Mate the Potters Arf goes up Anchor Road and through Dividy Road/Beverley Drive and onto the Abbey. There's seriously no warmer response that runners get in any race in the area. I'm reporting on what people tell me from outside the area although I've had the same experience.
Thanks for that fel, it's strange the things that can make you emotional and your post did that to me, it surprised me to be honest (the emotion bit, not your post
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I suppose it's because the area, much like Stoke itself, often gets a battering, in the media, when you talk to other people, on here, it seems there's always some wag ready with a derogatory comment in their quest to make themselves look bigger or more clever.
Not only that, my old man thought the world of this estate and the people on it, he started Ladsandads on the estate, was on several committees, he called the bingo at the community centre every week (even while he was battling cancer), drove the minibus for Bentilee Volunteers, supplied veg from his allotments for some of the pensioners and fought hard for the 'new' neighbourhood centre, which now houses one of the best Doctors surgeries in the area.
He was the first recipient of the Bentilee Citizen of the Year award, pretty sure they invented it for him! On the strength of which he was nominated and came 3rd in the Citizen of SOT award that year, after he died they built a memorial garden in his name on the estate.
For his funeral the people came out in force, I was humbled and amazed, when our cars arrived at the church there was a bloke directing traffic in hi viz, no clue where he came from, outside the church was a mass of people, I naively thought they'd follow us into the church with the coffin - they couldn't because the church was already full to capacity.
It isn't Shangri La obviously, it has its problems, the main one for me personally is the selfish dickheads that tear arse about on motorbikes endangering their own and other people's lives and ruining the peace but there doesn't seem quite so many of them lately, thankfully.
My sister and myself will be there for the next Potters Arf as we are every year, we'll be there also for the Star Bikers Easter egg run and hopefully the Christmas light switch on at the blokes house at the bottom of Dawlish Drive.
I feel very fortunate to have grown up here, plenty of mates, plenty of laughs, plenty of green spaces and beautiful countryside less than a ten minute walk from my house, not to mention a lot of 'interesting' characters
Just a shame we've got only one Working Mens club and 2 pubs left