The Thames Valley Royals proposal was a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful 1983 proposal to merge the Oxford United Football Club with nearby team Reading.
Shortly before the end of the 1982–83 Football League season, Robert Maxwell, the then-owner and chairman of Oxford United Football Club, announced that he had made a deal with the owners of nearby Reading to amalgamate the two teams to create a new club he proposed to name "Thames Valley Royals". This appellation combined a loose term for the geographical region, "Thames Valley", with the Reading team's nickname, "the Royals". With each team having financial problems, Maxwell claimed that both were on the verge of going out of business and that uniting them was necessary for the region to retain a Football League club.
Maxwell envisioned the Thames Valley Royals' future home as an unspecified location somewhere between Oxford and Reading where a new stadium would be built, perhaps in Didcot; home matches would alternate between Oxford and Reading in the meantime. Both sets of supporters promptly embarked on mass demonstrations against the merger, including protest marches and a 2,000-man sit-in on the pitch at Oxford before a match on 23 April. Maxwell pressed on with his plan regardless, insisting that "nothing short of the end of the Earth" would prevent its fruition.
The proposed amalgamation was stopped by the actions of one of Reading's board directors, Roy Tranter, and Roger Smee, a businessman and former Reading player. Smee disputed the legitimacy of the controlling interest in Reading held by the faction of three Reading board members that backed the merger plan, including the chairman Frank Waller, and Tranter launched a legal challenge to the sale of certain shares on 22 April 1983. Waller and his boardroom allies resigned under pressure from the rest of the Reading board on 12 May 1983, and at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in July, Smee took over the club, ending the amalgamation plans.
Context
During the 1982–83 Football League season, both Oxford United and Reading competed in the Football League Third Division, then the third tier of English football—equivalent to today's League One. Managed by Jim Smith, Oxford challenged for promotion throughout the season, while Maurice Evans' Reading team languished near the relegation zone for much of the year, despite possessing one of the division's top-scoring forwards in Kerry Dixon. The colourful media mogul and former MP Robert Maxwell owned and chaired Oxford, having prevented the club's bankruptcy by buying it in 1982. One of the world's oldest football teams (established in 1871), Reading were a public limited company, chaired by Frank Waller, a prominent local businessman; while owning Oxford, Maxwell also held 19% of Reading's shares. The two clubs share a local rivalry. At the time, both were in financial difficulties, particularly Reading. Maxwell sought to build a new stadium for Oxford United; he had negotiated with the council over potential locations since the time of his takeover, favouring a site in the northern suburb of Marston, but had yet to win council permission to buy the land.
Proposal
On 16 April 1983, about a month before the end of the 1982–83 season, Maxwell told the BBC that he was close to acquiring a controlling interest in Reading, and that he was intent on merging that club with Oxford. The merged club would be called Thames Valley Royals, a combination of "Thames Valley", a loose term for the geographical area, and the nickname of Reading Football Club, "the Royals". "If we in Thames Valley are to retain a League club we've got to unite Reading and Oxford," he explained. "Everything in the world that cannot pay its way must go the way of merger to combine into stronger units."
Maxwell made this announcement on a Saturday when most Football League clubs, including Oxford and Reading, were playing League fixtures. Oxford were playing away at Doncaster Rovers. Jim Smith learned of the announcement shortly before kick-off at Doncaster's Belle Vue ground from John Ley, a journalist with the Oxford Mail, who had heard the news from another newsman by telephone. Smith immediately called Maxwell to ask whether or not he would be retained to manage Thames Valley Royals, and was told that he would be.