Reading Buses today issued an apology for having to suspend some matchday services for the Reading FC home games scheduled for August 6, 9, 17 and 20.
After consulting with the club and supporter groups, Reading Buses say they have made sure everybody can still get to the matches.
Robert Williams, Chief Executive Officer of Reading Buses, said today: “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 6 of the 21 match day 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.
“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.”
Reading Buses add that supporters whose football bus is not running can catch their usual local bus into central Reading and change onto the F1 shuttle at Reading Station. As the normal simplyReading day ticket is not valid on the football services, they have introduced a new ‘football day ticket’ for no additional charge.
This ticket can be bought on-bus after 12 noon for 3.00 pm kick offs on the day of the game and after 5.00 pm for 8.00 pm kick offs. Adult tickets are £4.20, and Boost (under 19s) tickets are £2.90.
Football services are expected to return to normal in September.
The six routes that will not run in August are the F11 from Emmer Green, F13 from Caversham Park, F22 from Tilehurst, F24 from Purley, and F31/F32 from Woodley. For full details about alternatives and information about football services which will be running as normal visit www.reading-buses.co.uk