It’s football crazy ... Reading Buses apologises after cancelling six matchday routes to Royals

ROYALS fans have been sick as a parrot over news that Reading Buses is unable to run its usual matchday buses this month.

The company has apologised for the lack of service for the home games of August 6, 9, 17 and 20, and says it shoot and score with the services resuming in September.

The six routes that will not run are the F11 from Emmer Green, F13 from Caversham Park, F22 from Tilehurst, F24 from Purley, and F31/F32 from Woodley.

However, the firm says that after consulting with the club and supporter groups, they are ensuring fans can still get to the matches.

The company advised supporters to catch their usual bus, such as the Orange route, into the town centre and then catch the F1 shuttle bus from Reading’s railway station to the Select Car Leasing Stadium.

To help fans, a football day ticket is being introduced on matchdays. For Saturday 3pm kick-offs, they can be bought from noon, and from 5pm for 8pm kick-offs. They cost £4.20, or £2.90 for under 19s.

Robert Williams, Chief Executive Officer of Reading Buses, said:

“We are obviously sorry for the inconvenience, but feel it best to make a decision in a planned way now rather than risking wider short notice problems on the day.

“Only six of the 21 matchday services we run will be suspended, selected because there are alternative routes to the football stadium using our existing network.

“Therefore, we have made sure that any supporter who does not have an alternative service will still have their football bus available to them.”

He added: “We have to be mindful of running our normal network of bus services at a time of year when more of our hard working and committed employees are on annual leave.”

Football services are expected to return to normal in September.