Outside view

Rescuing The Royals Inside the Football League madhouse by Josh Lewin

Icon Books, £20

Josh Lewin, a radio presenter based in Baltimore, was invited by Reading’s new owner (as of May 2025) Rob Couhig to jauntily chronicle his fellow American’s first season in charge of the club. The sense that they are hoping for a Wrexham 2.0 story is never far away. Sadly, the narrative arc never reached a climax. Reading’s season started poorly, showed promise, ended poorly, with a bang average 12th position in League One. It’s not Hollywood material.

In reality, “the Rescue of the Royals” was a story of two halves. The first half was the long struggle waged by fan groups, local politicians, sponsors and the EFL to get rid of the absentee Chinese owner Dai Yongge who had ceased to fund or even talk to the club. Couhig was one of many suitors to attempt to buy Reading and it would have been interesting to know more about how he succeeded and others failed. Lewin treads lightly over this seriously mysterious pre-Couhig territory before unleashing full detail on the absence of a working coffee machine at the training ground. That, along with many other legacy issues, is resolved over the next nine months, in the second half of the rescue, as the club at last becomes solvent and stable. Fans will welcome this close look at the inner workings.

There are three points of interest for the general reader. We understand why the optimistic, seen-it-all-before, 76-year-old Couhig wants to come back and have another go at League One, although he’s already had a successful stint at Wycombe Wanderers (2019-24). There’s something edgy about our promotion-relegation mechanism that grabs the psyche of American sports club owners. Small-town clubs like Ipswich and Bournemouth can get to play on the biggest stage. It’s thought by Lewin and Couhig that there are hundreds of American small towns who could conceivably identify with and support a Reading.

Secondly, the owner’s excitement is palpable. As the league table bunches up, Couhig exclaims: “Anything can happen. And I like being part of that … There’s nothing like sporting competition.” Part of the satisfaction is competition between owners rather than clubs. Yet there’s also chat group collaboration between the majority of League One owners, while Couhig regularly compares notes with the Peterborough United, Plymouth Argyle and Leyton Orient chairmen. It can feel like a game of their own.

Finally, in a bid to inject dramatic conflict, there’s a snap at the club’s “old regime” – though a significant part worked desperately hard to keep the club going – a grouse at the traditional fanbase who find the new tricks, like regular fireworks, too “cute”, before alighting on a small number of online abusers and treating them as a worthy adversary. Couhig veers between hating this foulmouthed stuff and then getting down close and challenging it in person. This persistent theme suggests that tirades on X were the owner’s most meaningful feedback mechanism and its extensive coverage here is a novel and surprising take in football literature. Roger Titford