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Post by sheikhmomo on Nov 8, 2008 22:49:33 GMT
Was green and white stripes their colour of choice when they dicked us?
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Post by blurtonboy66 on Nov 8, 2008 22:50:16 GMT
almost sure it was mate
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Post by johnfarmersmum on Nov 8, 2008 23:07:38 GMT
Yep...Alan Shoulder an all ! 6th Feb 78... My 15th Birthday... Stoke wearing all yellow and i got Mr Blue Sky by ELO in blue vinyl for my Birthday pressie !
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Post by swampySCFC on Nov 8, 2008 23:10:51 GMT
twas a very dark green as well
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Post by Stay up again for - hoodyjr on Nov 8, 2008 23:12:05 GMT
what was the score i just watched them dik shrewsbury and herd him say that there best memory was beatin us and im to young to know this lol and never herd about it ?
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Post by swampySCFC on Nov 8, 2008 23:26:17 GMT
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Post by Cityfullergoals on Nov 8, 2008 23:32:16 GMT
It was a wet and windy night game, and I remember going home thinking the world had ended
That was the lowest of the low since I have supported my beloved SCFC since the age of 9, and really thought we had a chance in the FA cup that year
You go on about glory hunters these days, but the shit I recieved at school the next day from my classmates who werent Stoke was unreal
Definately a night to remember for BS, and a night to forget for me
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Post by JoeinOz on Nov 8, 2008 23:42:54 GMT
What a horrible night. It'd been postponed twice. Football shouldn't be allowed on Monday nights.  |
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Post by victoriaboothenboy on Nov 9, 2008 0:35:16 GMT
Congratulations to our friends at Blyth Spartans.Good luck in the next round-look forward to playing them in Round 3 , Revenge is well overdue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by JoeinOz on Nov 9, 2008 0:38:52 GMT
They are the last side I want!! In fact I never ever want to hear their name again!! ;D
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Post by victoriaboothenboy on Nov 9, 2008 0:45:04 GMT
One of the worst days in my life Joe, But this is one ghost that needs to be laid to rest
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Post by JoeinOz on Nov 9, 2008 7:28:29 GMT
Did we play in yellow against them? We'd have beat Wrexham in the next round as well. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2008 10:03:44 GMT
Is it wrong to hope they knock Vale out in the next round?
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Post by JoeinOz on Nov 9, 2008 10:12:20 GMT
Sounds like it was a good game at Huddersfield.
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Post by sonofbanks on Nov 9, 2008 11:39:23 GMT
can remember some bloke setting fire to his scarf and jumping up and down on it on the Boothen paddock touchline after the game, ........seems like yesterday, christ i'm getting old  |
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Post by Cyprusdelilah on Nov 9, 2008 11:56:35 GMT
I was there all I can remember is everybody seemed to be walking around in slow motion and know sound.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2008 12:52:17 GMT
It was the corner-flag game, wasn't it? (Or I am getting confused in me old age).
A devastating day ... I think I'd rather avoid them in future competitions if at all possible, I'm not sure me heart could take the strain that playing them will inevitably cause ...
ah
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Post by JoeinOz on Nov 9, 2008 12:57:00 GMT
I was in the Boothen paddock and in the stand above us some of their fans were chanting 'Easy easy' when they were 1-0 up and it was bloody horrible. The voices all seemed so high pitched.
I thought we'd piss it after hammering Tilbury.
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Post by guernseydave on Nov 9, 2008 13:14:43 GMT
It was almost as bad at the Stenhousebastardmuir incident  GD |
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Post by Davef on Nov 9, 2008 13:16:23 GMT
Green and white stripes was their strip, but apparently a local company bought them a new Hibernian-style strip which they wore against us.
Blyth Spartans on a cup run, we have a change strip of yellow and blue...I feel faint!
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Post by dthomas31uk on Nov 10, 2008 14:57:03 GMT
Yeah, I went, it was the worst feeling ever. Think they beat us 3-2, makes me cringe now thinking of it
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Post by tnbiscuitswithtone on Nov 10, 2008 15:17:59 GMT
andy har, is it true you only went to oz so that you don't have to watch
us play B S again ???
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Post by visunitafortior on Nov 10, 2008 16:31:56 GMT
I want the Vale in the cup so I hope that Blyth lose.
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Post by tazi on Nov 10, 2008 16:48:00 GMT
Lost 2-3 and as the song went.
1:0 down, 2:1 up, now we've gone an fucked the cup, nah, nah , nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
Was a very very sad and lonely journey back home that night, with memories in seeing many Stokies in despair with many many scarves floating down the river.
I also remember at that time vowing to go and support Watford - Not really a good idea considering pocket money was around a pound a week for me then.
Nonetheless the pain soon eased and i was back at the Victoria ground cheering on the lads.
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Post by mystokebadge on Nov 10, 2008 17:49:24 GMT
Dark days like that make us love days like this, something a whole generation of tv man u and all the glory boys will never understand.
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Post by sonofbanks on Nov 10, 2008 20:04:52 GMT
Posted by mystokebadge on Yesterday at 22:49
Dark days like that make us love days like this, something a whole generation of tv man u and all the glory boys will never understand.
Absolutely bang on the money my friend, exactly how I feel.
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Post by hamsta2 on Nov 10, 2008 21:16:56 GMT
Remember it v well - damn cold too. Roger Jones - wot a man - dropping the corner on the s Spartan's forward's corner was comedy genius. Garth threw his shirt on The floor at the end and we featured on On The Ball the following week with Smithy looking v distraught! A Court's only game in charge ( always happy to be corrected) and Durban followed soon after - happy days  |
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Post by cotswoldstokie on Nov 10, 2008 21:50:34 GMT
To avoid the inevitable piss taking I took the day off school (Newcatle High - before it was private) Stoke played in yellow shirts and blue shorts just like we have now!
I am still mentally scared by the result - the other two defeats against non league opposition haven't really helped to ease the pain either
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Post by craig67 on Nov 10, 2008 21:52:45 GMT
Remember it v well - damn cold too. Roger Jones - wot a man - dropping the corner on the s Spartan's forward's corner was comedy genius. Garth threw his shirt on The floor at the end and we featured on On The Ball the following week with Smithy looking v distraught! A Court's only game in charge ( always happy to be corrected) and Durban followed soon after - happy days A'Court was in charge when we lost at Burnley as well.Though it must have been cold that year as we played Mansfield on the 2nd Jan and Bolton on 25th Feb with only the Burnley match in between! Had started to go watch the Potters the previous season,so had already seen a relegation;this match just about broke my spirit at the tender age of 9! |
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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2008 22:05:38 GMT
If you can face it, here's an article we published in the fanzine back in February, to mark the 30th anniversary of the game...
30 Years On
Stoke City v Blyth Spartans Remembered
NEXT Wednesday, 6th February marks the 50th anniversary of one of English football’s darkest days, when eight of Manchester United’s “Busby Babes” lost their lives in the Munich Air Disaster.
The sixth day of the second month is also a dark day in the annals of Stoke City Football Club. Though of course nowhere near comparable to the tragedy of losing virtually an entire team, it still remains as perhaps the lowest point in our history; the day on which we were humiliated in the FA Cup by non league minnows Blyth Spartans.
This coming Wednesday marks the 30th Anniversary of that harrowing evening at the Victoria Ground.
Following relegation from the First Division in 1977, Stoke were finding life in their first season outside the top flight for fifteen years pretty difficult. The 1977/78 season had started quite well, but by the turn of the year we were on a slippery slope and manager George Eastham had paid the price for a string of poor results. His last game in charge though had been a resounding 4-0 defeat of Isthmian Leaguers Tilbury in a 3rd Round FA Cup tie and that set up a 4th Round date with Blyth Spartans, the last remaining non-league club left in the competition! We were delighted with the draw. We’d been paired with the worst team left in the hat, and already were predicting who we’d get in Round 5!
Blyth’s FA Cup adventure had started with a First Qualifying Round victory over fellow Northern League club Shildon back in September 1977 and their run also saw Crook Town, Consett, Bishop Auckland and Burscough despatched before they dumped Third Division Chesterfield out at home in the Second Round proper.
Their reward in the Third Round was another home tie, but with the big guns now entering the fray they must have been massively disappointed to have been paired with another non-league side, Enfield. A solitary goal from Alan Shoulder though was enough to send them through to the Fourth Round for the first time in their history and an away tie at the Victoria Ground!
A big following from the north east was expected for the game, scheduled to be played on 28th January. A huge convoy of coaches set off from Blyth but their supporters were distraught when, upon arriving in the Potteries, they were told to turn back and head home. Torrential rain had put the game in doubt but the Stoke groundstaff had worked hard to clear the pitch of gallons of water. The referee delayed his pitch inspection until 1.00pm on the day of the game, but a further downpour left him with little alternative other than to call the game off. Blyth weren’t happy though, reasoning that a pitch inspection should have been made the day before the game and an announcement made then to save their supporters the trouble of travelling. Their chairman publicly criticised Stoke for the way his club had been treated, vowing that it would spur his players on when the tie was eventually played...
The rain continued to fall unabated and the following Wednesday’s re-match also fell foul of the weather. With the 5th Round matches scheduled for February 18th and the possibility of a replay to consider, the tie had to be hastily rearranged for February 6th, a Monday evening. By then, the 5th round draw had been made and the victors of our tie would travel to either Third Division Wrexham or Newcastle United, struggling badly at the wrong end of the First Division; a dream draw for Blyth, and not a bad one for us either.
The Monday evening match meant that the following from Blyth wasn’t as large as the one for the original match, but nevertheless, a good number of Spartans fans turned up to swell the crowd to a healthy 18,765.
The visitors were roundly booed as they took to the field, wearing a yellow and blue strip...or at least the Stoke fans thought it was the visitors who were taking to the field! The first team to emerge was in fact The Potters, unexplainably wearing their change kit. It wouldn’t be the only time that Stoke’s fans jeered their own team that night!
Blyth came into the game in great form with just one defeat in their previous 22 league and cup games and were pretty confident of pulling off an upset. Their confidence proved not to be unfounded when, on ten minutes they took a shock lead. A left wing corner was dropped by the Stoke keeper Roger Jones at the feet of Blyth’s leading scorer Terry Johnson and he gleefully slammed the ball home to leave the Boothen End stunned.
Blyth held on relatively comfortably until half time and with their noisy following on the Stoke End terrace right behind them, it was turning into a very uncomfortably evening indeed for us.
Caretaker manager Alan A’Court’s half time team talk seemed to have done the trick though when we came out in the second half and tore into Spartans. Viv Busby equalised and within minutes Garth Crooks had turned the tie on its head. Surely we’d done enough..? Surely there was no way back for the part-timers..?
This is Stoke City we’re talking about though and in true Potters fashion we decided that we’d done enough and would stroll through the last half hour of the match - yes, we were doing it 30 years ago! Unfortunately for us, Blyth Spartans had other ideas and were back on terms with ten minutes to go. Ron Guthrie - a cup winner with Sunderland in 1973 – fired in a free kick which cannoned off our wall and looped up into the air, the Stoke defence went awol and several Blyth forwards converged on our goal. Shoulder was first to the loose ball but his effort struck a post and Steve Carney hit the other post before smashing the ball home at the third time of asking. 2-2!
At that stage you’d have been forgiven for thinking that the plucky non-leaguers would have been delighted with a draw and the opportunity to take their League opponents back to their Croft Park home for a replay, but how wrong you would have been! Blyth gallantly went in search of a winning goal and two minutes from time the unthinkable happened when another free kick had our defence at sixes and sevens and Johnson pounced to volley home his second goal of the evening and send us crashing out of the cup!
Stoke fans were devastated and while the majority were magnanimous in defeat and applauded the Blyth Spartans players from the pitch, many vented their fury, with scarves and season tickets being tossed from the terraces and onto the cinder track.
We’ve been beaten by non-league teams since that night back in 1978, but this was different. It was in our own back yard, six years after our club had lifted the League Cup at Wembley and just three seasons after we’d almost been crowned League Champions and gone close to knocking Ajax out of the UEFA Cup. Our glory days were well and truly over!
Blyth’s joy at beating Stoke was tempered ever so slightly by the news that their dream meeting with Newcastle wasn’t going to happen after Wrexham stuffed The Magpies 4-1 in their 4th Round replay on the same night. However when they drew 1-1 in their 5th Round tie at the Racecourse Ground, Spartans fan got the opportunity to see their team at St James’s Park when the Police ordered replay be held there. With a home game against Arsenal in the quarter final the reward for the winners, the match attracted an astonishing crowd of 42,167 with estimates of between ten and fifteen thousand spectators locked out! There was to be no repeat of their heroics at the Victoria Ground though and, despite another Terry Johnson goal, Blyth Spartans’ magnificent run came to end as the Welshmen ran out 2-1 winners.
Stoke City: Jones, Marsh, Lindsay, Kendall, Dodd, Bloor, Waddington, Scott, Busby, Conroy, Crooks. Sub: Cook
Blyth Spartans: Clarke, Waterson, Guthrie, Alder, Scott, Dixon, R Carney, Houghton, S,Carney, Shoulder, Johnson.
Referee: George Nolan
Attendance: 18,765
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