A 'Potted' History of stoke city FC.
Founded in 1863 and boasting to be the second oldest club in the football league, Stoke City FC are an enigma to say the very least. Hugely unsuccessful and unlucky in the FA Cup and never having won the highest honour of finishing above all the other clubs in the league, they are, nevertheless, a well attended and passionate football community club. We do boast a number of honours, the highest being our achievement in winning the League cup against Chelsea in 1972.
Indeed, during those early years of the '70's, we were desperately unlucky not to reach the FA Cup Final on two occasions, losing in 1970-71 and 1971 -72 to Arsenal. In the first game, after being 2-0 up, Arsenal were awarded a disputed penalty in the 4th minute of extra time to equalize! They won the replay easily. On the second occasion, Arsenal were given an offside goal to level the scores when the linesman didn't give an offside decision because he mistook an Everton program seller, who was dressed in white, for a Stoke player! Stoke were playing in their changed strip of all white. That just about sums up Stoke City's luck. On another occasion, we would have walked the league but we suffered a number of broken legs to key players just as were nearing the end of the season and we were unable to overcome those blows. And earlier in our history, we only had to win against Sheffied United on the last day of the season to top the First division and we lost 2-1.
But still we can fill our ground on important occasions and I have been in the Victoria Ground when 47000 people were packed inside. We'll never see that again because we're now at the Britannia Stadium and the capacity is around 28,000.
We can also boast to have the greatest winger ever to have put on the England shirt, the late Sir Stanley Mathews. The 'wizard of the dribble' as he was known throughout the world, was a Pottery lad and always proud of it too. He signed for Stoke on his 17th birthday, 1st February 1932. His wage was £5 a week during the season and £3 during the close season. A lot of money in those days! He was 5ft 9in and slim as a model but with far more grace and style. Simon Lowe, in his book 'Stoke City: 101 Golden Greats', reminds us of the words of the immortal broadcaster, Stuart Hall. This is what he had to say about Stan.
"Stanley was the matador caping the bull. The bull, the full back, knew at 3pm that his reputation would be shattered. I picture the fellow trapped like a rabbit in a car's headlights. Mathews is balanced on the balls of his feet, perfect balance, that of the matador, as if suspended on gossamer. The twinny-toed shuffle continues - Mathews with the ball curled on his right foot, feints to the left, inside the back. The back counters with a move to follow, he is off balance. On the instant Mathews, with the outside of his right boot, flicks the ball past the back and is in flight. His body has leaned so far to the left that it defies gravity. The full-back vainly gives chase."
No greater demonstration of his skills were seen than the 1953 cup final. Blackpool were playing Bolton Wanderers. With 20 minutes to go, Bolton were leading 3-1. His brilliance inspired his colleagues and they turned that deficit into a 4-3 win for Blackpool. It was forever to be known as 'The Mathews Final' and will stand for all time as one of Wembley's finest moments. Stan pooh pooh'd that description of the game and has always said that it was a team effort and not just his own skills which won the game for them.
Although I was not at the match, I count myself fortunate to have seen that game as it happened on my mate's telly and I can tell you that the atmosphere was electric.
Stan left us for Blackpool in 1947 but returned at the age of 46 to reinvigorate our club. On his first game back at the old Victoria ground, the gate quadrupled to 36,000!
The last time I saw him play was in his testimonial game at the Vic. An estimated viewing audience of 112 million people watched it and the game included players of the calibre of Di Stephano, Puskas and the great Russian goalkeeper, Lev Yashin.
On 23rd February, 2000, Sir Stan died and an estimated 100,000 citizens of this great city of ours turned out to witness his funeral procession. Stan's ashes are buried under the centre spot of the Britannia Stadium. Outside, there is a wonderful statue of him in three poses which demonstrates his extraordinary talents.
Since the heady years of the 70's, we have been mediocre to say the least but we have had our moments. We have seen 3 promotions, two more Wembley victories [albeit in minor competitions] and the fantastic play-off final victory at the end of the season 2001-02.
We start anew next season in the first division and, hopefully, the Icelandic consortium who took over our club will be rewarded with more success.
As royalty would say...."One can only hope!"