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This section contains background information on Hob Nob Anyone?
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The Reading Football Club Internet Fanzine
Hob Nob Anyone? was one of the first football sites to hit the web. When the site was first launced in November 1994 only a handful of clubs were lucky enough to be represented on the Intenet. Since then the site has continued to grow and grow as the Royals have seen McGhee disappear, the Royals almost make the Premier and then sink down to the depths of Division Two with the departures of Jim and Mick, Terry the Taxi, and Tommy Burns.
Hob Nob Anyone? was hosted at the University Of East Anglia from 1994 until the summer of 1996 when it made the move to VIA NET.WORKS - who hosted the site until 2002. Early in 1999 this site got it's own domain names (royals.cx and royals.org) and moved to it's own virtual server - where, since early on in the year 2000, it obtains well over a million hits a month. In the summer of 2002, Hob Nob Anyone? moved again to be hosted at Oscura Ltd. Oscura are a local web development and hosting company in the centre of Reading.
During the existance of Hob Nob Anyone? it's had the following moments of fame and fortune:
National Papers!
- Featured in 'The Times'
- Featured in 'The Guardian'
- Featured in 'The Telegraph'
- Featured in 'The Observer' (Regular on Sundays during 2002/2003, 2003/2004, 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons)
- Featured in 'Daily Star' as site of the week
Local Papers!
- Featured weekly in 'The Reading Evening Post' (Tuesdays during 1998-99 season, Thursdays during 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons)
(The Hob Nob Anyone? Column)- Featured weekly in 'The Reading Chronicle' (Weekly during 1996-97 season)
(The Jim and Mick Answer Column)Television And Radio!
- Featured on BBC Radio 5 Live
- Featured on Classic Gold Football Show - Local Radio Station
- Featured on 2-TEN FM. - Local Radio Station
- Featured on BBC Radio Wales (before Pants Day vs Wrexham)
- Featured on Meridian TV
- Featured weekly on Meridian ITV Teletext during 1998/1999 and 1999/2000 seasons.
Fanzines!
- Featured in 'Taking The Biscuit' - Reading FC's previous premier fanzine
- Featured in 'The Whiff' - Reading FC's current premier fanzine
- Front cover of The Whiff in August 2000 following the club's short-sighted attempts to restrict this website
And more!
- Featured in 'FRONT' Magazine (March 2003)
- Featured in 'Sports First' (July 2002) (October 2002)
- Featured in 'When Saturday Comes' national football mag - (December 2001)
- Featured in '90 Minutes' national football mag
- Featured in '4-4-2' national football mag
- Featured in 'Total Football' national football mag
- Featured in 'MOTD (Match of the Day)' national football mag
- Featured in 'The Official Manchester United Magazine' as a recommended site (really!)
- Featured in 'Match' magazine - awarded 9 out of 10
- Featured in 'The Mac' magazine
- Featured in 'Concrete', UEA's own newspaper!
- Been the Nationwide's fan site of the week
- Won A Top Award!
Hob Nob Anyone? is created and maintained by Graham Loader
Make Contact With Hob Nob Anyone?
Please don't hesitate to get in touch should you wish to voice your opinions on this fanzine site or to contribute (either a one off or regularly - all input is welcomed!). All regular contributors will be rewarded in some way - although we can't promise much!
Please let me know if you find this site useful!
To get in touch use one of the email addresses below:
By Phone or Fax E-Mail Addresses
What's that all about then?
This site is currently looking for a sponsor.
Classic Gold / 2-TEN FM sponsored this site for two seasons from the start of the 1997/1998 season - but were unable to continue their sponsorship after Reading FC denied their license to cover live matches. In April 2000 this site became a member of the Total Football Network. The resulting banner adverts degraded the overall look of the website, failed to generate an income that met costs, and provided free advertising to Future Publishing. In July 2001 we took the decision to leave the Network, but remain grateful to Future for their support.
Hob Nob Anyone? has always been a popular non-profit website dedicated to supporting the Royals - something we've been successfully doing since 1994. If your company is interested in sponsoring Hob Nob Anyone? and gaining massive local exposure from over 5,000 Reading fans every week please get in touch.
Thanks to those who've helped out...
To all contributors.
All those who have sent in match reports, match opinion and all news items, with any luck I should have given you a credit with the article you sent.
Special thanks go to:
- Oscura Ltd for website hosting from June 2002.
- The University Of East Anglia for hosting this website from November 1994 until June 1996.
- i-way for their sponsorship, and website hosting from June 1996.
- 2-TEN FM / Classic Gold who sponsored this site from 1997 until 2000.
- Future Publishing who sponsored this site from 2000 to 2001.
- The Whiff fanzine team
- Justin Beasley
- Neil Cole
- Dean Madden
- Roger Titford and the Reading Football Supporters' Club.
- Alex Donaldson, Tony Ella, Malc Leary, Phil Newton, Chris Bennett, David Spencer, Jeff McFee, Steve Rudd, Tommy, and Jeremy.
- The playing staff at Reading Football Club who provide all the inspiration for this site.
- Philpott Black who sponsor the fixture list (license payment required by the Football League)
- And thanks to everyone who looks at, and supports, this site.
This site is unofficial!
This internet fanzine is a service available free of charge to all Reading FC supporters out there and anyone else who stumbles across these pages. 'Hob Nob Anyone?' is unofficial and the views expressed are nothing to do with Reading FC, the University Of East Anglia, Classic Gold, I-Way, VIA NET.WORKS, or Oscura Ltd in any way. The views are those of supporters: myself and all contributors.
This site is completely unofficial!
Recently Premium TV (NTL), the Football League, and Football League clubs struck a multi-million pound deal to publish all official club sites.
We don't like NTL.
We love Reading Football Club.
With the club locked into a continual battle to become a Premiership club commercialy and the possibility of multi-million pound internet deals, the club have been forced into a position to restrict popularity of unofficial websites. NTL and the Football League believe one of the more effective methods of bringing visitors into the official sites is to restrict material available on unofficial websites thus forcing visits to official club sites. Their mission to restrict information available from unofficial sites could well bring to an end many sources of free information for fans of all Football League clubs in the near future.We urge Hob Nob Anyone? readers to support all non-commercial unoffical sites, and the official site - but do not spend a penny on any Premium TV / NTL services linked from the official site until they review their Internet policy.
This site will continue to support the club although the club can no longer support this site.
Hob Nob Anyone? is unofficial.
To contact the club you should use their email address - which is comments@readingfc.co.uk
