Stoke and I

Neil James

Description

Stoke and I: The Nineties charts the fortunes of Stoke City Football Club through the decade that spawned Britpop, Euro 96 and Cool Britannia. Key moments such as the title-winning season of 1992/93, the Autoglass Trophy victory and the emotional farewell to the Victoria Ground are recounted through the eyes of a fan growing up in the last decade before football changed beyond recognition. Memories of players and matches, from the great to the awful, sit alongside hilarious tales of playground Potteries derbies, embarrassing school football trials and the author's attempts to become pen pals with Jon Dreyer. Featuring selected highlights from Neil James's popular 'Trouserdog' column in The Oatcake fanzine, plus a wealth of new material and new insights from key figures such as Lou Macari, Mike Sheron and Peter Coates, Stoke and I: The Nineties is a personal take on a fascinating period in the history of England's second-oldest league club.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314728
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018 Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Neil James, 2018
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-441-4 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-472-8
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Season 1989/90: A New Decade
Season 1990/91: The Piece of Cake
Season 1991/92: A Time for Heroes
Season 1992/93: The Real Invincibles
Season 1993/94: This is What Loss Feels Like
Season 1994/95: The Messiah Returns
Season 1995/96: The Year of the S.A.S
Season 1996/97: Things Never Stay the Same
Season 1997/98: The Britannia Stadium
Season 1998/99: Brian Little
Epilogue
For Isobel and Daniel - anything s possible if you keep trying.
Acknowledgements
W RITING this book has not only realised a long-standing ambition for me, but has also restored my faith in human nature. So many people went out of their way to help, putting me in touch with former players and managers, providing advice and encouragement, allowing me to use material that they d collected over the years and providing all the necessary support and assistance to get this book out of my head and on to the shelves.
In no particular order, this book could not have been written without: Paul and Jane Camillin at Pitch Publishing; Duncan Olner at Olner Design; Martin Smith and Dave Frith ( The Oatcake fanzine); Anthony Bunn and Lee Hawthorne ( Duck Magazine ); Pete Smith and Martin Spinks ( The Sentinel ); interviewees Lou Macari, Peter Coates, Ian Cranson, Mike Sheron, Carl Beeston, Wayne Biggins, Shaun Wade, Tim Gallimore, Gareth Thomas, Mick Pinnington and Dave Shenton; Robert Eardley - a great sounding board and co-interviewer; Andrew Wilshaw for the use of the old VCR and finally my family for supporting me in ways too numerous to list.
Introduction
A N invitation dropped through my letterbox yesterday: a 1990s-themed birthday party for my mate s fortieth. They re popping up everywhere now, these 90s nights - the latest carriage on the ever-rolling nostalgia train. Nigh-on 20 years since the decade of Britpop, The Word and New Labour ended, the teenage years of my generation have been reduced to teary-eyed reminiscence. Needless to say, it all makes me feel very old.
It seems that two decades is about when it happens - the time when a man starts to grieve for his youth and looks for something to make it better. People will spend time and money on anything that gives them just the merest scent of what it used to be like to live without the burden of responsibility. Believe me, I do exactly the same. Nineties compilation CDs, nostalgia shows on Channel 5, books on Oasis and Blur - I lap them up because they remind me of the last time in my life I felt free. You see, as great as it s been supporting Stoke City in the Premier League as a late 30-something, I d swap it all just to be 15 years old again, watching a Mark Stein shot arrow through the rain and hit the net at the old Boothen End. That might be why you re reading this book now. It s definitely why I wrote it.
It might seem a pointless exercise to some, but I make no apology for presenting you with what is essentially another dose of 90s nostalgia. Like it or not, there s pleasure to be found in simply remembering and occasionally laughing about the good, the bad and the bloody awful of days gone by, even if all we re doing is distracting ourselves from the present. The 1990s was
a fascinating decade though, not least for Stoke City, where extremes of joy and despair sat side by side as the club lurched between a promotion and two relegations, worked its way through nine managers and, at times, had fans rioting in the stands of its new stadium. It s a story that s certainly worth telling.
This isn t, however, just a book about what happened on pieces of turf 20 years ago. It s the stories from the periphery of the sport that give the game its soul; it s the anecdotes from those who played and watched; it s the story of being a football-mad teenager in the last decade before the internet changed the world. Therefore, if you re someone who s interested in lists of football results and old league tables, you re in the wrong place. Likewise, if you re looking for a thesis on some aspect or other of football culture, you re also probably in the wrong place.
But if I were to borrow the words of one author from the era and say, Choose Lou Macari, choose the Autoglass Trophy, choose Potteries derbies played out on the playground, choose Kick Off 2, choose Mark Stein s goal at Rotherham, and you found yourself nodding along, then you d be in exactly the right place.
Season 1989/90
A New Decade
A T the start of the 2017/18 season, a man stands outside the bet365 Stadium hawking the same pin badges he s been struggling to shift for the last decade. Nobody buys those things anymore. He s branched out though in recent years and diversified his stock a little.
For now, draped across the tired old chipboard displaying the array of tiny enamel club crests is a collection of the must-not-have accessory for all true football fans: the much-maligned half-and-half scarf. Fifty per cent of it s woven in the red and white of Stoke, the remainder in the dark blue of Arsenal s latest away kit. Today, the Gunners are in town. Look, there s the date on the scarf. It s a souvenir you see.
My son Daniel, three years old and walking alongside me, tugs on my arm. Can I have one, Daddy? he asks in the same way he asks for anything brightly coloured that catches his eye. How can I explain to him in child-friendly language that only a complete twat would wear one?
Those scarves aren t very good, mate, I say, not untruthfully either. Give it one wash and it ll fall apart. I ll get you a proper one next time we re in the club shop.
Thankfully, he s satisfied with this and we carry on walking without the hell of a three-year-old s tantrum being unleashed upon the innocent matchday crowd.
Everybody in Stoke hates Arsenal. Would you wear a scarf that s got 50 per cent of it dedicated to those scumbags? I d rather use it to strangle myself, thanks. Just make sure it s not left anywhere near my dead body afterwards.
Unsurprisingly, the scarves aren t shifting. Maybe it s just us - Stoke fans are old-fashioned types for the most part, not a bunch of tourists here on a day trip. Nobody s buying half-and-half scarves and nobody s stood in front of the ground taking selfies. It s just another Saturday at the match, the way it always used to be, right? A proper football club, as our old manager Tony Pulis was so fond of saying.
Anyway, this Arsenal thing. It started when Arsene Wenger, bitter as always after a 2-1 defeat, called us a rugby team, and then it escalated when the press turned on our captain, Ryan Shawcross, for mistiming a tackle on Aaron Ramsey. Ever since that day there s been bad blood and ill feeling always bubbling under the surface of this fixture. You could call it a rivalry I suppose, even though that would suggest a level of parity that we know doesn t really exist. Arsenal don t like us though, and we absolutely hate them. This isn t a place for half-and-half scarves. This is old-school.
Yet look around you, because outside the ground, a few blokes in Arsenal gear are walking around freely, talking in loud, brash London voices, there s a family by the club shop - the kids all sporting shirts with Fly Emirates across their chests. Nobody s bothering them and Stoke fans are milling around too out here, plenty of us, mostly wearing club colours, laughing, shouting, full of pre-match optimism as a new season begins in the late afternoon sunshine. In 20 minutes time there ll be no one left outside, we ll all be in the ground in our seats awaiting the kick-off, a few of the stragglers left on the concourse watching the televisions showing Sky Sports News.
Ours is the second game of the weekend to be televised and we ve only reached Saturday teatime. There ll be another two matches on tomorrow and maybe one on Monday night. Football s everywhere - the people who love it watch game after game, but those who don t are still always aware of it.
When I get to work on a Monday everyone knows whether Stoke won or lost and it s the first thing they mention. Football s mainstream.
Travel back in time 30 years or thereabouts and this scene would have been very different. We were in another ground for starters - one that didn t have 30,000 shiny plastic seats and two electronic scoreboards, but crumbling terraces, leaky roofs and weeds growing up through the cracks in the concrete. Any Arsenal fans would be running for cover by now, probably being chased up the street by casuals or, in the case of the family, at home in north London, not even here, not even interested. A day at the football, Mum and Dad? Take the kids? No thanks, we d rather not all go home in an ambulance if it s all the same to you.
The police would be all over the street too. I can t see a single one out here, just a few stewards carrying out body searches and directing a few confused non-regulars to the correct turnstiles. Policemen aren t really needed out here, not like in the old days when there d be a riot van parked up and coppers on horses in the middle of the road.
I didn t exactly