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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 13, 2008 11:58:29 GMT
I was waiting for us to get going in the 87/88 season.....then realised it had finished.
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Post by titanic on Oct 14, 2008 7:45:39 GMT
Arguably the decision to award Mills a new contract in the Summer of '89 set the club back 20 years.
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Post by ParaPsych on Oct 14, 2008 12:08:24 GMT
The main thing I remember of the Mick Mills era was the Great Mills sign between the Boothen End and Butler Street.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 14, 2008 13:12:43 GMT
And for a while there was that dugout on the Butler Street side of the pitch.
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Post by sheikhmomo on Oct 14, 2008 13:16:24 GMT
Yeah I remember whe Ooh Georgie Berry was out injured he used to sit in the dugout on that side and walk right across the half way line in a glorious sheepskin coat.
These sort of observations were often much more interesting than the football.
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Post by bogus on Oct 14, 2008 13:16:51 GMT
He could certainly spot a decent right back.............Dixon, Butler.
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Post by mark71 on Oct 14, 2008 13:23:20 GMT
Thats just typical of Stoke. we put our hand in a barrel full of tits and end up sucking our thumb!
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Post by Davef on Oct 14, 2008 16:24:25 GMT
He could certainly spot a decent right back.............Dixon, Butler. ...Gidman, Statham...
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Post by Cityfullergoals on Oct 14, 2008 17:05:34 GMT
Enjoyed reading this debate - a lot of sensible comments (for a change ), the only thing I will add is that if Mick Mills and Lou Macari were given the exact same squad, I think we all know who would be the most successful
Millsy was a fine footballer, but I think he was too much of a gentleman to be a successful manager. The best managers can motivate players and get 110 per cent out of them (Macari), wheras nice guys like Mick may not have that "extra" steel which turns you from a decent manager into a very good one
Just an opinion
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Post by bogus on Oct 14, 2008 17:23:05 GMT
He could certainly spot a decent right back.............Dixon, Butler. ...Gidman, Statham... I did say right, not left.
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Post by gordonmarshall on Oct 14, 2008 18:40:32 GMT
Arguably the decision to award Mills a new contract in the Summer of '89 set the club back 20 years. Could not be further from the truth,the board panicked as they watched Port Vale in the same division as us.Mills saved us from dropping further than we did.He would have kept us up but the board made a mistake in sacking him and appointing Alan Ball(brillant football person,just didn't work for him at Stoke).That was when the rot set in.
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Post by Northy on Oct 14, 2008 19:10:14 GMT
I can't really remember that much about his era, I was pissed a lot in the 80's weekends and the games were a blur I do remember the 2 Leeds games, and didn't we lose 5-0 at Norwich or was that the holocaust season. I suppose in reality he did well to stop us free falling down the leagues.
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Post by Davef on Oct 14, 2008 21:06:29 GMT
Arguably the decision to award Mills a new contract in the Summer of '89 set the club back 20 years. Could not be further from the truth,the board panicked as they watched Port Vale in the same division as us.Mills saved us from dropping further than we did.He would have kept us up but the board made a mistake in sacking him and appointing Alan Ball(brillant football person,just didn't work for him at Stoke).That was when the rot set in. I repeat, 2 wins from his final 30 matches in charge, 1 win in the first 16 of the 89/90 season, his final match a humililating 0-6 defeat at Swindon and he'd completely lost the dressing room. How on the earth do you come to the conclusion that he'd have kept us up that season?
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Post by goodjobson on Oct 14, 2008 21:31:11 GMT
Titanic - the unsinkable ship.
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Post by titanic on Oct 15, 2008 17:01:23 GMT
'I repeat, 2 wins from his final 30 matches in charge, 1 win in the first 16 of the 89/90 season, his final match a humililating 0-6 defeat at Swindon and he'd completely lost the dressing room'. You could argue that Ball subsequently improved results by 100%, since at least he managed to win 4 of the next 30 in the same division Compared to other clubs in the second tier, we were relatively high spenders in the summer of '89. However, Mills had lost the plot by then (and the dressing room) and his inability to get the new signings to gel properly and our subsequent relegation in May 1990 was extremely costly. We slid downwards at a time when we could ill-afford to and the Premier League was on the horizon. When we returned to the second tier in 1993, things had changed significantly. We were not in a position to challenge financially with other clubs in the league - arguably until only a couple of years ago.
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Post by gordonmarshall on Oct 15, 2008 17:29:01 GMT
In the last 22 games of that season under Alan Ball we only won 2,and at one point only scored 1 goal in 7.What happened after relegation MM can not be held to account over,he did a brillant job in keeping us away from Division 3.He had worked hard to consolidate and was rebuilding Stoke City FC.When we suffered relegation at Newcastle United that season i am sure those in attendance that day would have swapped relegation for another Mid-table Mick Mills finish? Why did the board find £1 million at the same time Port Vale got promoted? The board sacking Mick Mills was the start of the decline,that can not be argued against as we suffered relegation to division 3 for the first time since 1927 only 5 months later.If they wanted to get rid of Mills they should have done it in the summer of 89 and let someone else have the money.They got it wrong in replacing him with Alan Ball.
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Post by titanic on Oct 15, 2008 19:22:38 GMT
Actually Stenny, I was wrong, Ball won 5 games after Mills was sacked - Brighton (3-2), Newcastle (2-1), Middlesborough (1-0), Wolves (2-0) and Brighton away (4-1).We only won 6 games all season. The one win under Mills was versus WBA (2-1). I'm not defending Ball by any stretch of the imagination, but the rot had clearly set in under Mills who was just as responsible for our demise that season. How you can say otherwise really is putting a spin on historical record.
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Post by Davef on Oct 15, 2008 20:45:27 GMT
What happened after relegation MM can not be held to account over,he did a brillant job in keeping us away from Division 3.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 15, 2008 20:51:52 GMT
Why did the board find £1 million at the same time Port Vale got promoted?
Because they knew they had Peter Beagrie and if it went tits up they could always sell him to cope with the debt. Which they did.
Mills had been rebuilding since he arrived and was still nowhere near having a team capable of competing. Keeping us away from division three wasn't an achievement after 1986.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 15, 2008 20:52:06 GMT
Why did the board find £1 million at the same time Port Vale got promoted?
Because they knew they had Peter Beagrie and if it went tits up they could always sell him to cope with the debt. Which they did.
Mills had been rebuilding since he arrived and was still nowhere near having a team capable of competing. Keeping us away from division three wasn't an achievement after 1986.
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Post by gordonmarshall on Oct 16, 2008 6:56:48 GMT
What happened after relegation MM can not be held to account over,he did a brillant job in keeping us away from Division 3. Davef, Just to clarify that quote it was in reference to the relegation in 1989/90 season.How anyone can blame Mick Mills for what went wrong after that i will never know. The facts are still there though after relegation in 85 Stoke City were in freefall, MM arrived and stabilised the club.The club sack MM and are relegated. The point i am really trying to make though is MM still does not recieve the credit he deserves for the job he did. Give me a Mick Mills over Kamara,Little,Bates,Jordan and Cotterill any day.
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 16, 2008 7:07:08 GMT
The club sack MM and are relegated.
But it was Mills who put us into freefall. Yes he did stabilise us, nobody doubts that BUT he couldn't get us to mount a substantial promotion challenge then we deterioated under his watch.
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Post by lordb on Oct 16, 2008 7:28:34 GMT
what was that extra dug out all about?
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 16, 2008 7:36:15 GMT
At the start of that season they went on about the extra dugout as a marvellous innovation. As if they had just found a cure for bloody cancer or something.
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Post by titanic on Oct 16, 2008 7:55:14 GMT
'Give me a Mick Mills over Kamara,Little,Bates,Jordan and Cotterill any day'. Stenny, that's hardly an impressive list? On what basis do you think that Mills would have kept Stoke up in 89/90, given he only accumulated 11 points from the first 16 games (average of 0.69 points per game)? How would he have improved things?
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Post by JoeinOz on Oct 16, 2008 7:59:28 GMT
We went down with Ball who decided to recruit third division reserves. This doesn't mean Mills would have kept us up. Remember he'd spent money to bring around a promotion challenge and he took us to the bottom of the league.
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Post by titanic on Oct 16, 2008 11:39:11 GMT
Indeed Joe. Ball's average points per game was only marginally better (0.83).
In my book, Mills and Ball were both equally culperable.
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jnb14
Youth Player
Posts: 269
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Post by jnb14 on Oct 16, 2008 11:50:49 GMT
£1m was a lot of money in those days - spent on, I think, Cranson, Biggins, Ian Scott and a free in Derek Statham. 16,000 for the first home game against Macari's West Ham, Kamara's tackle on McAvennie, Biggins nodding an equalizer. I seem to remember us playing quite well the first few matches, missing numerous chances, Cranson and Biggins getting injured and then just before playing Sunderland we sell Beagrie - pretty quickly, certainly October time. S'land beat us comfortably -Bracewell scoring, and it was downhil to being stuffed at Ardiles' Swindon. Ball started with a win and he had plenty of time to save us and he spent a fair amount of money too £250,000 for Tony Ellis?? In today's terms that was enough money to have at least got in the play-offs. Mills was a paradox - he seemed to do better the less money he had. Some have said that about Pulis For me the biggest waste of talent, in all respects, was Tony Kelly - the white one - if only he could pass a pie shop as well as he could pass a ball
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Post by lordb on Oct 16, 2008 12:13:29 GMT
the key problem at the start of 89-90 was Dave fucking Bamber (a Mills signing so Mills's fault) who missed more open goals in the 1st 7/8 games than Mama (yes Mama!!) has missed in his life (including training,playground knockabouts & all his worst nightmares).
if we had had even an average striker like say Morgan upfront we would have had 4/5 wins & been hunky dory.
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Post by titanic on Oct 16, 2008 14:39:08 GMT
Ah Dave Bamber...the missing piece in the jigsaw...
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