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On Tuesday 7 June 2005, Reading Football Club signed two young, untried and untested, Irish strikers. Unveiled alongside Kevin Doyle at the stadium that day was a polite, unassuming 18-year-old from the quiet village of Gortnahoe in Ireland.
Reading were taking a chance on the raw talent of Shane Long and it was a calculated gamble that certainly paid off.
Now, 17 years later, Shane is back in blue and white hoops.
Long has put pen to paper at Reading Football Club to sign a one-year deal with the Royals and he will link up with his new teammates to train at Bearwood Park for the first time tomorrow morning.
Head of Football Operations, Mark Bowen, said: “When he first arrived at this club, very few fans will have known anything about Shane Long. But now, he needs absolutely no introduction to Royals supporters. A return to the club where it all began for Shane has been rumoured for a number of years, so I am delighted to have made that rumour a reality.”
Royals boss Paul Ince said, “The arrival of Shane is something of a football fairytale for Reading fans. But make no mistake about it – he is coming into the dressing room purely on the merits of what he can offer this squad out on the pitch. Experience, energy, leadership, desire and a natural instinct you need to score goals…Shane will be an important addition to the group we are patiently trying to build and grow.”
Long’s Reading career was just 28 minutes old when he first rippled the net as a Royal, coming off the bench away at Derby on New Year’s Eve to head home from close range in the 88th minute of a game that importantly kept an extraordinary unbeaten streak alive.
His second and third league goals also came against Derby – Long again making an impact from the bench to score a brace in a 5-0 rout against the Rams that saw Reading claim the Championship title as early as 1st April in 2006.
One of our record-breaking title-winners under Steve Coppell, Long was soon scoring Premier League goals against Sheffield United and Wigan and found a way past Portsmouth’s David James, Newcastle’s Shay Given and Manchester City’s Joe Hart as he continued to impress in top tier football at a very young age.
Tallying nine goals in both of the next two seasons, Long memorably glanced home the goal that knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup in extra time at Anfield in 2010. And in 2010-11, he scored 25 goals across all competitions - including a brace in Cardiff to send Reading to Wembley for a Play-Off Final. Duly, he was named as the club’s official Player of the Season.
He had opened his international account by this stage and been awarded the FAI Young International Player of the Year accolade; having taken the Championship by storm in blue and white hoops, Long was destined for a move to the Premier League which was complete when West Bromwich Albion paid a handsome fee for his services that summer. Unsurprisingly, he bagged in his first two games with the Baggies…against Manchester United and Chelsea.
Long went on to spend the next 11 campaigns in his career in the Premier League. Two-and- a-half years at the Hawthorns was followed by a short spell with Hull City. But aside from a brief loan stint at Bournemouth in 2021, the last eight years on his CV have been spent on the south coast with Southampton.
In total, Long has totted up 344 appearances competing at the highest level of English football and, amongst the 119 career goals he has to his name, is the fastest ever scored in Premier League history – Shane scored just 7.69 seconds into a meeting between the Saints and Watford at Vicarage Road in 2019.
Long has also scored 17 goals in winning 88 caps for his native Republic of Ireland – the first of which came against Bolivia whilst still a Royal in 2007. He featured in consecutive European Championships tournaments for his country in 2012 and 2016 and made his most recent appearance for the Republic against Qatar last year.
Now he embarks on one more year as a Royal. Welcome home, Shane!
