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Post by FullerMagic on May 5, 2008 23:17:48 GMT
Nice work if you can get it  Times Tony Pulis looks to the Harry Redknapp experience
Peter Lansley
Keeping a promoted team in the Barclays Premier League may be football's equivalent of turning water into wine, but Tony Pulis hopes to follow Harry Redknapp's example and extend Stoke City's spell in the top flight beyond a single season.
The Stoke manager will today set about building a team who can buck the trend of recent years and be competitive in the top flight after their promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship was sealed on Sunday with a 0-0 draw at home to Leicester City, coupled with other results going their way.
Pulis worked as a player, assistant and manager at Bournemouth almost 20 years ago as he learnt his trade from Redknapp, who, in two stints in charge of Portsmouth, has offered a template of how to survive.
While Peter Coates, the Stoke chairman, is not in the same financial league as Alexandre Gaydamak, the Portsmouth owner, Pulis is preparing to “spend more than this club have ever spent” this summer, but believes that good player selection can be the key to consolidation.
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“I would be very disappointed having got promoted if we couldn't stay there,” Pulis said. “We have to invest. We have a different plan in place. The financial rewards give us a chance, if we are clever enough. I've spoken to Peter about being cleverer than others. It's about good players and about having the resources.
“I've worked with the cleverest manager who has ever lived, in Harry Redknapp. I've seen him talk Arabs into buying sand. It's knowing where the players are. We'll have to spend more money than this club has ever dreamt of spending before.”
Tony Mowbray, the West Bromwich Albion manager, has said that his team will have less adapting to do for next season because they already play a Premier League style. He also intimated that Stoke would be likelier to struggle as they rely on a direct approach that will get exposed by higher-quality opponents, able to stretch the pitch and create more holes. Pulis, however, believes that this is simply a matter of the players the two promoted teams have at their disposal.
“It's easy to stereotype,” he said. “We work hard on shape and pattern. I've watched some fantastic coaches. Harry always used to say it's about good players. The better players you get, the better you play.
“It's no coincidence that the top-four budgets are the biggest. If you organise and get them set up to work as a team you get better results. You get certain managers who get the most money who are applauded. The ones who should be applauded are the ones who have a small budget and who overachieve.”
Stoke will enjoy an open-top bus ride around the city tonight before a civic ceremony to mark their return to the top flight after a 23-year absence. Coates, who is in the process of buying the club's training ground, will then sit down to talk budgets with Pulis, who is likely to receive a £1million bonus for achieving promotion in his second season back at the club.
Stoke's attendances have averaged only around 16,000 this season but Pulis believes they will be playing in front of sell-out crowds again in the Premier League. “The chairman will tell you that we have lost a few generations of supporters because we have been in this division for so long,” the manager said. “We will now, I think, generate a new group of supporters around Stoke-on-Trent.
“That is vital for the club. Traditionally this club has been very well supported and the chairman is absolutely convinced that this will start it all off again and those supporters will come back. We have a big catchment area. Peter knows the club as he has been a supporter since he was a kid so I believe what he says.”
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Post by FullerMagic on May 5, 2008 23:20:17 GMT
Independent
James Lawton: Potters promotion stokes memories of Waddington's mastery of management
He prided himself on 15 years in the company of men like Busby, Revie and Clough
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Tony Waddington, who was the manager of Stoke City for 17 years and has a crescent of new houses near the Britannia Ground named for him, would no doubt be delighted to know that the club he sweated over – most liberally when the Scotch flowed, as it invariably did, into the early hours of the post-match morning – is back in the top flight of English football after 23 years.
However, it must be said – without diminishing for a second the glory of the current manager Tony Pulis and his hard-working, hard-running troops – that long before the end of the excruciating tension of the goalless draw with Leicester City at the weekend Waddington would have been forced to reach out for at least a small nip of the consoling tincture.
The fact is that, had he made it to these days of result-oriented, ProZone, functional football, the legendary "Waddo" would almost certainly have resigned himself to the status of misplaced person.
He prided himself on 15 unbroken years in the competitive company of men like Matt Busby, Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough, Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison, Bill Nicholson and Bertie Mee; on bringing back Stanley Matthews to play out his last days among his own people; and on a string of signings predicated on the belief that the last of the summer wine would almost certainly prove better value than that from the green grapes of spring.
The Matthews homecoming was, of course, a stroke of genius that would not have meant anything if the 46-year-old legend had not retained some of the last of his sublime ability to occasionally ransack a defence. He could no longer do it with the blinding 10-yard burst of speed that had, among the very highest class of wingers, made Tom Finney his only serious rival, but what he still had was a radar system which picked up the smallest chink of vulnerability – and the technical skill to thread a killing pass.
Waddington was smart enough and visionary enough to notice this.
He sought out and hoarded great old players as a book collector might rummage for the first editions of Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh in dusty corners of the Charing Cross Road.
They came in a stream ... Peter Dobing, skilled and vital from Manchester City; Dennis Viollet, so long the scoring matador of Old Trafford; Roy Vernon, the moody Welshman who in all modesty, boyo, insisted he was the equal to any goalscoring inside forward in the world; Jimmy McIlroy, a suave Irish craftsman of the first rank; George Eastham, a football revolutionary in the courts when he battled for freedom of contract and a master of the subtle touch on the field...
If a great player wasn't old, he might be disaffected, sniffing for new pastures, and that's how Waddington seized the world's greatest goalkeeper, Gordon Banks, from Leicester City for £52,000. And when his time was done, there was a successful move for the brilliant understudy who made Leicester go for the Banks money, Peter Shilton.
When civil war broke out at Stamford Bridge, the Stoke manager moved for the sometimes indolent Alan Hudson, reckoning, correctly, that he could, with respect and careful treatment, draw out the best of a brilliant talent.
In the end it took one hostile act of nature to end the days of wine and roses at the old Victoria Ground, a gale that ripped off the roof of the Butler Street Stand and required Waddington to sell off the cream of his team – Hudson, Jimmy Greenhoff, another thoroughbred brought to the Potteries in the afterglow of his best years, and the tough, excellent, home-grown left-back Micky Pejic.
Thus denuded, Stoke slid out of the top flight and Waddington, honourable and maybe a little weary of attempting to balance the books while making fantasy football, tendered his resignation.
His list of major trophies was not great – indeed, it consisted solely of the 1972 League Cup, snatched from the favourites, Chelsea, at Wembley after a titanic, four-match battle with West Ham United – but his legacy was huge. It was about the grace of genteel poverty, of living above your means for so long, and leaving reminders that you had passed a certain way, most notably two epic FA Cup semi-finals with Double-winning Arsenal, both settled in replays, and the ending of Leeds United's phenomenal 29-game unbeaten record – one that would only be surpassed by Arsenal a few years ago – in a 3-2 victory in which Dobing resurrected the sharpest of his game to score a hat-trick.
The other part of the Waddington inheritance, for those who survived it, was the valuable lesson that a football club was not only about wins and losses but also an interior life, a warmth that touched everyone, including all kinds of visitors. Of course, such an approach became extinct at least a decade or so ago, but it lives strongly in the memory of those who enjoyed it.
Matthew Engel, a journalist who eventually touched such peaks of his profession as the Washington bureau of the The Guardian and the editorship of Wisden, confessed that his one regret about giving up a brief interlude of freelance football reporting was that he never got to cover a Stoke City home game when Tony Waddington was in charge.
Some sports writers would question that ambition, especially the one who yesterday recalled the time he left the Victoria Ground at 3am and finished up with his car hanging over a Staffordshire river bank rather like the charabanc in The Italian Job.
Derek Hodgson, the No 1 football writer at the Express, which at the time sold more than three million copies a day, was so beguiled he joined Waddington as his assistant manager. It was a career convulsion that later led to Hodgson becoming cricket correspondent of The Independent. "Joining Tony probably wasn't the smartest move I made professionally, but at the time it seemed like one of the most attractive jobs in sport."
The chairman, Albert Henshall, was one of Waddington's most enthusiastic champions. He helped to drum up the money for the fantasy deals and celebrated them more ferociously than most. Known as King Lear for his crooked smile, Henshall led the club on a tour of West Africa. Over the breakfast table a football writer reported he had woken to the company of a large but not unfriendly green lizard with small red eyes. "Sure it wasn't the chairman?" he was asked.
On the eve of the Cup final, Stoke always bought champagne in the bar of their hotel in Russell Square. The toast – apart from the year they beat Chelsea in the League Cup – was almost invariably to success in the Staffordshire Senior Cup.
Today, the celebration, for entirely different but utterly legitimate reasons, is for another kind of success in another age of football, and there is no hardship in drinking to this one. Still, there should be no shame in remembering the days when Tony Waddington gave us the unforgettable taste of that old summer wine.
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Post by Vodkab1ock on May 5, 2008 23:22:00 GMT
if he keeps us up next year i'd give him a 3million bonus
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Post by Premier League Busta Rhymes on May 5, 2008 23:22:17 GMT
Thanks for that  I've seen him talk Arabs into buying sand. ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by FullerMagic on May 5, 2008 23:22:49 GMT
At least 3m ;D
I suppose he's earned it, given how much the promotion has made the club.
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Post by DentySCFC on May 5, 2008 23:24:13 GMT
£1m? Pulis out, far too much money. (joking)  |
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Post by trout-licker on May 5, 2008 23:28:20 GMT
'promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship was sealed on Sunday with a 0-0 draw at home to Leicester City, coupled with other results going their way.' Other results were irrelevant, we noly needed a point to go up!  |
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Post by Done it for scfcbuxton on May 5, 2008 23:31:03 GMT
lazy journalism
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Post by bogus on May 5, 2008 23:31:33 GMT
A good read but........Dobing hat-trick in the Leeds game??
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Post by Alvechurch Assassin on May 5, 2008 23:32:03 GMT
that Independent piece is possibly the best I've read over the weekend
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Post by powchirper on May 6, 2008 0:01:22 GMT
A good read but........Dobing hat-trick in the Leeds game?? I was on the boothen that day and all 5 goals were scored that end and Dobing did not score an hat trick. |
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Post by pedleym on May 6, 2008 0:50:43 GMT
Dobing did score a hat trick in a 3-2 home win against Leeds but it was years earlier that that famous 3-2 win -- around 1969. The late-season game ended a long winning run for Leeds and a long losing run for Stoke, who had been looking a good bet for relegation. More sloppy reporting.
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Post by FullerMagic on May 6, 2008 1:02:20 GMT
Telegraph Stoke must change for Premier League survival
By Ian Winrow
Last Updated: 1:40am BST 06/05/2008
This evening's open-top bus tour and civic reception means that by tomorrow morning, newly promoted Stoke City will have first hand experience of the notorious feeling that apparently comes after the Lord Mayor's parade.
Any sense of anti-climax, though, will be a long time coming in the Potteries, despite the daunting prospect of transforming an effective Championship side into one capable of competing on something approaching an equal footing in the Premier League.
Stoke players and fans celebrate promotion
Potteries pandemonium: Stoke players and fans celebrate promotion
The 23 years spent scrapping around the second and third tiers mean that the exuberant celebrations that followed Sunday's confirmation of promotion are not about to subside under the weight of any negative assessments of the club's prospects for next season. The response of both chairman Peter Coates and manager Tony Pulis to the inevitable questions about what happens next has been to insist that the next few days are simply to be savoured before the number-crunching begins in earnest and Pulis, budget in hand, sets about strengthening his squad.
The pair will meet towards the end of this week and there is little doubt Pulis' wish-list will be a considerable one. The promotion-winning side has been built on the foundations of a well-organised and well-drilled group of competitive players, enhanced by the more impulsive talents of forward Ricardo Fuller and former Sunderland midfielder Liam Lawrence, and the manager is well aware he needs to add quality and quantity if Stoke are to avoid an immediate return to the Championship with the club in a worse state than it was 12 months previously.
The manager's ability to attract experienced players on short-term loan deals and introduce more youthful talents like Ryan Shawcross, the impressive England Under-21 centre-back signed from Manchester United for £1million in January has confirmed his eye for a player. It is a skill he claims he learned as a young coach working alongside Harry Redknapp at Bournemouth, but he is under no illusion about the scale of the task confronting him. "Nobody needs to tell me how hard it will be in the Premier League," admitted the manager. "We have to change the structure of the club drastically to have a chance of surviving."
The gamble for Coates and Pulis now is to decide how much of next season's vastly increased revenue can, and should, be committed without burdening the club with unsustainable overheads but the strong relationship between manager and chairman - it was Coates' persuasive powers that enticed Pulis back to the club for a second spell in the face of considerable supporter opposition - means the club will avoid the self-destructive internal strife that has undermined other newly promoted clubs.
"Getting promoted to the Premier League is an enormous thing and we want to make the most of it," said Coates, who has amassed a personal fortune of around £300?million from bookmaking and internet gambling interests. "It's a great chance for us to develop and that's what we aim to do. The priority is to stay up. We have other things, we are in the process of buying the training ground and we have things we need to do at the ground. But it is about getting a good team together at the Britannia Stadium and winning matches. That is our No 1 priority. We know it's a tough challenge, all the evidence tells us that."
The queues of supporters winding around the merchandise store at the Britannia Stadium yesterday underlined the depth of the club's fan base and if Stoke can emulate the likes of Reading and Wigan Athletic and survive those challenging first 12 months, the opportunity will then be there to establish a foothold in the top division. "We didn't want to get ahead of ourselves so we've been almost paranoid and didn't want to talk about what might happen if we get promotion," added Coates. "But I'm confident we can be competitive.
"We have just got to be clever and prudent. We are not going to go up to lie down, we are going up to have a go. I will be sitting down over the next weeks and working out a strategy to be competitive. It's about good management on and off the field, but it's a competitive world and it's easier to say that than it is to achieve but we want to stay up and we want to be viable. I've gambled this year and I'm fortunate it's come off because we've put resources into the club to enable us to have a better squad that the club couldn't really sustain without extra resources."
Memory lane
Stoke's last match in the top flight was on May 17, 1985 when they lost 1-0 to Coventry. Their team that day included George Berry, Adrian Heath, Mark Chamberlain and Steve Bould.
The world was a rather different place 15 managers, 23 years and 1,057 league matches ago in May 1985.
Margaret Thatcher was barely midway through her 11-year premiership; Paul Hardcastle's 'N-n-n-nineteen' was No 1; EastEnders was only three months old and Vodafone had just made the first British cell phone.
It was also a notable year for births... Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Keira Knightley.
£35m
The minimum amount Stoke will earn in TV revenue from promotion, even if they finish 20th
£12m
The parachute payment they will receive each season for two years if they go down immediately
£300m
The amount Stoke chairman and betting tycoon Peter Coates is worth
Premier planning
What they've got:
Tony Pulis' side are well organised and play to the strengths of Liam Lawrence on the right of midfield and the pace of striker Ricardo Fuller.
What they need
Fuller is the only forward to have reached double figures in goals and needs support. The midfield need strengthening to compete at the higher level.
Budget:
The murmurings from the boardroom have so far been positive and Pulis will be hoping he can call on around £15 million to go shopping with.
Targets
Newcastle forward Shola Ameobi (£4 m), Sheffield United forward James Beattie (£4 m), Manchester United forward Fraizer Campbell (possible loan), Everton midfielder Lee Carsley (free agent).
Survival rating
Their chances already look bleak.
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Post by mumf14 on May 6, 2008 1:07:52 GMT
A very good piece of honest journalism.
But Pulis will prove his doubters wrong...Of that I'm certain.!
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Post by Dallas Cowboy on May 6, 2008 3:49:35 GMT
Dobing was 24 when he joined Stoke City, hardly one of the "old" players James Lawton's article describes. He joined from relegated Manchester City.
Dobing's hat-trick against Leeds United came on April 23, 1968 at a time when Leeds were going for the double and Stoke were in danger of relegation. I remember that match as if it were only yesterday, one of the finest hat-tricks ever scored by a Stoke player, especially considering the significance of the victory.
Here, from The Sentinel, Dobing recalls that game.
Peter Dobing was Stoke City's skipper during the most memorable period in the club's history. He led the team in the 2-1 win over Chelsea in the League Cup final in 1972 and in two FA Cup semi-finals against Arsenal in 1971 and 1972. But the match he remembers best is the 3-2 win over Leeds United in 1968, when he scored a hat-trick which virtually saved Stoke from relegation.
"I'm sure many Stoke supporters will remember that home game against Leeds in 1968, not just for my hat-trick but for the unbelievable excitement in the last 20 minutes when we just held out to win 3-2. It was near the end of the season and we were in real danger of relegation. But this win against Leeds was the turning-point and we fought our way to safety.
Leeds came to The Victoria Ground as the team of the season. Don Revie was still at the peak of his career and had players like Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter, Jack Charlton, Johnny Giles, Sniffer Clarke, Eddie Gray - really a team of stars.
They were in line for the First Division title, so the result meant as much to them as it did to us. Yet incredibly we were two goals up at half-time and playing like a team possessed.
I was playing at centre-forward against Charlton, who wasn't the fastest player in the world and I was quick enough to leave him standing.
After 20 minutes George Eastham gave me a through ball. I chased off away from Charlton, so quickly that the ball nearly went over the dead-ball line. I retrieved it and hit a shot from the left which went behind Gary Sprake, hit the bar and went in.
Just before half-time, I drew Charlton with me across the front of the penalty area, then turned and struck the ball with my left foot. It flew inside the post. We were two goals up. The crowd hummed all through the break.
But in the second half Leeds showed us their true style. Jimmy Greenhoff, then a Leeds player, made it 2-1 and Charlton moved up to head into the net from a corner. It was all square.
The pace became frantic but we stayed in the game and forced a corner on the left. Harry Burrows swung the ball over, John Mahoney back-headed it and again I got away from Charlton, breasted the ball down and scored from three yards.
For the last 20 minutes Leeds seemed to go wild and they put our goal under siege. It seemed that the closing stages of the game were played in or around our penalty area. I was defending the whole time.
They hit the post and Banksie saved miraculously once or twice. The referee added on at least five minutes of injury time but somehow we survived.
I can't remember ever playing in such a tense atmosphere as that.
My brother Brian told me he was jumping up and down in the players' box and hit his head on a girder."
Pulis would do well to bring in a player similar to Dobing for next season's campaign. Just a pity that you can no longer get a player of Dobing's skill and class for 37,500 GBP.
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Post by headsgoup on May 6, 2008 6:07:06 GMT
Yes, I was at the 'Dobing hat trick' game against leeds. I can only remember the winner when he somehow scored from an acute angle in front of the Boothen end. It was a night match and Jack Charlton scored for Leeds. He used to stand on the near post for corners and he could jump higher than the goalkeepers could reach!
Anyway we dicked them and did so regularly at home in big games. There were three games that ended 3-2 to Stoke. The other famous one is the one that broke their record run in the 70s, Smithy scoring with a diving header, I think it was the winner.
The only bad home defeat we had against them was a 2-6. I was ill at the time and missed that game though.
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Post by FullerMagic on May 6, 2008 7:19:15 GMT
Guardian
Staying up will be the true test of Stoke's tactics
Premier League quality may force Tony Pulis to reassess his long-ball game, writes Stuart James
Never mind wondering whether Stoke City are ready for the Premier League, there will be plenty of Championship supporters asking if the Premier League is ready for Stoke City.
Winning promotion rather than friends has been the theme at the Britannia Stadium this season, where Stoke's uncompromising style has ruffled a few feathers. It is an approach that promises to attract criticism from the purists come August, but is it also one that could hold the key to survival?
While West Bromwich Albion's free-flowing football has been revered in the Championship, it is not unreasonable to believe that Premier League managers will relish the chance to take on a team that plays such an expansive game. Stoke, on the other hand, are likely to make life much more uncomfortable for their opponents. Well-organised and physically imposing, Tony Pulis's side have developed a reputation for, in football parlance, rattling a few cages.
Success has duly followed, the players seemingly galvanised rather than upset by the criticism. "People cane us for the way we play but it doesn't bother us what people say," said Liam Lawrence, the Stoke midfielder. "Next season is going to be unbelievably hard - we know that. But we are going to be men about it. The way we play works for us. We're a big side and if we have to just keep on doing what we're doing then so be it."
Although Watford's one-dimensional game failed in the Premier League a year ago, when Aidy Boothroyd's side were relegated after one season, it is not necessary to go back as far as Wimbledon to find a team that managed to bruise a few egos in the top flight through a more direct approach. Bolton, despite Sam Allardyce's protestations to the contrary, proved it was possible to compete without being particularly pleasing on the eye.
George Berry, the former Stoke captain who played for the club the last time they were in the top flight, hopes that Pulis can reprise Allardyce's feat although he believes the manager will need to "refine" his approach.
"I have seen some unbelievable stuff this year, when they have been passing the ball at the back," said Berry. "In between that I've seen them play long ball. If it works and gets them promotion, great, but I don't think a direct style will survive in the Premier League."
Dave Bassett, the former Wimbledon and Sheffield United manager, is not so sure. "It will certainly work against some Premier League sides who will find it difficult," he said.
"Opponents might have technically gifted players but are they going to be able to defend Stoke's corners? Are they going to be able to defend the long throws? Are they going to be able to defend the free...#8209;kicks? I wouldn't bet against Stoke staying up.
"I think Tony has done a very good job. The foundations are strong and when it gets rocky the thing doesn't blow down. They have got areas where they think it's important to be creative and they've got areas where they know it's no nonsense and the ball needs to be dispatched. They're very good on their set plays. Tony obviously works hard on certain aspects of the game and a lot of other clubs don't pay as much attention to it."
Bassett, noting Chelsea were "smashing it to [Didier] Drogba" when chasing victory over Arsenal last month and pointing out that José Reina often punts upfield for Liverpool, claims long ball is much more prevalent among Premier League clubs than some people would imagine. He also says that Pulis and his players should take the negative comments that have emanated from rival managers, Bryan Robson and Dave Jones among them, as a compliment.
"The reason some managers criticise Stoke is because they don't know how to cope," said Bassett. "Their job is to manage their own team, not to be criticising others. Stoke are doing nothing illegal. But teams don't want to play the same way so they become disparaging and put the word round that 'this is ugly football'. It's a load of nonsense. You know when you play Stoke they are going to cause you problems. If you have got anything about you, you do something about it."
How easily Stoke's approach is countered is likely to be far from Pulis's mind tonight when the manager, along with his players, celebrates promotion on an open-top bus tour of the city.
The 50-year-old was an unpopular appointment when he returned to Stoke to replace John Boskamp in June 2006 as fans expressed fears about the lack of entertainment that would accompany his reign. A place in the Premier League should more than compensate.
"The manager was the worst person that the fans thought could come to our club," recalled Berry. "So many fans said, 'We don't want him because he just booms it.' Guess what? He's won the fans over and he's stuck to his guns. But he doesn't just boom it. What he does is he plays in areas. I would never criticise a man who has won promotion. The fact is he has gone up playing this way. He's got to make a decision whether playing like that will keep them in that division."
The ugliest teams in Premier League history
Arsenal 1992-96
It is easy to forget the days of Anders Limpar, Michael Thomas and David Rocastle when deriding George Graham's "boring" Arsenal. But that may be because Eddie McGoldrick, Ian Selley and David Hillier followed. They won things but entertaining it was not
Wimbledon 1999-2000
Welly-wearing Egil Olsen had enjoyed success as coach of Norway and he brought his complicated - to the Wimbledon players at least - theories to south London. Few mourned the relegation of a side playing punts to Carl Cort on the wing so he could bang it over to John Hartson, pictured
Bolton 2004-
Sam Allardyce placed more faith in systems than players but with Youri Djorkaeff alongside Jay-Jay Okocha they played quite pretty football. Then Djorkaeff left, Kevin Davies became the focus and the aesthetes were driven away
Chelsea 2005-07
After a not unappealing first title-winning season in 2004-05, Jose Mourinho's Chelsea became progressively more difficult to love as a systematic approach focused on the powerful and collapsible Didier Drogba sucked the flair out of the team
Watford 2006-07
Managed by Aidy Boothroyd, another "functional" Watford side. The first half of the season saw some invention from Ashley Young on the wing but this went when he was sold to Aston Villa in January. Relegation was no surprise, or disappointment, to most
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Post by realstokebloke on May 6, 2008 9:54:19 GMT
Some top articles there - cheers grapey.
A great perspective on the Waddo years - either a reminder for all the oldies out there or a brief history lesson for the more spotty or great unwashed 'fans' of other, "Johnny come lately" teams that we do have a top flight heritage to be proud of.
Interesting perspectives too; some seem to think we need a complete metamorphosis into becoming brazil mrk ii to survive while others think Prem teams "won' t like it up 'em! Mr Manwaering" with a bit of what we're good at already (cue Dicko to be a Prem legend by Christmas!).
Fantastic to get the deserved column inches for a change - long may it continue.
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Post by thepremierbanksy on May 6, 2008 10:00:26 GMT
Bassett's comments are spot on, he has us down to a tee.
Lawton's piece was enjoyable, and also quite informative for a 25 year old. Despite banging on about it for my entire life it seems there are still things my Dad hasn't told me about the seventies.
Pulis deserves his £1m, anyone who has two factions of supporters called the Hating Wankstains and the Rimmers does really! Hopefully those days are over now.
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Post by realstokebloke on May 6, 2008 10:08:47 GMT
Lawton's piece was enjoyable, and also quite informative for a 25 year old. Despite banging on about it for my entire life it seems there are still things my Dad hasn't told me about the seventies. |
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Post by Dallas Cowboy on May 6, 2008 13:21:43 GMT
Lawton was reporting in the days of Waddington.
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Post by thepremierbanksy on May 6, 2008 13:32:14 GMT
RSB, I'm the 25 year old, not James Lawton. He grew up with Dinosaurs. Generally a very good journalist from what i've experienced of his writing.
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