The Stoketshirts.co.uk blog

A few words sum up this brilliant video which has been completed less than 24 hours after Luis Suarez tried to cheat his way to a penalty versus Stoke City.

Brilliant, Well Executed, Love it

There’s been lot’s of banter/ abuse since the game and we have even got a new t shirt
CAUTION SUAREZ

Cheating Scouse Forward

http://i.minus.com/iyzrJDtyWPpyY.gif

Michael Owen Signs – Pic in Strip and Interview

Ex Liverpool, Man United, Newcastle and England International talks about signing

1947 – no it’s not two minutes after an evening kick off, it’s the year that Stoke City very nearly won the football league.  Yes read that again,

WE NEARLY WON THE LEAGUE.

The season kicked off on the 31^st August 1946 when the Potters had a 2-2 draw at home to Charlton Athletic.

Fast forward through an awful winter that saw many postponements to the 31^st May 1947 when Liverpool went top of the First Division (the top league in the UK before the Premier League was dreamt up) with a 2-1 away win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.  The scousers then had a long wait until Sheffield United met Stoke.

The 14^th June  in the 1946–47 season(yes they played in the summer back then) a Stoke City team travelled to Bramhall Lane, roared on by a travelling army of 10,000 followers in a crowd of 30,000,

The Potters needed nothing less than a victory to clinch the title, any other result against Sheffield United would see the title go to Liverpool. However the Blades were far too sharp (sorry, too obvious a pun to drop) for the Potters despite our dominance in the game. In wet and heavy pitch conditions, echoes of a game at Vale Park some years later (when Dave Regis saw his shot stick in the mud) a Freddie Steele header stopped on the line with George Mountford hitting the bar.

United took the lead but Alex Ormston levelled to make the half time score 1-1. The dreadful conditions saw Stoke defender John McCue slip and Jack Pickering put Sheffield 2 – 1 up, a lead they held onto for the remainder of the game.

So there we have it, if that header had gone over the line and the bar hit had been inches lower then Stoke City would have held the honour of being champions of English Football. As a Stoke fan I’m fully used to what ifs? and maybes? Seems our fore fathers were too.

Amazingly from being so close to winning the title, we ended up in Fourth as Man. United and Wolves finished in second and third respectively.

Sheffield United were a bit of a bogey side for Stoke that season as they also knocked us out of the FA Cup in the fifth round!

The Final Table

Stoke offered an apology this afternoon about having nothing to apologise about.

An official spokesman said “We have no Racists, Arrogant ex England Captains, Handshake refusals, Managers that say players are a disgrace to the club, diving cheats or antagonistic French Internationals. In Fact we are really sorry that we have nothing to apologise about.”

“We have been asked on a number of occasions, (usually by the French manager of a once famous North London Club) to apologise about the way we play football, but we refuse to and remind the media that

WE’RE STOKE CITY, WE PLAY HOW WE WANT!”

(ENDS)

In 1982 I was outside the Victoria Ground before a home game against Liverpool.   The Stoke team bus came and the players got off in bits and pieces.  Many larking about and preferring to finish their game of cards on the bus before going into the dressing room to prepare for the match.   Five minutes later the Liverpool bus arrived.   As soon as the bus pulled up their players were up and ready to enter the stadium and win the game of football.  Focussed and ready, they all stepped off the bus, eyes filled with the focus of European Champions.  Single file they were ambassadorial and shook a few hands and signed a few autographs on the way, but all they had in mind was winning the game of football.   And they did.   They thrashed us 5-1.  Few sides in Europe could handle Liverpool in those days but the game was won as soon as they arrived at the stadium. 

Compare this to the England team bus that arrived at Capetown’s Green Point Stadium for the game against Algeria.  As our players left the bus to enter the stadium they had fear in their eyes.    They didn’t look focused they looked frightened.   The weight of expectation wasn’t an inspiration it was a burden.  But why?  There weren’t there to face a firing squad they were there to play a game of football, a game they expected to win.    In his autobiography Steve Gerrard admits that much of the extra time against Portugal in 2006 he played in a daze such was his fear of taking a penalty in the shootout.  This is despite the fact in Istanbul the year before he took a perfect one and only six weeks before had executed one in the FA Cup Final shootout.   Fear. 

The fear was demonstrated  by much of the performance.   It’s to Gerrard’s credit that in these two games he has been one of the few to carry the games to the opposition, yet twice against Algeria, he was through on goal and instead of shooting chose to square the ball and the move was snuffed out.  Similarly Emile Heskey was through and didn’t take responsibility and chose to try a pass.   England’s inability to make the most basic passes was painfully clear for all to see, as was the inability to control a ball.  Wayne Rooney may want to, er, ‘Write the future’ but to be remembered with fondness you must perform on the biggest stage.  In the two games so far Wazza  has been hopelessly inadequate, unfit?  Instead of  berating the fans who have the audacity to jeer the team for their dull trudging, perhaps he should consider applying himself to his game and trying to justify his status.  You know, like an adult would.   Can he complain about the pressure on him when he willingly did that advert about writing the future?  And what reaction can he expect?  Those supporters have spent thousands to be there.  Is he so detached he can’t relate to that frustration?  

The problem is in the head.  While England are far from a World Cup winning team beating Algeria shouldn’t have been a major obstacle.  The fear has engulfed the squad.   Brian Clough used to say that being relaxed was the key to everything and that nobody can achieve anything with fear in their heart.   Seeing our players lunging from one misshaped bodge job to the next and  feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders old big eds words are unfathomably wise.   After the game Capello was clearly exasperated by his players crumbling under pressure.  Of course they will be hurt by that but instead of getting precious it’s make more sense for them to consider his words and respond to them instead of reacting to them, like adults would.

When they get off the bus before Slovenia, for the last chance we don’t deserve, they need to take responsibility, show the arrogance, discipline and psychology Liverpool showed 28 years ago – like adults would.