Wish You Were Here?!

Ahhh Long ball football…the very name of this blog. Those days are gone, right? Well, after yesterday they might be back. Did anyone who has seen our games so far expect that type of display after witnessing our largely encouraging start to the season? The answer of course is no. Of course we could lose to Norwich, but the manner of the defeat was truly awful. If that baseball cap wearing imposter had presided over such a performance this blog would have been in a high state of dudgeon – ok, so it’s the first bad performance under Mark Hughes so we have to give him that, but anything more that bad and the jury will very much be out.

Of course, after one more game, a match which is looking fairly crucial against Fulham - who are as it stands one of the few teams that are below us in the table – we have another break. Usually, I hate these international weeks, but this one….well this one is a bit different.

This one sees Longballfootball decamp to Crete to embark on something that might seem odd at first but makes perfect sense. We are going to the miniEURO2013 event. What’s the miniEURO, I hear you ask? Well, the miniEURO is the European Minifootball Championships, and if you still need some clarification after that, in England we call it 5 or 6 a side. In short, there will be passing at this event than there was in the second half of our game with Tranmere, skills and flicks and tricks abound as the best 5 a side players in the country take on their counterparts from across the continent. TP would not approve!

This has gone on before – the miniEURO in its current form first took place last year in Moldova, where a crowd of 3000 people saw the final in the main city square. I wasn’t there. I didn’t work for the United Kingdom Minifootball Association then, and thus missed out on the trip. I do work there now and next Wednesday am overcoming my fear of flying (as documented elsewhere on this blog) to go to Rethymno City in Crete and if you had seen it you would know why.

                                                 Tough job to be here, eh?

The football matches are taking place on the beach on a specially constructed pitch, the weather is gorgeous and the city appears beautiful. Fear of flying? You must be joking! This is one of those incredible opportunities that come along very occasionally in a working life, where you can actually do something that will be exciting and fun.

Don’t believe me? Check out this: http://www.incrediblecrete.gr/ and have a look.

Maybe its because I am not very well travelled (again documented on this blog previously) the last time I went abroad at all was to watch our game with Thun and the time before that was an Iron Maiden concert in Dublin, but this is going to be special. So after the Fulham game on Saturday, if you find yourself worrying about a fortnight of footballing desolation, then you could head to the Euro Minifootball Federation website: http://www.eurominifootball.com/ and watch the games live online, failing that you could book a flight and cheer on England, Wales or Scotland!

If not, Ill be back for the Albion game to tell you all about it. 

STOKE V MAN CITY WSC Preview

This orginally appeared on When Saturday Comes Website:

http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1152-september-2012/9001-stoke-have-made-astute-signings-despite-budget-cuts

I wrote it, so I am reproducing it on my blog

Last time Stoke played Manchester City, in late March, Peter Crouch managed to control the ball, swivel and loop it over Joe Hart from 35 yards, illuminating a rather dull league campaign for the Potters.

The 2011-12 season will be remembered by fans for the Europa League run, which started as a bit of a laugh but ended in the last 32, rather than for anything that happened domestically. Last term Stoke were were dull, functional and almost totally reliant on set-pieces, scoring barely any goals from open play.

We were so poor to watch that even the famously rock-solid relationship between manager Tony Pulis and chairman Peter Coates was said to be under strain.

It began in the early close-season when Coates announced a massive expansion of the youth set-up. Pulis is famously reticent when it comes to playing youngsters – 28-year-old Andy Wilkinson is still a "kiddie" in interviews – and soon began sniping in the press that for all the background improvements "the front of house needs to be looked after too". Coates retorted by saying after last year's £22 million deadline-day splurge, after which two of the players signed – Cameron Jerome and Wilson Palacios – barely started, the manager would have to wheel and deal this year.

Whatever Coates meant by this, it is clear it wasn't "wheeling and dealing" in the conventional sense. Seven players arrived while not much transfer revenue was recouped. Most of the incoming players were midfielders which was odd because we have a lot and, frankly, never play much silky stuff through midfield anyway. We did need full-backs desperately, but they never materialised.

As always Pulis made some late deals. First, he persuaded Charlie Adam to swap one mid-table north-west club for another and in doing so got us a proper playmaker at last. Then he got Stephen Nzonzi for what looks like a bargain price and, finally, ended the Michael Owen saga by landing him too.

Time will tell whether the trio are Crouch-like successes or Eidur Gudjohnsen/Tuncay/Palacios style big-name Britannia misfits. Whatever you think about Owen's form, fitness and desire, he would have scored at least one of the two sitters missed by Jerome at Wigan.

The 2-2 draw at Wigan means we are still unbeaten and Stoke's record against City isn't bad if we forget about the 2011 Cup final. The Potters haven't lost at home against the "Big Four" for nearly two years and, if Crouch can't smash a wonder goal this time, then Owen might do the job instead.

Praise And Grumble

Listening to Praise & Grumble on Radio Stoke on Saturday evenings after a game can often be a chore.

From the “We are going for the top six” brigade after we win a game or two, to the “we are going to get relegated” mob (often the same people!) two weeks later after we have lost a couple, it is not just P&G, but all phone in’s, that don’t offer a particularly balanced view.

By their nature, of course, they are for immediate, and often emotional, reaction so perhaps shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but nonetheless there is a recent strand to the calls that has been really getting on my nerves.

There was one last week after we lost to WBA. A chap rang up and said: “the thing is, John [Acres] these people who are moaning, they want to remember where we were five years ago.”

Leaving aside the fact that just over five years ago we destroyed WBA at home (Ricardo Fullers hat-trick if you recall) that entire argument is a load of nonsense.

My first game was in 1985 as a nearly 10 year old boy. I have had a season ticket since 1987. Every decision I have ever made in my work or social life since has been to enable me to watch Stoke play.

I haven’t missed a league game since 2002 (in that time I have missed the Millwall cup game in 07, when I was so ill I couldn’t get out of bed) and four Europa cup games away this season for two reasons 1) My brother couldn’t get there I walk with sticks and going to these places on my own isn’t that easy and 2) I have a crippling fear of flying (as previously discussed on this blog). And for this reason I am not going to Valencia either.

I have missed family weddings, mates birthdays, you name it. All to watch Stoke City play.

I am not saying these things because I believe that I am a “better” fan than anyone who can’t for whatever reason go to this amount of games, but I am saying it because I am EXACTLY the sort of person who knows where we have been and who is proud of what have done as a club in the last six years.

But I was extremely annoyed by our display against Albion. Just as I have been in other games (Bolton, Sunderland, Swansea, QPR and Wigan to name but five) this season.

Have I not got the right to be? Or do we always have to praise them because of “where we were?”

The other thing that makes the “they forgot what we have achieved….” merchants wrong is that our current first XI only has two of the players we had then. And with those new – and extremely expensive players – comes higher expectation.

If we still had the same players as in 2007 then I could just about accept the argument, but we don’t so it’s a redundant point.

Similarly, if we criticise Tony Pulis that doesn’t mean we a) we want him out or b) that we don’t appreciate the job he has done for the club and therefore – by extension - for us as fans. It does however mean that we can justifiably criticise TP for playing Jonathan Woodgate in a right back spot he is not suited for, for playing Ryan Shotton on the wing when Pennant is sat on the bench, and for not changing his strikers round when one of them so obviously needs a rest.

So can I suggest that, just as much as the kneejerk reactions are stupid, then so is the suggestion not to moan at anyone. Ever. For anything.

Constructive criticism is our right, and moreover our duty as fans and never, ever, means we don’t know the history of our great club.

So praise by all means, but for God sake, let’s grumble too.

A Little Belief Would Go A Long Way

There is something that’s been on my mind for a while and with the Liverpool game this weekend and a trip to Old Trafford looming it seems an apt time to bring it up.

It’s a quite simple question: Do Stoke City have an inferiority complex?

I ask that because it seems to me that however well we have done in the Premier League, we never seem to quite believe that we can get something off one of the big boys.

I totally understand that these teams are superb, of course I do, and at home it is a different matter. But that doesn’t mean we should be frightened to play them away from ST4 either. And I would argue that is exactly what we are at most away games against the top six.

Against Manchester City before Christmas I don’t believe for one second that any player in red and white believed they could get anything from the game and the same thing rings true for nearly every game against them, Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Of course you could argue that most teams get thumped at those places, but our record against those five is one point from 13 games – an extremely fortunate draw in September 2008 at Anfield (it was a magnificent day, and a fantastic, battling display, but on another afternoon we would have got destroyed). To that you can add a narrow, heartbreaking loss at Stamford Bridge and a narrow reverse at Old Trafford last January.

In short, it’s fairly grim.

I left Spurs out of that list deliberately, given the fact we beat them in 09 (again, luckily, lets be honest – although it didn’t stop me grinning all the way home) but more for the fact that last April we actually went somewhere and had a go, scored two superb goals and but for Jon Walters not making a proper connection we would probably have got a draw.

The key phrase in that paragraph is “had a go.” Too often it seems we accept defeat away (and no one will ever convince me that anyone at Stoke gave that game at Man City a month or so ago the remotest thought the second the came off the field). Surely the time has come for us to know that we belong at this level?

TP was extremely good at playing the little-Stoke-City-are-doing-ever-so-well-card for the first few seasons – he still is, and we have, but we are better than that now, aren’t we? We are eighth on merit, we are in the Europa League knockout stages because we deserve to be - we have some extremely good players and a very good squad.

A squad and a team, I would argue, that is every bit as good, if not better, than the Villa’s and Newcastle’s of this world, but those clubs, and others,sometimes seem to find some extra reserves of belief that we don’t have and get points at Chelsea and Man Utd recently (though the Geordies did meekly surrender at Anfield the other week).

I don’t expect us to beat these types of teams and before anyone says it I acutely remember where we have come from and I know what has been achieved since 2006. I do, however expect us to try and win these games and not just be grateful to be on the same pitch as the boys from the top table.

Liverpool are playing well – and are unbeaten at home – but they are by no means infallible. They have no Suarez and Andy Carroll looks desperately out of sorts. We have lost one game in the last 10 and have won four of our last five away from The Brit.

There is no need for us to be scared on Saturday when we step out onto the pitch – and for once I hope we aren’t.

There is a sign at White Hart Lane at the opposite end to where the away fans sit. “To Dare Is To Do” it says. That might be Tottenham’s mantra, but there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t adopt it as our own for the next two away games.

We deserve to be in this league. We have earned the right. Now lets get out there and prove it.

The Five Greatest Moments Of The Greatest Ever Year?

There has been much conjecture recently as to whether 2011 has been Stoke City’s best ever year, as TP said after beat Spurs.

I wasn’t born just after the war when we nearly won the title, nor was I born in 1972. I wasn’t even quite born in 1974-5 when injuries robbed us, so it’s hard to say, and even harder to make an accurate comparison, however I can talk with confidence about everything that has happened to Stoke City since attending my first match, as a nine year old boy in August 1985.

We have had some good years since. Chief among them obviously, was 1992-3 when our Steino/Nigel Gleghorn (still my favourite two ever Stoke players) inspired side swept all before it and won the league.

1991-2 was great too, Lou came, he bought Steino, he gave us hope, he exorcised the Alan Ball years at a stroke and we won at Wembley. Or how about 1996? When arguably only bad leadership from the boardroom cost us a place in the top league, as Lou’s patched up side performed heroically.

1999-00 was a personal favourite of mine too. When Brian Little did his mid-summer flit and second choice manager Gary Megson was appointed to take over, few could have envisaged what happened – the first choice manager was a baseball cap wearing Welshman who chose Bristol City instead (wonder what happened to him…?). Say what you like about the Icelanders but that season was magnificent, that away game at Wycombe, when Gudjon Thordarson came over to the fans at the end, while Stokies sung “its just like watching Iceland” is still one of my best ever away games.

Then there’s everything since 2006. It’s been the best five years of my Stoke supporting life. Now is not the time to document these seasons (one day I will write a book on it!) but there was our Lee Hendrie/Ricardo Fuller inspired renaissance, the promotion the season after that surprised everyone except those who had actually seen us play and the Premier League Years which we all know about.

So there has, even in what has seemed like a dark time for the club, been much to enjoy and reflect upon but still I have not answered the question as to whether 2011 has been our best ever (recent) year.

Despite my affection for the years mentioned above, I would have to say, yes it has been – and here are five reasons why. Five of my favourite ever moments as a Stoke supporter and therefore in my life. Five reasons why, whatever happens 2011 will probably be my favourite Stoke year for good.

1)      Beating West Ham in the Quarter Finals of the cup.

What an atmosphere, what a game! And standing there at the end, in the ground, just jumping for joy. And if that wasn’t enough how about when we were stood talking to some friends outside while horns started blaring and people starting screaming “its Bolton, its Bolton!” and we knew this might be the year we got to the cup final.

2)      THAT  game with Bolton

The greatest performance ever by a Stoke team? Certainly in my lifetime. Given the magnitude of the game, of the occasion it has to be. We simply and completely destroyed Bolton Wanderers. It could have been more than five. It is without question the happiest I have ever felt walking out of a ground.

3)      The FA Cup final

It might be a cliché to say it, but those that know me know it’s true. All my life I have dreamed about watching Stoke City in an FA Cup final. I have dreamed of being there when the teams came out seeing all the flags, the colour, just the day itself. And I don’t mind admitting that I got dewy eyed when “Abide With Me” started. For my Grandad, the reason I am a Stoke fan, who died in 2005, just before we got good again, for my Mum, who died in 09 and didn’t even really like football, but would have been so pleased for her sons.

Yes the game was awful and I still have never watched Tevez lift the cup up (and never will) but that day wasn’t about football. It was – and will remain until we win something – the greatest day of my life.

4)      The game with Chelsea at home in 2010/11 season

An odd choice, I will grant you, but I would argue that it is the best game of football I have ever seen us involved in. This wasn’t Bury or Mansfield we were playing, this wasn’t a plucky display in the third round of the cup, this was us going toe to toe with a team that had won about nine games on the trot and really thought they could win the league. This was the day when Stoke City players knew they belonged in the Premier League. It was also the day when we would have won in Ricardo Fuller doesn’t miss a late sitter, but this is Stoke, we can’t have everything.

And finally 5) Thun away

The Europa cup wasn’t supposed to be easy but it has been, we were supposed to get beat by Hadjuk Split, but we didn’t. As previously spoken about on these blogs I am petrified of flying, so haven’t been to any of the other games. My brother went to Split, and I joined him for a trip on the coach to beautiful Switzerland.

The journey was terrible, and if anyone goes with Thompson Sport again they want their head examined, but everything about the town and the game itself was brilliant. The welcome we received, the weather, the town itself, the game, the atmosphere, the result – this might be my only ever European away night and it was very, very special.

So that’s it, my personal choice for the moments of 2011. Maybe 2012 will beat it?

Running Out Of Credit

Well, a lot has happened since my last blog, hasn’t it?!

It was doom and gloom before the Blackburn match – people talking about “must wins” and so on, now its three wins later and we have the last 32 of the Europa League to look forward to – and what a tie too!

So there’s nothing to moan about, right?!

Well so you’d think, but something has vexed me hugely in the last week or so. Indeed we have seen prime examples of it recently.

It happened Sunday and has been happening since, and it happened on Wednesday.

It’s been happening since promotion and no doubt will continue to do so.

Simply put, Stoke City do not get any credit for anything that we do. And I will go further – the mainstream media wants us to lose.

On Sunday we had one of our finest ever days in the Premier League. Our players worked like Trojans and beat a team that many were tipping to win the league this season.

Yes we had some luck along the way, of course we did. But it made up for the game last season when the same referee managed to miss a ball that went behind the line and lets not start talking about all the other decisions that went against us and continue to do so, shall we?

It is the opinion of this blog that moaning about referees is pointless and stupid. And I have written as such on numerous occasions both on here and in other mediums, however that works both ways. We will not be embarrassed when we get some luck go our way for once.

But no, whenever we have a good win, like Liverpool earlier in the season, or Spurs it seems that these things get analysed to the limit. Instead of focussing on our heroic defensive display against King Kenny’s men, all we heard was our penalty should never have been given and they should have had three of their own.

After the Spurs game the same thing happened. Shawcross is an animal (and I am not convinced the foul on Kabul was a penalty) we handballed it, we did this, that and the other, oh and there was some absurd nonsense about Ryan Shotton’s throw-ins.

Then on Wednesday I am sat watching the Besiktas game and the commentators were seemingly desperate for us to lose. I honestly believe that if Ricardo Fuller hadn’t been so unlucky with that header, or Matt Upson hadn’t been sent off we would have won the game, but listening to Stewart Robson and Jim Proudfoot you would have thought we were being destroyed. The classic from Robson was “Higginbotham went to sleep for the goal, he’s had a poor game.” Despite the fact it was actually Rory Delap who failed to mark.

So in the interests of fairness here are some facts for Robson, Proudfoot and anyone else who wants them:

Since we went up in 2008 we have performed fantastically. Three mid-table finishes, an FA Cup Final, a League Cup Quarter Final and while we are at it we are the only British team to Qualify from the Europa League to the knockout stages, in our first European campaign for 40 years.

With all due deference to my Stoke bias I would argue that no other club has gone up in recent years and performed so well. The likes of Bolton – who are frequently held up as a benchmark – and Charlton went up and down before they established themselves, which touch wood we haven’t looked like doing – rocky spell in November notwithstanding.

If that was any other club the pundits would be hailing the rise as meteoric. The pundits loved the likes of Blackpool, Hull and now Swansea and Norwich, and why? Because the perception of us is we are horrible, we foul and we play long ball.

Now I really couldn’t care less how we play the game, in fact I like direct football.  What I don’t like is my club getting no credit for its achievements.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, and certainly as Stoke City supporters we are allowed to gripe and to moan and to react to defeats in any way we please. I don’t write these things through rose tinted spectacles, nor do I think everything at Stoke City is perfect, but we are entitled to a fair hearing from those who are supposed to be impartial.

The Strange Case Of The Missing Goalscoring Midfielders

I think something happened yesterday for the first time since 14^th Feb 2004.

No, it hasn’t been that long since we won a game.

Instead I am fairly certain that, for the first time since that day (when we lost 6-3 to Crystal Palace) both our central midfield players scored in the same match.

I was musing on this yesterday afternoon while dissecting it in the way proper saddos do with a couple of mates and my brother and my mate asked the question.

If its correct and that say seven and a half years ago was indeed the last time both midfield men notched – and to be honest, I am not certain that Clive Clarke, who scored that day along with John Eustace – was actually playing in the middle. He may have been on the left, in which case it is my belief that you have to go back to Boxing Day 2002 when Petur Martiensson scored at Bradford City.

Whichever way round you look at it, and whether I am right or wrong, it is a pretty staggering statistic.  Especially when you consider that in that time we have largely been successful.

The reasons for it of course are many and varied. Firstly, since Graham Kavanagh slithered off to Cardiff in 2001 we haven’t had what you might call a goalscoring midfield man in the ranks.

Secondly, we don’t shoot really from distance. Its very rare to see the type of goals Glen Whelan usually scores in a Stoke game and thirdly you almost never see a Stoke midfield man breaking through past the forwards. Dean Whitehead does it occasionally, at Bolton last season for example, at Blackburn the year before and of course, who can forget the sight of Salif Diao rampaging down Fratton Park before smashing the winner in at Portsmouth?

It is worth pointing out that we have scored plenty of goals from other areas in that time. Liam Lawrence got 15 from the wing the year we went up and obviously the defence has weighed in with plenty too – although not this season.

In fairness too, we generally don’t play that way, it is difficult to see exactly how we can incorporate a “David Platt” type player into our line up. But I wish we would shoot more from distance. You saw what happened yesterday. Whelan has a bang, two deflections later and its 2-0.

As it is you suspect that it might very well be 2018 before it happens again – and as long as we are in the Premier League still, then I don’t suppose anyone will mind too much. But it would be nice to see that dimension added to our play.