Twinned with Reykjavik

Liam Bullock

Description

The period leading up to 1999 had been grim for Stoke City fans - relegation, stagnation, embarrassment and board conflicts were commonplace at the club. As the new millennium approached, fans demanded change, but no one could have predicted what would come next. An Icelandic consortium, brought together by Gudjon Thordarson, set sail for the Potteries with the promise of exciting foreign imports and Premier League football. What followed was a mixture of flashy arrivals, cup successes, broken curses, flop signings and plenty of fallouts, with extraordinary on-field moments along the way. Cult heroes and villains were made as Stoke became a living soap opera for seven remarkable years. Twinned with Reykjavik lifts the lid on that rollercoaster ride with the views of the people who experienced the wild journey. Integral players and fans look back on the key moments that defined the era as the book ponders that vital question: was the Icelandic takeover actually a success for Stoke City?

Sujets

• Reikiavik
• Iceland
• Staffordshire
• Reykjavík
• Islande

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785319457
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Liam Bullock, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317804
eBook ISBN 9781785319457
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Contents
Foreword by Denis Smith
Preface
1. The Pre-Icelandic Icelanders
2. Winter Is Coming
3. The Icelandic Saga Begins
4. Que Ser Ser
5. A Clash of Styles
6. Da ason and the other Th rdarson
7. Giant-Killings and Killing Giants
8. D j Vu
9. Kavanagh, Thorne and Sam Hammam
10. Hit for Six
11. The Legend of Oular s Arse
12. A Broken Curse
13. Goodbye Gu j n
14. A New Hope
15. Cotterill Quits
16. You Don t Know What You re Doing
17. Hit for Six (Again)
18. Power Ade
19. All Change at Stoke
20. The Binary Season
21. Sale on in Iceland
22. One Night in Coventry
23. Bangoura Goes Bye-Bye
24. Going Dutch
25. The End of the Icelanders
26. The Icelandic Era - Retrospective
The Icelanders: What Happened Next?
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
About the Author
Photos
Foreword
Denis Smith
WITHIN FOOTBALL, the perception of what is going on behind the scenes from a supporter s point of view is usually what they glean from the media. After over 50 years in football, I have realised that things which are really happening in dressing rooms and boardrooms are usually very different from what the media and supporters think. That doesn t take anything away from these points of view; it is because there is always believed to be drama happening that makes football so entertaining.
When my cousin Dave Bullock, father of Liam, rang to ask me to write a foreword to this book, I was delighted to do so. I know, like me, Dave is a big Stoke City fan, and now I know that Liam is also a staunch Stoke City fan.
It is always a pleasure for me to read anything about the history of Stoke City, whether I am part of it or not. The club at the time that Liam is writing about was in the control of the Icelanders and, with a promotion in that time, was not short of enjoyment. As a manager myself of clubs that played against Stoke during this time, I obviously wanted to win these games. But I was also a Stoke City fan, and I wanted Stoke to finish second in the league behind the team I was managing at the time.
The pleasure that fans will get from this book is that you will be able to judge whether your opinions are the same as Liam s or are totally different. After all my time in football, I know how supporters views differ, and that is the beauty of the game. I haven t had an input in the writing of this book, as I know that would spoil the concept of it being written solely from a supporter s point of view. The years Liam has written about are an interesting time for Stoke City, with plenty of excitement and drama.
Preface
ICELAND IS a small Nordic island nation in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of just over 360,000 - less than the combined population of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. The country is probably best known for its active volcanoes (everyone can still remember the name of Eyjafjallaj kull, right?), its polar climate, literary sagas, the music of Bj rk and the physical prowess of strongman Haf r J l us Bj rnsson (aka The Mountain from Game of Thrones ).
However, in recent years, the Icelandic football team have been making global headlines, not least for their memorable 2-1 victory over England at the 2016 UEFA European Championship. They also became the smallest populated nation to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in 2018. While the national team has become a highly competitive outfit in recent years, at the end of the 20th century, Icelandic football was still trying to make its mark on the footballing world. However, in late 1999, Icelandic football was about to introduce itself to a certain Staffordshire club languishing in the third tier of the English footballing pyramid.
* * *
If there was ever an opportunity to go back in time and produce a Netflix-style, fly-on-the-wall football club documentary, I can t think of a more intriguing place or period than Stoke City FC during the Icelandic years. After Sir Stan s dribbling, Tony Waddington s cup winners and Mark Stein s heroics in front of the old Boothen End, and before Rory Delap bullet throws, Ricardo Fuller mazy runs and Mark Hughes s Stokealona, there was the Icelandic era of Stoke City. A short but memorable period between 1999 and 2006 which brought pulsating matches, one-of-a-kind players, perplexing managers and remarkable off-field decisions. For those of us who experienced it first-hand, some moments from this era will always be polarising. For those who weren t old enough to see it, it was a bumpy bridge between the old and new regimes, both led by businessman Peter Coates. One thing is for sure: it was an eventful time to be a Stokie!
It has never been an easy life as a fan of Stoke City Football Club. Fleeting moments of success and silverware are often separated by prolonged periods of failure and languishing in the second or third tiers of English football. Even during our recent Premier League boom period, we found ourselves constantly protecting our own players, managers, style of play and even the fan base itself. But we still love to be part of it, and we love the drama. We still rock up to the bet365 Stadium, have a couple of overpriced bottles of beer, find our seats with that annoying know-it-all sat behind, and we scream, shout, curse and sing for 90 minutes on a Saturday afternoon. For those of us who have a particular gluttony for punishment, you can jump on a train, climb in the car, or settle down for a five-hour official coach journey (if you re lucky, you might win a tenner on the team-name raffle) to see Stoke City on the road. And why do we love it? Because it s who we are, how we identify, it runs through our veins and it s our own little red and white world. We are Stoke City FC.
Occasionally, we ll get our moment in the sunshine. A generation will never forget the moment Tony Waddington s side lifted the League Cup trophy in 1972. Between 1991 and 1993, we were crowned Division Two (now known as League One) champions and we won the Autoglass Trophy (aka the Football League Trophy), and we were seemingly destined for bigger and better things. Eventually, those bigger and better things would arrive. A decade of Premier League football. A 5-0 win in the semi-final of the FA Cup. We even had a European tour and a trip to Valencia. At time of writing, things have certainly fallen from these dizzying heights, but there is always an underlying optimism that we ll be back, no matter how far we fall - we re back to being a sleeping monster!
* * *
So here I am, a Stoke fan from birth, born and raised in Fenton, currently sat at my desk in sunny Barcelona during a period of lockdown, trapped indoors with my wife Cris. It s March 2020, and the world has ground to a halt due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). There is no football being played and the pubs are closed. We can t even go outside to visit friends and family, so there is plenty of time to think about well everything. I ve been thinking about my time as a Stoke fan, where it all began and what it was that truly captivated me. I m 31 years old and I started attending Stoke games with my parents and my brother in the mid-90s. I was too young to remember the days of Mark Stein, and would typically be left at my nan s house on Forrester Street in Longton, watching the live scores change on Ceefax. There was nothing more tense than waiting for the pages to change on Teletext in the dying minutes of a match! My earliest memories attending games are of the Victoria Ground, stood on the paddock next to the dugout watching the likes of Mike Sheron, Richard Forsythe and Ray Wallace. I can still recall games from the 1996/97 season, beating Vale 2-0 at home thanks to Mike Sheron, and beating West Brom in the last game at the Vic. I remember enjoying it all, but I wasn t fully in tune with what was happening on the pitch and what it all meant. I wouldn t really get it until the end of the 90s, in our new home - the Britannia Stadium, now known as the bet365.
My coming of age as a Stoke fan really happened around 1998, when I started to attend home and away games regularly. Family away games with my mum, dad and brother were always a treat. We would always pack in to our Vauxhall Cavalier and my dad would insist on parking in specific places that fit his own criteria - it had to be free to park, facing the right way back to Stoke and with quick access back on to the main road without any post-match queuing. Of course, this normally meant we would park at least a mile away from the stadium, spending more time walking (or even trying to find the car) than we would have spent queuing in traffic. It also led us to many a rough estate Manchester City s old ground at Maine Road was a particularly hairy away day in the car. We ended up in some half-boarded-up street in Moss Side, having to give a kid on a bike a couple of quid to not take the wheels or smash up the windo