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Stoke City at home match-day thread


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7 points last three home games. AG a fortress!

Aged several years in the IT there, but fought right to the end. Maybe on balance a draw would have been fair enough, but looked so much better last two matches.

In the context of our season, and my nerves, a huge result. Get in!! Absolutely delighted with that.

And a clean sheet!

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It's weird because Stoke had loads of chances but I feel like this City team were so committed and intelligent on and off the ball that we thoroughly deserved the win.

7/9 points at home. Forget that hoodoo. Clean sheet. A team filled with youth. Ty and COD both being applauded off.

So much to be pleased with.

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15 hours ago, Jerseybean said:

Good day fellow-Reds. Stoke City under the Bristol sky tonight at 745 pm and it’s the main match on Sky so is not on Robins TV. If you want to get to the Gate and cheer on the boys: https://tickets.bristol-sport.co.uk/categories/bristolcityfchome?

The first visit to Ashton Gate for Dean Holden since his departure, I’m sure he will be given a decent reception. As Michael O’Neil pointed out in his presser ‘We know their squad quite well. Obviously Dean Holden was there last season so we have good knowledge on the players.’

Who remembers Stoke City 2 Bristol City 1, April 19th, 2008? For those who don’t take a look here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_1/7344104.stm

Stoke subsequently secured promotion by finishing in second place (behind WBA) and Gary Johnson said after the game that  ‘Some people are naturally disappointed because it looks as though automatic promotion is unlikely. What we must do now is make sure we are in the play-offs and then give it our best shot if that is the case.’

The Britannia was rocking that day and the City faithful never once dropped their voices below an audibly magnificent level. As they say, the rest is history, for any young uns who don’t know what I’m talking about read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_1/7416502.stm

Here are the final league places at the end of the 2007/08 season:

1 West Bromwich Albion 

2 Stoke City (P)

3 Hull City 

4 Bristol City

5 Crystal Palace

6 Watford

My Australian mate Bill is a big Stoke fan, his pre-match comments follow:

‘Be afraid, be very afraid. Your home record is the worst in the four English leagues, possibly every league and our last two alway games were wins and against teams with good home records, Luton and Blackpool. Plus we have our star striker Tyrese Campbell back from long-term injury and in Jacob Brown we have a young, in-form striker who has just won his first Scottish cap.

I also have the delightful memory of a few seasons back (2018) when we thrashed you 1-0 at Ashton Gate thanks to the last ever league goal from Darren Fletcher! You could of course garner some hope from two critical injuries to Harry Souttar our highly rated centre half and a broken leg for Powell our truly inspirational number 10. But don’t hope too much we have excellent replacements and you can’t even beat average sides with 10 men.  So I think it’s going to be another 1-0 thrashing!! Oh and it’s been 10 years since Stoke won four games in a row.’

Mention of Bill provides an opportunity to promote his excellent new book, which I highly recommend to anybody interested in mental health. His compelling book is provocative, humorous, touching and based on his extensive experience  of clinical psychology. It’s called  ‘What Happened?: What mental health is really about’  By Dr Bill Saunders and is available now from Amazon.

Our record against them isn’t great we’ve lost 26, won 17 and drawn 15.

Last season they finished in 14th place and against them we lost 0-2 (at home) and won 0-2 (away.)

They faced Peterborough in their last a game and won 2-0 (with the second goal coming in the 96th minute) Surridge's late red card means he won’t feature tonight, they currently occupy fifth place in the table. Tonight’s encounter will be a tough one particularly given our home form.

Form over last six matches, Bristol City: LLWLLD Stoke Cityk: LLDWWW and Stoke haven’t conceded in their last three games.

Stoke are one of the oldest English football teams and were one of the founding members of the Football League. They began as Stoke Ramblers, but have been known as Stoke City since 1925. One of the best periods for the club was between 1933 and1953, they played in the top division and managed to reach the fourth place twice. They also have a Football League Cup victory from 1972 and would reach the FA Cup final for the first time in 2011.

Some of the most famous players in the club's history are Stanley Matthews, Neil Franklin, Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton, Peter Dobing, George Eastham, Peter McIlroy, Denis Smith, Harry Burrows who at the time had the most powerful left foot in football, the mercurial Alan Hudson, John Ritchie  and the best player never to be capped by England, Jimmy Greenhoff.

Mention of Gordon Banks reminds me of one of many of Bill’s claims - that he was once substituted by Gordon Banks. Allegedly at the time of his removal Bill’s team were winning 4-1 and by the end it was 4-4. Bill clings on to the notion that he was a better goalie than Gordon! Another of his claims is that funnily enough he once played five a side against George Eastham, his job was to mark him,  Bill’s team lost 6-0, George scored a couple and made the rest. Unsurprisingly Bill never once got the ball from him!

Michael O’Neil, who was appointed in November 2019 when they were bottom of the league, has been rebuilding and getting rid of lots of players in the process. Does that sound familiar? At the end of last season they said goodbye a few times as they cleared the decks for squad rebuilding. Among the former Potters are Jack Butland, Mame Diouf, Mo Sankoh and Julien Ngoy.

O’Neil’s philosophy also rings a bell, he has said: ‘Having more people out of the team than in it is what really challenges your culture. More players have left than have come in and we put a real focus on the types of people we want, not just what they are as players.’

When he arrived he was hamstrung by the players bought in by previous managers and administrators, many of their fans have pointed out that the club has been mismanaged for quite a while. As one noted ‘Hughes's first couple of seasons were OK until he ripped the heart and soul out of the team, since then it's been a comedy of errors with expensive garbage coming through the door along with idealistic managers with an open cheque book. O’Neil has come in and has been shackled by FFP. He is giving youth a go (Josh Tymon especially) and with the likes of Fletcher, Vranic and Allen the old heads are providing experience.

Stoke snippets

  • Stoke once had a vicar patrolling midfield. Father Elijah Smith took off his cassock to play for the Potters in the 1880s. The half-back, who was in charge of a church in Stoke, starred in the club's first ever league win, over Notts County.
  • The Potters finished bottom of Football League in its inaugural season, and again the following year before they failed to be re-elected in 1890.
  • Stoke are responsible for the penalty kick. The Potters had reason to gripe when they were knocked out of the FA Cup by Notts County in 1891. They were piling on the pressure in search of an equaliser when Notts defender Jack Hendry punched away a goal-bound shot. Stoke were given a free-kick but the opponents stacked 11 men on their own line and blocked any shot. Referee John Lewis thought this wasn't fair so campaigned to introduce the penalty kick when he became a football legislator.
  • The most capped player to have played for the club is goalkeeper Gordon Banks – with 73 caps for England.
  • Sir Stanley Matthews holds the record for the oldest ever player to feature in England’s top division. His appearance for Stoke City against Fulham in February 1965 came shortly after his 50th birthday.
  • The club’s only major trophy to date was the League Cup, which they won in 1972 after beating Chelsea 2-1 in the final. They also lifted the Football League Trophy in 1992 and 2000.
  • The Oatcake was their fanzine, which was named after a local delicacy. It ran for over 30 years before publishing its 653rd and final issue for the opening Championship game against QPR in August 2019.

Hot on the heels of an improved home performance on Saturday, especially in the first half, it will be interesting to see if tonight we can start to build a bit of concentration, confidence and consistency. I lost count of how many times Curtis Fleming used the word ‘consistency’ in his press-match presser. In fact I reckon when NP asked him to do the presser he added see if you can make a point about a decent 45 minutes being just that and stress it is something we need to build on. Curtis then contrived to communicate by continually and consistently chatting about being consistent! ?

Matty James, George Tanner and Andy King are all unavailable so the squad is likely to be unchanged, although NP may make some tweaks to the starting line-up.

 

88B04165-460B-486A-9BDD-47EA252C3C27.jpeg

Hey JB, tell your Aussie mate to ave it! We hammered em 1-0 

COYR’s.

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