we, quite early on, said that we were going to focus on the whole stadium being a family atmosphere. We kept to the fact that we're absolutely aiming to make it friendly for families throughout; one of the best ways of doing that is that if someone does sit in a seat and there is someone near them swearing or making them uncomfortable, then it's possible for someone to report that and with the help of intelligence officers we can put an end to that and move people on. It's about people feeling that they can actually have an impact and if they're uncomfortable with a situation then we can actually move in and do something for them.
What was the award ceremony like?
It was really good, they do it really well and the Grosvenor is a lovely venue. It was lovely to go and even better to win! A real privilege.
We must be hoping that the award will encourage more people to come down to games?
What was lovely was one of the judges said that in previous years people have questioned why a club has won, but that this time nobody did. Everyone thought that Reading have that kind of family atmosphere attached to them and I thought that was lovely, because that's the sort of message that we're putting across - which is what we want to continue to do. If anything it's made us think what else can we do to improve, because now we've got that title we want to live up to it and do as much as we can.
