With the kit unveiling earlier this week, University of Reading Professor Ed Hawkins explained the reasoning behind the design and believes the benefits of the partnership between the club and the University forged this summer will impact the whole town.

The excitement of a new kit is always a key date in the diary for football supporters to look forward to ahead of a brand new campaign and we believe that our 2022-23 design will help spread the message of an issue that affects everyone of us.

“The idea is to talk about climate change in as simple and visual way as possible,” said Hawkins.

“When we were discussing the design of the new Reading kit, it was obviously very clear that the hoops are very important and needed to be kept. But the club also has red in its badge as well, so the stripes naturally lend themselves to the club’s colours and could be integrated into the club’s shirts.

“We came up with the idea for simple coloured stripes to represent the changes in temperature over the last 150 years since the club was founded so what we have done is recreate the stripes for Berkshire to represent the temperature changes in our local region.

“We have been taking measurements of temperature for the last 170 years and millions of measurements taken all over the world show very clearly that the world is warming up...and it is our fault.

“We wanted to distil the very complicated science into a very simple message. The world is warming and these stripes communicate that very effectively.”

"We are bringing the stripes to a whole new audience"