Early Career
By profession he was a schoolmaster, going to St Luke's teacher training college (the same one that Ken Aston was to attend) just after the First World War in Exeter. St. Luke's is now part of Exeter University.
Finding work in Exeter as a young teacher, Reader first played as an amateur for Exeter City in the Southern Football League, in the 1919–20 season. It was with that club that he played in a friendly against Southampton on 3 January 1920, a week before the third round of the FA Cup. Reader scored and impressed the visiting side so much that they signed him for a fee of £50, as a handy replacement centre-forward to Bill Rawlings, who was a mainstay of the Saints side in the 1920s.
Unfortunately, given Rawling's abilities (he scored on average a goal every two games), Reader was unable to break into the side and played only three times in the old Third Division (South) before moving to Harland and Wolff for a year, and then playing on the Isle of Wight at Cowes until 1930, commuting on the ferry from his job as an assistant schoolmaster in Southampton.
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