Reading United unveils new jerseys, celebrates 30 years at special event

Reading United is entering its 30th season as a club this summer and to celebrate the club threw a party at Sly Fox in Wyomissing on Thursday night.

Unveiling their new jerseys, the club also celebrated with several players from the inaugural 1996 Reading Rage team and shared video messages from some former players and coaches who demonstrate the impact the club has had developing both players and coaches for a team that has been active as long as MLS has been in existence.

In addition to the three new jerseys, the basement of Sly Fox was decorated with old jerseys and memorabilia – from a program from the 1996 team to game pennants from U.S. Open Cup matches and friendlies against New York Red Bulls, New York Cosmos and the Philadelphia Union. Among the special guests attending were Betty Buss, the widow of legendary soccer coach Ray Buss. The field at Fleetwood High School where Reading played its first season is named after Ray, who taught and coached soccer at the school for 28 years, winning two state titles and compiling more than 500 wins.

“When they called me I said ‘what do you want this old lady coming for’,” Betty Buss said. “But the first games were played on the field where my husband coached and I know of lot of these guys because I had two boys play at the state level.”

Buss brought a special souvenir with her she took out to show off: a photo of her and Ray at the 1992 College Cup at Davidson College in North Carolina, holding the World Cup trophy. That was two years before the global game came to the U.S. for the 1994 World Cup and its legacy lives on in terms of the impact on American soccer. For Buss, his personal legacy has lasted in the scores of players he coached who played the game at a high level and went on to coach others and grow the game locally. Many of those players went on to help build and grow Reading United, which was known as Reading Rage through the first half of its existence.

“His legacy lives on,” Betty said of her late husband who she was married to for 63 years. “He’s gone four years but I have players still writing me, Christmas cards, people stopping by. The community has been very good to me.”

Reading United vice president and co-owner Art Auchenbach attended Conrad Weiser High School but remembers that first season at Fleetwood when his older brother Thomas Auchenbach played for the team. Some other notable names on that 1996 team include Philadelphia Union part-owner and YSC Academy founder Richie Graham, current Reading Rage Surf youth coach Eric Puls and current Fleetwood boys head coach Keith Schlegel, author and coach Jerry Moyer. Archie Moylan, a former Penn State All-American who was instrumental in helping form the team, was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2000.

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“It’s emotionally overwhelming,” Art Auchenbach said of Thursday’s event. “But it’s great to see that soccer can be sustainable for 30 years. It was really neat to see the 1996 guys back. They set the precedent so I’m just fortunate that people before me were able to keep it going and now personally trying to keep it going, reinventing ourselves almost every year in a soccer landscape that keeps changing.”

Art’s involvement with the club started in that inaugural season when they were packing the stands at Fleetwood and he was helping with tickets and concessions. He drifted away as his career took off and he had a young family but he came back in the fold in a bigger way in 2008. The rebrand from Reading Rage to Reading United came about as the Philadelphia Union came into MLS and the two clubs established a formal partnership.

The partnership was fruitful to both teams as players like Ray Gaddis, CJ Sapong and John McCarthy played for both Reading and the Union. As the Union leaned more into younger players developed through their academy and skipped out on the MLS SuperDraft the partnership faded and is sadly now non-existent. Reading, however, has forged ahead and a number of pros continue to come through the program every summer.

“It’s great to see people come here, whether it’s a year or two or just a summer, and use it as a platform to go into better things,” Auchenbach said. “It’s not something I never imagined I’d be involved with in any way, shape or form but I’m a soccer first and foremost and it’s cool to have a local team and just be able to help facilitate a team doing new things and growing the game.”

Among those new things was adding a women’s team in 2023. They’ve also set up a reserve team and continued to lean even more into their roots through connections with local youth clubs and programs within the community. Thursday’s event also marked the official launch of the Reading United Foundation as a way to grow that community impact.

“We’re hoping truly to use it as our community arm and also to raise awareness,” Auchenbach said.

So much has changed in the soccer world since that first season in 1996 when the Rage were a lower level professional team with a new top flight league off to a bumpy start but that history is worth celebrating and recognizing, particularly when so little more than deep down the rabbit hole Wikipedia entries and obscure eBay listings remain for so many other efforts to build the beautiful game in Pennsylvania and beyond.

That history is celebrated in the new jerseys that were unveiled at Sly Fox Thursday night. One features the famed Pagoda building in the design and the other plays off the railroad design of the team’s logo. The jerseys tell a story of Reading history but also point to the future of a club that has few peers in the game.

“It’s been nice to bridge the gap between generations but it’s also hopefully a celebration of bigger and better things coming in the future,” Auchenbach said.

Reading United kicks off their WPSL season at Alvernia University on May 23 and their USL League Two season at LVU Rush on May 24.