Kingsley Royal
Kingsley, a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) bipedal lion, is the official mascot of Reading Football Club. He was first seen during the 1997-98 season. Up until the end of the 2005-06 season he was played by Noel Selby Armstrong, who has since been appointed assistant kit manager at Reading.
The new man in the mask is Reading-born Andrew Hulbert. On March 25, 2007, Kingsley ran the Reading Half Marathon raising money for the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK. Kingsley was profiled in the Premier League weekly preview show on March 16, 2007.
The lion has been adopted as an unofficial symbol of Reading, due to the presence in the town of the Maiwand Lion.
Kingsley wears a shirt with the squad number 1871, the year Reading FC was founded.
Read more about Kingsley Royal: The Riley Incident
Famous quotes containing the word royal:
“High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
Hung o’er the deep, such as amazing frowns
On utmost Kilda’s shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)