Reading thrive on Madejski's mix of realism and romance

Chairman's hard-nosed approach to finances has driven Royals to the brink of a fairy-tale promotion to the Premiership

A glimpse through the keyhole of John Madejski's Tudor-style mansion would have Loyd Grossman salivating profusely. The reception and adjacent garage are divided by a glass wall so that the publishing tycoon can admire his collection of Rolls-Royces and Italian sports cars from the considerable comfort of his home.

It is with a similar glowing pride that he has witnessed the progress of Reading Football Club as they stand on the brink of a historic promotion to the Premiership.

In the 13 years since he came to the Royals' rescue, the chairman has transformed a club rooted in the lower divisions – and prey to a planned merger with Oxford United – into a side that have cast off their inferiority complex and are reaping the benefits of sensible growth in an era of boom and bust.

Even during these salad days for the club, Madejski insists he is not a football fanatic and this has helped him in pursuing his undoubted passion for building lasting success by batting off astronomical wage demands.

Madejski was born John Hurst in Stoke-on-Trent but took his surname from his Polish stepfather. He went to school in Reading; sold advertising for the Evening Post; and in his early 30s set up a cash-cow in the classified magazine Auto Trader.

He sold his half of the company for £174m in 1998 – it has since risen in value thanks to an Internet offshoot – but the legacy of that success has left Reading's former M4 corridor rivals Swindon, Oxford, Brentford and the two Bristol teams way behind.

Although the squad would be strengthened with a part of the potential Premiership windfall of £15m in prizes and television revenue, Madejski clearly has no intention of deviating from his main "brick-by-brick" mantra which, he says, in particular Leicester City, Bradford City and Fulham would all do well to learn.

Pausing during a tour of his luxury home, he said: "There are three things wrong with football: players' wages, players' wages and players' wages. If you sort that out, you sort football out as far as I'm concerned. It's illogical, unworkable and absolutely out to lunch and crazy."

According to Madejski, the problem has improved slightly in the First Division since the collapse of ITV Digital. Nevertheless a chain reaction starts with the "over-zealous" parents of "Johnny Kickaball" teenagers and ends – via players, agents and managers – in the boardroom.

"The only reason [football finance] doesn't work is that there are far too many sycophantic people on the boards of football clubs that don't have any pecuniary interest in the club and spend other people's money like it's going out of fashion," he said. "If people on boards had to back the money up with their own money then I think we might see an enormous change."

After making a £1m loss on the club last year, Madejski hopes finally to break even this year, thanks largely to "milking the assets" of the stadium complex built in his name which rises above the surrounding technology park and Courage brewery next to junction 11 of the M4.

The Millennium Madejski hotel profits from international business travellers using nearby Heathrow airport; bookings for the adjoining conference centre are solid; and the fledgling 107FM commercial radio station is typically synergistic – based at the stadium and employing a club press officer to provide live match commentaries home and away. "You don't get any of that rap or that sort of thing. It's just the best kind of music", said the 62-year-old whose CD collection ranges from Dido and Mariah Carey to Luciano Pavarotti. (The Italian tenor takes his place in a series of photographs in the reception alongside framed images of a beaming Madejski with his two daughters; the Duke of Kent; and the former Conservative party chairman Lord Parkinson.)

Within half an hour's drive of west London, the "MadStad" – a dubious marketing moniker adopted by a few fans – also hosts London Irish rugby club and has been discussed as an alternative home for Second Division Brentford or the nomadic Fulham. "We'd look at anything if we needed to," Madejski says, stressing that hosting a Premiership team on alternate weekends might be "cutting our nose off to spite our face".

More immediately, the chairman faces a struggle to keep his manager, Alan Pardew, who was promoted from manager of the reserve team against the odds and talked in a recent interview with The Independent of moving to a bigger club in absence of greater funds for players and himself.

Pardew has twice been named First Division manager of the month this season and has signed pedigree young players such as Steve Sidwell, James Harper and Luke Chadwick, but demands the gravitas of an experienced international in the ranks.

Madejski is credited with spotting Pardew's potential in his meticulous approach but stresses that it is not the first time he discovered the ability of a first-time manager. "It happened before. We had Mark McGhee who turned out well until he decided to go off to Leicester," he said of the acrimonious departure

He added: "I'm very proud of Alan. I think we work well and he would be difficult to prise away. I wouldn't want him to go just like that without any form of recompense. We would have to start all over again."

Going into Saturday's play-off semi-final first leg at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Madejski is content with the Royals' underdog status and relieved that he does not have to face "my old mate", the Wolves chairman, Sir Jack Hayward, in the final.

"We are the underdogs and that is a great position to be in," he said. "We are the most unlikely people to get promotion and that is good as far as I'm concerned. Wolves in the final with my old mate Jack Hayward, it would be horrible. Poor old Jack, he has tried so hard over the years."

As a naturalised Readingensian, Madejski has seen the town's economy lose two of the "3Bs" – beer, bulbs and biscuits – it once relied on. But with an injection of up to £50m of his estimated £260m fortune he appears to have secured a long reign for the Royals.

He said: "I think a lot of people know I am not a football fanatic as such. I felt it was an integral part of the local fabric and thus worth saving for the future. It's the fourth oldest club in the league and it means an awful lot to people in the area. If we go up I might even treat myself to a new car."